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 […]

And there were three – three major production apps now have OSC control. Once considered the domain of “DIY” apps or developers, OpenSoundControl is beginning to look like a viable option for open, standardized controls of music apps. Open-source Mac/Linux DAW Ardour has fully-documented OSC support as we saw in the spring, and this week […]

Renoise, the tracker-style music production host, has gotten a massive injection of customizability, scriptability, and hackability. If all you want to do is plug in some controller hardware and have more tangible control of music making, that scriptability can be nicely hidden away. But if you are ready to hack on your music app, this […]

Image courtesy Abstract Data. Rockstar sparkle not included. Operating small runs out of his basement, Justin Owen is on a mission to bring his idiosyncratic, all-analog sounds to musicians in affordable, portable form. “Affordable” and “portable” often aren’t associated with analog, though even players as big as KORG have gotten in on the game recently, […]

Vimeo has long been a favored site for visualists sharing their work, but while sites like rival video host Blip.tv and photo sharing site Flickr added an option for Creative Commons licensing, it’s been conspicuously absent on Vimeo — until now. Now, when you upload video files to Vimeo, you’ll see options for all the […]

Reaktor 5.5’s refreshed interface. Click for a full-sized image. Reaktor 5.5, the software that’s both a giant bundle of out-there effects and synths and a visual development environment for making your own creations, has entered public beta. Despite the “point-five” appended to the name, it’s a major, new release, with new sound modules, streamlined multi-pane […]

Matthew Dear (teaser for the album “Black City,” below) and Flying Lotus (video for “MmmHmm” off Cosmogramma, above) each get rich, evocative video worlds to accompany their music. As a lot of music videos turn to gimmickry to try to go viral – tending to be either blindingly awesome, as with OK Go, or things […]