Ed. Our friend Momo the Monster (aka Surya Buchwald) joins us for a guest column with a proposal: what if messages sent between music and visual software could be expressive? His idea is simple, but powerful: it’s musical semantics for live visual messages, as basic as knowing when there’s a bass drum hit. Momo introduces […]

From my inbox, Metaio is one of a growing number of “augmented solutions” vendors, experimenting in the realm of augmented reality. You can really think of this as a cluster of technologies for computer vision, Web-connected data, and 3D mapping. Metaio here touts that solution on the eve of the Mobile World Congress, as it […]

Traktor 2 is a new “generation,” says Native Instruments, of its flagship DJ software, along with upgraded hardware interfaces. The upgrade is so capable, simply calling it a “DJ” product may be inadequate. Just as Ableton Live’s user base grew to incorporate DJs, Traktor’s capabilities move easily into live performance and remixing, too. It’s still […]

Music production once meant getting into a studio. Portable multi-track tape and later the computer liberated us from that, and the “bedroom studio” was born. When capable Palm handhelds hit the market, musicians imagined yet more mobile means of production, and everything from Game Boys and PSPs to phones, even before the iPhone, have been […]

Mmmmmm … multi-dimensional. Photo (CC-BY) fdecomite Attention, 3D fans: OpenGL in the browser has gradually gotten real. WebGL is a browser-friendly API for OpenGL graphics, and it’s pretty darned close to OpenGL ES 2.0, which in turn will be familiar to anyone doing modern mobile 3D development. WebGL isn’t part of HTML5, but HTML5 makes […]

Mmmmmm … multi-dimensional. Photo (CC-BY) fdecomite Attention, 3D fans: OpenGL in the browser has gradually gotten real. WebGL is a browser-friendly API for OpenGL graphics, and it’s pretty darned close to OpenGL ES 2.0, which in turn will be familiar to anyone doing modern mobile 3D development. WebGL isn’t part of HTML5, but HTML5 makes […]

One keyboard, a mind-bending nine engines, lots of tech specs … now that we’ve lived in a world of impressive, technically-intimidating workstation keyboards for a couple of decades, it’s easy to imagine your eyes glazing over when there’s a new one, let alone the general public. So, what might get your attention? This. “Workstation keyboard” […]

Working with music in software means thinking a bit like a music box maker, using sequences to create note and rhythm machines. Nick Rothwell sends a project in which he literally engages the mechanical music box, with rotating electro-magnetic discs and a set of digital devices that recall their 19th-century predecessors. The designs are modular, […]

RÖYKSOPP at their best, I think, become cinematic and atmospheric, an abstract soundtrack, but always with a sharp sense of wit. So Nils Clauss hits just the right note in his film for “Senior Living,” finding mood and humor. At a time when the signal-to-noise ratio for music videos is often out of control, here, […]

Interactive touch layouts for sequencers are something of a no-brainer – imagine if an analog pattern machine and the deck of the Starship Enterprise had a love child. But platforms come and go. And just because the iPad is the shiny, new thing – and remains the most affordable solution at the moment – doesn’t […]