Ableton & Serato @ NAMM 2010 – The Bridge from Neil Bufkin on Vimeo. Serato’s The Bridge, as covered by Neil Bufkin in video for CDM above, is entering a beta phase. This is an invite-only beta, not a public beta, and it hasn’t launched yet, but you can register your interest. The Bridge met […]

For some time, I’ve been a champion of Livid Instruments’ controller hardware, because I like the principles behind it. The devices are handmade in Texas using sustainable woods and environmentally-friendly stains, are standards-compliant with open specifications, open source software, and driverless class-compliant operation on Mac, Windows, and Linux, and lend themselves to programmability and customization. […]

Nuit Blanche from Spy Films on Vimeo. Making Of Nuit Blanche from Spy Films on Vimeo. Surrealist René Magritte had the best academic training, but his early works are viewed by scholars as being derivative – and you probably haven’t ever seen them. It seems that his work after the academy, as a commercial sign […]

What’s the future of musician income? Crispin guitarist AJ looks on. Photo (CC-BY-ND) billaday/Bill Selak. An ASCAP Political Action Committee fundraising letter that seeks to vilify advocacy positions of organizations like Creative Commons has been circulating the Web. As I noted in a separate story, it’s not exactly news that ASCAP has taken issue with […]

Effect pedals on CDM? Heck, yes. Electro-Harmonix may have just stolen the show in Nashville with the Freeze pedal alone. Continuing our coverage with Nashville locals and musicians Tony and Jeremy, we have some hands-on videos, images, and impressions of the gear on offer. Don’t miss yesterday’s story on how the trade show helps Nashville […]

Vintage image (CC-BY-SA) Ioan Sameli, as licensed by us pinko commies at CDM. An ASCAP legislative fundraising letter revealed last week that the American performing rights organization is invoking fears of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, and Creative Commons in order to raise money. ASCAP appears to be repeating, now in the more heated […]

Nashville locals Jeremy Dickens (logickal) and Tony Youngblood were on-site this month for CDM to cover the Nashville’s NAMM show, the summer installment of the major music manufacturer trade show. The Summer 2010 edition of the North American Music Merchants trade show (Summer NAMM to most of us) has come and gone. For three days […]

Paraphrasing Mark Essen in the interview above: “it’s not nostalgia. I just like it.” Video game aesthetics have become a kind of naive, outside art for the digital age. Little wonder: the explosion of consumer digital products in the 80s left the children of that decade and decades after with piles of media. Someone was […]

dromama from Altitude Sickness on Vimeo. Wherever you are in the world, here’s some geeky inspiration to kick off this summer weekend. And if you’re in the Los Angeles area, you should absolutely, positively be on Venice Boulevard tonight at 8pm at hacker venue CRASH Space for Handmade Music, gone LA. In the lineup: circuit […]

The shift may be gradual, but big-name musical acts are beginning to be more mindful about the involvement of visualists, closer in their collaboration, and quicker to credit the visual artists. And well they should: adding powerful visuals to a set and promoting the visual artists involved is now a terrific way to promote the […]