If you’re an iPad-using, keyboard-playing musician, Akai has your dock. Their original SynthStation was a cute little accessory, but required playing a tiny keyboard (and iPhone-sized screen). The SynthStation49 looks more serious, with nine MPC-style pads, transport controls, and dedicated pitch and mod wheels. The iPad sits on what Akai describes as an adjustable “cradle,” […]

Going wireless has long been a desire of musicians, but solutions have been slow to catch on. Two new products add wireless capabilities to your existing MIDI gear; I’ve talked to the creators to explain a bit about how their solutions work. AirPower from Starr Labs uses proprietary 2.4GHz communication for wireless MIDI communication. The […]

What should digital DJing look like? It’s an open question. If you aren’t willing to contend with the (potentially-unreliable) combination of real vinyl control records with computers, the question becomes what DJing technique hardware should embody. Writing for CDM, Ambivalent of Minus Records was most enthusiastic about advanced hardware mixing in Allen & Heath’s Xone:DB4. […]

Enough talk about free software – back to some actual visuals. German visualist Max Hattler sends us his latest visual reel, a live A/V set performed in Serbia, and it’s a brilliant diversion. Textured geometries meld and blink in lovely combinations of hard-edged abstraction and painterly layers. It’s all done in vvvv, the graphical patching […]

Google ups the ante. H.264, it’s on. Of course, given the entrenchment of existing videos and the Flash plug-in, many are predicting the “die tryin’” scenario is the more likely one. Time will tell. Photo (CC-BY) Linus Bohman. Today, Google announced it is omitting H.264 support from its Chrome browser, in favor of free and […]

Dave Cross thinks more about the design of DJ gear than even most passionate electronic music enthusiasts. Aside from stints at DJ Times and Ableton, this is a man who wrote an honors thesis on the history of the DJ mixer [PDF]. Then again, maybe it’s more a matter of the industry being painfully behind. […]

Free as in beer is a great concept, too. Photo (CC-BY-SA) The Art Gallery of Knoxville. While on the topic of the conflict between the GPL-licensed free VLC video tool (and GPL software in general) and Apple’s App Store, I can’t help but be slightly amused at the common reaction. It goes like this: “hey, […]

Free as in beer is a great concept, too. Photo (CC-BY-SA) The Art Gallery of Knoxville. While on the topic of the conflict between the GPL-licensed free VLC video tool (and GPL software in general) and Apple’s App Store, I can’t help but be slightly amused at the common reaction. It goes like this: “hey, […]

Why did Apple remove the free VLC video player from its iOS store? One developer close to the story who asked not to be named answered that question, simply, “No f**king idea.” And that perhaps sums up the mess, misunderstandings, and resentment now surrounding a mobile port of the video app. The word “open” these […]

Why did Apple remove the free VLC video player from its iOS store? One developer close to the story who asked not to be named answered that question, simply, “No f**king idea.” And that perhaps sums up the mess, misunderstandings, and resentment now surrounding a mobile port of the video app. The word “open” these […]