Pete Edwards of casperelectronics making some noise at Manhattan’s Culturefix in October. Handmade Music is our party for people who make things that make music. If you create your own musical tools – whether acoustic instruments and soundmakers, hacks, circuit bends, custom Pd and Max patches, electronics, or code – we want to hear from […]

Photo (CC-BY-SA) bdu. Electronic music has always had a funny relationship with musicianship. It isn’t playing a traditional instrument; instead, it lies somewhere between instrumentalism and composition, between playing and conducting. Sometimes, that scale is tipped away from virtuosity of any kind. But lately, I’ve had an increasing number of conversations with people who make […]

Mobile devices are finally starting to look more like desktop devices in terms of GPU 3D capabilities, thanks to new chipsets – in this case, NVIDIA’s Tegra. In non-technical terms, think eye candy. In technical terms – well, heck, let’s use this handy copy-paste feature I have on my (ahem, desktop) computer:

Look – normal ports! Asus’ EeePad isn’t exactly beautiful, but having HDMI and USB could be a sight for sore eyes. Photo courtesy Asustek. We’ve been talking about this so long, you’d be forgiven for missing the moment when it actually happens. But the time is now: the promised future of inexpensive, HD-capable tablets has […]

I think the App Store will be a big hit – just not necessarily for music, at least not away. The problem: demand and economics. Photo (CC-BY) Rob Boudon. App stores these days seem to have become a magical panacea that creates new businesses, solves long-standing problems, makes you enormous profits, and cures hair loss. […]

Speaking of tablets, can the flat surface of a touchscreen really emulate guitar expression? One developer thinks so. Toyo Bunko of Amidio, makers of soft synths for iOS, writes to share their latest project. OMGuitar is a “guitar synth.” While it’s entirely touch-based, they’ve found ways of adjusting the tone, including using the speed of […]

Motorola’s new flagship tablet. Photo courtesy Motorola. The iPad has a massive head start in software and a clear lead in design elegance, but in the tablet market, it’s no longer alone. As expected, this week’s Consumer Electronics Show brings a slew of tablets. Don’t call them iPad rip-offs, either. Given product development cycles, many […]

From comments (thanks, Charlie Cowper!), here’s a live performance by Japanese electronic artist Rei Harakami on nothing more than a 1990s-vintage multitrack digital workstation, Roland’s VS-880. (The VS-880 was introduced at NAMM in January 1996.) Harakami is a virtuoso on this machine, not simply playing back tracks but dancing through menus and settings and adding […]

Pay attention to those Angry Birds. They could be a sign of upcoming gigs, composers and sound designers. Photo (CC-BY) Johan Larsson. Composer/sound designer Ben Long has a resume of work on dozens of games. Here on CDM, he shares the topic on which he recently addressed GDC China: mobile. If mobile game audio is […]

Digital models and acoustic instruments have traditionally been studies in contrast. And instrument making has by definition been a craft and an art. But what if making an acoustic instrument was a matter of hitting “print”? That’s the question asked by MIT Media Lab researcher Amit Zoran. Using the Objet Geometries Connex500 3D printer, one […]