The radio, sound-playing object. For all the world has changed, music playing is not so radically different when you think of objects and applications. Photo (CC-BY) get directly down. Same as it ever was: With talk of the cloud, streams, special proprietary devices that pipe vendor-specific sounds to particular home stereos, intelligent, always-on access to […]

Moog Music have been busy. Yes, they’re making an iPhone app, but for hardware lovers, there’s also the Slim Phatty, a rack-sized rendition of the Little Phatty announced last week. US$849 list, fourth quarter of this year; Synthtopia reports an $800 street. What does the Slim Phatty get you? Like the Little Phatty, it’s basically […]

Since I was in Texas this weekend, I missed Synthtopia picking up an iPad example, seen below (though it’s useful to have Sam’s instructions, too). Also, our friend Joe Gore details how the whole system works with iPad, including plug-in manipulation and automatic mapping of parameters for plug-in functions. I agree; it’s nicely done. iPad […]

Flying Lotus – Kill Your Co-Workers from beeple on Vimeo. Beeple + Flying Lotus Team Up in Dazzling Animated Music Video Flying Lotus sends over his new music video, in collaboration with one of our favorite visual artists, the multi-talented motion artist Beeple. It seems a perfectly-calibrated aesthetic marriage between 3D models and hand-sketched rough […]

If you’ve wished you could use your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as a remote control for Logic, now’s your chance. And touch control continues to evolve as an additional option for manipulating music software, alongside good, old-fashioned knobs and faders. Handheld wireless touch control is certainly coming into the mainstream. As we see new […]

I just picked up a $280 Asus netbook and installed Ubuntu on it. ReBirth seemed a perfect addition; its compact-sized UI, lightweight processing and memory requirements, and simple functions are the ideal companion to a netbook. And, thanks to Propellerhead, it also happens to be free. If you stick with Windows, just download and go. […]

Moognify II from Combo Square on Vimeo. Here’s an antidote to the trend toward virtual knobs, touchscreens, and mobility: a big-ass, tangible knob bigger than your head. That may be a slightly impractical idea, but behind it is something absolutely practical: a simple, open source OpenSoundControl to Control Voltage interface. Unlike MIDI’s standard Control Change […]

StepPolyArp for iPad controlling an Oberheim FVS from Logan Mannstrane on Vimeo. Logan Mannstrane sends in this lovely video combining an iPad MIDI step sequencer — with an Oberheim FVS. It’s a striking intersection of analog and digital technology. But I wanted to ask Logan to explain why he’d use the iPad in this case […]

cloud.data app from aaajiao on Vimeo. There’s something to be said for presentation. For cloud.data, a meditative, ambient particle and music application for iOS, simple gestures in fluid “cloud water” are treated inside various frames. In different iterations of the work, originally coded in Processing, the clouds have found themselves on scattered screens, in proscenium-style […]

The Canadian Broadcasting Centre, viewed from above. Photo (CC-BY-SA) Benson Kua. To me, a license is a tool: it’s a means to an end. But that means that the tool ought to be doing the job you chose for it. After news broke that the Canadian public broadcaster CBC was moving away from Creative Commons, […]