Inside an Ableton instrument sample. Photo (CC-BY) Cliff Beckwith. Live’s Instruments can be a terrific way to explore Ableton Live – rather than simply giving you black-box preset sounds, these include custom racks that can be customized, disassembled, and warped to your own applications. I’m a fan of the work of some of the folks […]

Mixing, transport, and other shortcuts now appear on Apple mobiles with the newest version of MOTU’s Digital Performer (DP) DAW on Mac. Photos courtesy MOTU. First-party touch control is gradually coming to big-name DAWs. There are plenty of third-party applications that allow control of music software, but until now, we’ve only seen Cubase iC from […]

Performing live at SONAR, courtesy the artist. Mary Anne Hobbs has announced that she is leaving BBC Radio 1 after fourteen years to pursue other work. It’s a changing of the guard at one of the world’s major musical beacons. In her tenure as a DJ for the Beeb, Hobbs famously helped fuel the explosive […]

The developers of Griid, the Ableton Live controller on iPad created in association with Richie Hawtin, have shared photos and screen captures early with CDM to give us a look at the upcoming app. Just over a decade after its original inception, Ableton Live itself remains a ground-breaking user interface design. Love it or hate […]

With previews and teasers, it’s sometimes easy to miss when useful new tools actually become available to you. Two tools this week became available, each potentially high on the utility end of the spectrum. There’s no shortage of variety in iOS music creation apps, but when people really want to get down to music making, […]

Following updates to iOS, one of the key strengths Apple has right now is its rich support for video output. (See, for instance, our look at VGA output from the spring.) Video out is a standard, supported, public, documented option for developers, at least if you’re on the newest devices and OS. And that includes […]

As they did with their previous Kontrol X1, Native Instruments is using a live appearance to tease new hardware before they make details public. (And believe me, I asked for more detail – this is all we’ve got.) In contrast to the diminutive Kontrol X1, though, this is a fully-integrated controller capable of providing tangible […]

A close view of the monome 128, (CC-BY) bm.iphone monome user Myr (aka James Waterworth | site | soundcloud) has worked on a set of tools that helps make working with Max for Live in Ableton Live easier, more capable, and friendlier with the monome and other gear. It includes a variety of tools and […]

This week, I’m attending Aaron Meyers‘ and Aaron Koblin‘s master class/workshop on visual music at Eyebeam, sponsored by our friends at visualist-friendly record label Ghostly International. (We’ll be busy coding this week, but hope to share some fruits of this week later.) You could easily lose yourself in the wonderful Tumblr blog of inspiration and […]

Summertime is bringing a host of great new music to my inbox and mailbox. Here are just a few selections for this Tuesday morning. What binds them all together is a desire for truly personal expression and satisfaction, which often manifests itself as an individualized sound. Chris Randall is best known as the voice behind […]