Weekend fun, part 1: as Reactable makes the leap from custom, tangible interface to go-anywhere iPhone/iPad app, here’s a look at what the fingertip-controlled music creation experience is like. The first of a series of tutorials, the video above walks you through some basic music production. It should lay to rest any question about whether […]

Clock Trippin, Poly Rhythm RENÉ from Richard Devine on Vimeo. Analog both in the electrical sense and in the way it combines continuous, non-discrete steps, the René is a step sequencer with a difference. The hardware uses a two-dimensional array of knobs to produce non-linear, complex rhythmic patterns from some four clock and two CV […]

“HALO: REACH” Game Audio Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo. Our friends at Designing Sound have been rocking out on that site, with extraordinary original and linked content for sound designers, ranging from work on games, broadcast, and films to sonic exploration for the curious field recorder or producer. (Designing Sound is hosted by CDM […]

Reaper 4.0 has hit prerelease, the latest version of this $40+, lightweight (measured in a handful of megs) DAW for Windows or Mac. The banner feature is called WALTER, “Window Arrangement Logic Template Engine for REAPER.” The idea: you should have your music production screen look the way you want, with elements moved to whatever […]

Sol, an interactive “spatial” installation, examines the roots of solar energy. (Your sun: the greatest nuclear fusion power source within light years.) Visitors to the installation get to participate in “staging” the whole cycle, playing with particles that simulate nuclear fusion, then watching the response of DMX-controlled LED and fluorescent lighting, all set to an […]

SoundCloud for iPhone from SoundCloud on Vimeo. While it’s easy to focus on one platform or another, a profound trend in 2010 has been toward sharing media in the cloud. The basic concept is as old as the Internet, but from applications like Instamatic for photographers to syncing storage to tote around documents on iPads, […]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Synths? Imagining an instrument from a clean sheet of paper is an essential part of the design process. It can remind us of the extent of possibilities – and, sometimes, why compromise is necessary. The German site Amazona.de this week unveiled mock-ups of an instrument conceived by their community. The […]

CPU (Central Processing Unit) – 2min edit vs2 from 1n0ut on Vimeo. The use of illusion to create onstage ghosts (Pepper’s Ghost) dates back to the 19th Century; optical effects and dramatic trickery far further. So, naturally, new digital techniques are sure to provide ammunition for creative theatrical staging, as in this work, “CPU.” In […]

TRON: Legacy Projection Mapping trailer – Southbank London from Guided Collective on Vimeo. The original Tron film, combining optical effects, hand-painted techniques, and elemental computer graphics, had a big impact on my visual imagination as a young person, as I’m sure it did many. The glowing inner world of that movie has surely had an […]

Dead-simple, focused on one task, the Wicks Looper reminds us why we liked looping. And I love the handmade gift case he made to go with it – an idea worth duplicating with other gear. All images courtesy Brian McNamara. For all that latest plug-in may perform every kind of synthesis ever, much of electronic […]