You hear the repeated chorus: music in the digital age has become meaningless and valueless, like turning on water from a tap in the middle of Rome. But, quietly, a movement is stirring that is reclaiming the value of music. Armed with nothing more sophisticated than markers, paper, collage materials, and imagination, they send mixes […]

For some time, the move has seemed inevitable – even more so as the rumor mill started echoing with suggestions that a native release was coming. But now, it’s happened: Pro Tools HD will now run without HD DSP hardware. And that’s not all — you can also use the same hardware with your existing […]

Sure, we spend a lot of time looking at far-out gear and high technology, but you have to tip your hat to practicality. Tascam’s TC-1S is a compact, portable tuner that you can take anywhere. Solar and USB power mean you never have to worry about powering it, either. Features: 12-tone equal-tempered chromatic tuner. Input […]

Handcrafted CD covers for records and mixes, meditative music made in game engines, handheld chip music creations, analog light synths and drone labs, VL-Tone classical music, and more surprises are coming to New York on Sunday, October 10. (Austin, Texas gets its own event, making noisemakers and ring modulators.) We promise music you can dance […]

The age of the Digital SLR is well upon us. With a wide variety of backs and formats, and plenty of video-capable units available under the mythical $1000 price point, the line between High-End Photography and the Rest Of Us is becoming terminally (lens-)blurry. That’s not to say that any muggle can go out with […]

Reflection II from Datdatdat / A. N. Fischer on Vimeo. Can a sound be a sculpture? While using a familiar technique – mapping frequency energies via a FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) analysis – Reflection has a transformative impact on the perception of a sound by translating it into three-dimensional, physical form. I’d been struck by […]

For all the talk of Android and iOS, the lesser-known Pandora handheld has some juicy visual capabilities in a pocket form factor. You get decent specs (an ARM A8 core plus decent DSP), OpenGL ES 2.0 support, and – critical to making this a mobile visualist box – good, old-fashioned S-Video TV output. Production runs […]

Brian Eno should be proud. Generative sequencing – making lovely, shimmering music mapped to pleasant-sounding modes – is totally in this season. At top, exhibit A: Aura Flux, a new iOS ambient music generator. Priced at US$1.99, it nonetheless packs some 48 different instruments, ambient sounds, four keys, save/load capability, and multitasking support. Sequences are […]

Still from Robert Henke’s set at Optical 1 Our man in Seattle, Primus Luta aka David Dobson, continues his video coverage of the Decibel Festival for CDM with another set of feature coverage. All that coffee out there must be working. Take it away… Despite being the first event after an incredible night, which for […]

ReacTable Mobile has arrived for iOS mobile devices – even handhelds – bringing the visual, modular sound-making environment to the masses. Apart from building your own interactive musical table, the only way to get ReacTable’s software previously was to spend some EUR9700 – and get on a waiting list. Now, any Apple mobile device will […]