Desmond Dodecahedron has the craziest way of celebrating the season I’ve seen this year: just build a giant Christmas tree from LEGOs, then use visual programming environment Max/MSP and some custom electronics to trigger tunes. Desmond writes: Once I discovered that the word “advent” was actually an abbreviation of “audio event” and the fact that […]

Here’s an early Christmas present for Mac and Windows synth lovers: Native Instruments is giving away a simplified version of its Prism instrument for Reaktor as a free (as in beer), self-contained synth. You’ll get access to Prism’s lovely “modal bank” synthesis method, which creates some unusual, shimmering timbres. (In fact, having a simpler version […]

Audiovisual technology has returned to spectacle. Artists are armed with new technologies for fusing space and image, sound and sight. What they tend not to have is permanent spaces. And that lack of venues has made audiovisual artists nomadic and provisional, constrained to hastily-provisioned, rectangular, sometimes dim projections. In short, for revolutions to happen, you […]

With takes on the Vince Guaraldi Trio and Tchaikovsky, the sound-slicing members of the monome community have turned their button-encrusted devices to spreading holiday cheer to you, for free. A new, CC-licensed album is available for download. (One caution: CC licenses don’t cover sample clearance for works sampled on these albums, so beware.) They wouldn’t […]

If you could only pack one controller in your backpack, and weight, size, and cost were at an absolute premium, the Akai MPK mini would be tough to beat. The latest salvo in the ultra-compact controller wars, Akai has taken the keyboard, pad controllers, and encoders from its LPK25 and LPD8 and packed them into […]

Human beings remain impressive organic technology; we’re gifted with extraordinary abilities to detect tiny variations in facial expression. But that minor miracle of perception can be an animator’s nightmare, once you edge into the realm of attempted realism. The key is to reach the other side of the so-called “uncanny valley.” Perhaps even more impressive […]

For years, anyone with doubts that soft synths had become commodity needed only to look to Crystal. Not only is this proprietary synth completely free-as-in-beer for Windows and Mac, but it could easily be your only synth if you so desired. Crystal is a semi-modular instrument with the usual trimmings – subtractive and FM synthesis, […]

Call it future shock. Love of retro gear is more than nostalgia; sometimes it takes time to appreciate what technology means. And so, today, classic digital samplers and drum machines like the E-mu SP-1200 and SP-12 can inspire even greater passion than they did when new. Today, producers can feel love not only for retro […]

The need is simple: musicians want to sketch ideas on the go, then craft them into finished tracks with their familiar arsenal of sound tools at their desk or studio. Yet for all the mobile music software on iOS — and need to differentiate your offering — we’ve seen relatively few music tools that make […]

I’m fortunate this weekend to be able to be part of Invisible Instructions, a combination art exhibit and music lineup at Culturefix, the same LES venue where we host Handmade Music. “High Priest” HPrizm of Antipop Consortium is playing and (see Soundcloud) this evening is teaching a “signal to rhythm” digital audio workshop with Spacecraft […]