Korg Revises Portable USB MIDI Controllers; What’s New in nanoSERIES 2?

Cheap, ultra-slim, and easy to pop in a backpack, Korg’s nano Series were a big hit. The only real blemish on this line has to be the original nanoKEY; some people managed to use it, but key caps chronically fell off and it wasn’t a whole lot of fun to play. The nanoPAD and nanoKONTROL […]

Kinect-Augmented Reality, as Projection Mapping Meets Depth Sensing (Hint: It's Awesome)

Elliot Woods writes with an extraordinary proof of concept: it couples the depth-sensing capabilities of Microsoft’s Kinect with projection mapping to effectively “scan” a 3D scene. It’s almost Holodeck good, from the looks of the potential here. Kinect hack + projection mapping = augmented reality +hadoukens): Using the kinect camera, we scan a 3D scene […]

Kinect-Augmented Reality, as Projection Mapping Meets Depth Sensing (Hint: It’s Awesome)

Elliot Woods writes with an extraordinary proof of concept: it couples the depth-sensing capabilities of Microsoft’s Kinect with projection mapping to effectively “scan” a 3D scene. It’s almost Holodeck good, from the looks of the potential here. Kinect hack + projection mapping = augmented reality +hadoukens): Using the kinect camera, we scan a 3D scene […]

Free Projection Mapping with OpenFrameworks

Projection mapping, whether performed as intricate alignment to surfaces or simply as a way to get out of basic rectangular viewing ratios, has potential to create a range of visual effects. Now, those capabilities are available to users of the fully free and open source, omni-platform goodness that is OpenFrameworks. hvfrancesco has built a really […]

Arc, A New Design from monome Creator: After Grids, Encoders

You’ve just created the design that, more than any other, was the signature of electronic music making in the first decade of the 21st Century. What’s your second act? Having made the monome grid controllers the biggest design hit in music creation in the last few years, then moved to a farm in upstate New […]

Eventide for the Rest of Us: A Legendary Effects Processor, Now in Compact Reverb Form

“Reverb” seems too vanilla a word to describe a box from Eventide. Regarded as one of the best hardware effects processors ever, Eventide’s brilliant sounds have sadly been out of reach to most musicians. Eventide’s new stompboxes finally make those effects portable and affordable. The latest is Space. Room, plate, spring, hall. Special effects / […]

VOX Gets in Looping Game with Dynamic Looper – 90 Seconds, But with Live Features

For one candidate to challenge the reigning BOSS Loop Station line, there’s rival VOX. While they’re both loopers with some things to stomp on, the designs are quite different. The BOSS units can store up to three hours and 99 phrases; the VOX VDL1 stores two loops with a total recorded time of 90 seconds. […]

New Boss Loop Stations Add Features, Up to Three Hours of Recording; the Loopers to Beat

You might not see it on a magazine cover or tattooed to someone’s arm, but the lowly looper is one of those things many musicians find invaluable. And in hardware loopers, the BOSS Loop Station reigns supreme – I’ve even seen a San Francisco-based musical act who call themselves LOOP ! STATION. Believe it or […]

Tonight in LA, Music and Tech Talks, Richard Devine, Jimmy Edgar, and Reflecting on Performance

Photo courtesy Curious Josh. If you’re in Anaheim for the NAMM music trade show, or elsewhere in the LA area, it’ll be worth the trip tonight to downtown LA to catch the fourth annual Wham Bam. Jimmy Edgar and Richard Devine headline music performances that include WE ARE THE WORLD, Thavius Beck, Drumcell, Laura Escudé, […]

DSP Goodies on New Macs, as Universal Audio Does Firewire

It’s difficult to describe Universal Audio’s plug-ins until you’ve tried them. It’s a bit like having chocolate sauce at your disposal, sonically speaking. Whatever your higher-level brain may have to say, somewhere deep in your mammalian brain, you hear only … mmmmmm. Chocolate. It’s the word I get from UA users, and I’ll also have […]