Kaleido Demo from Agnes Chang on Vimeo. Part of the beauty of working with code is that it can refine the way you think, challenging you to make design ideas into systems. But what’s often a challenge for beginners – heck, sometimes even for experienced coders – is thinking through the ways in which component […]

The limited edition version of the album is actually an object you might care about. So, yes, as the digital album evolves from strange plastic jewel cases into ephemeral download form, it’s evolving the other way, too. If anyone had listened to the predictions, albums would be irrelevant by now. Instead, finding a way to […]

Youtube MIDI interface from Gijs on Vimeo. Among Gijs Gieskes many mad creations, this artist has hacked the browser as well as hardware. (“Browser bending,” anyone?) With all the talk of browsers, he reminds us of this previous work, which combines hardware, server software, and browser software to make a MIDI sequencer for YouTube. http://gieskes.nl/browserjockey/hardware/yt-midi/ […]

Bloop HTML5 Instrument inspired by Brian Eno’s Bloom from Bocoup on Vimeo. HTML5 and Javascript Synthesizer from Corban Brook on Vimeo. Pioneers like Max Mathews’ Bell Labs team taught the computer to hum, sing, and speak, before even the development of primitive graphical user interfaces. So it’s fitting that the standards that chart the Web’s […]

The software synthesizer has come full circle. What was once possible only with a mid-range desktop computer is now easily accomplished with a sub-$200 device that rests in your hand and sips power. That transformation, once something people regarded in some vague time in the future, is now one that’s very present. I expect a […]

ReBirth, the Roland groovebox emulation that helped launch the popularity of soft synths, is now on Apple’s mobile devices for US$6.99. (I woke up to a note from Propellerheads’ CEO Ernst left in my inbox overnight, so thanks, Ernst, for the tip!) This is not the native iPad version MusicRadar predicted after an interview with […]

RichardL notes some potentially major news this afternoon. Shortly after my post, Steve Jobs himself reportedly answered an open letter written by free software advocate Hugo Roy. Hugo’s letter contained suggestions about whether a standardized unencumbered video codec needed to accompany the video tag in order to be truly “open.” The original post, on “hugo’s […]

Photo (CC-BY) Steven Depolo. Editorial Misdirection is an art practiced by magicians by which an audience’s attention is diverted from one place to another. What’s brilliant about it is that it’s not a lie. Indeed, the audience has to participate for it to work. We, the audience, watch the right hand instead of the left, […]

Walter Sear addresses the AES convention in 2001. Photo courtesy the Audio Engineering Society, used by permission. It’s the end of an era: pioneering synth guru, engineer, sound designer, instrument importer, composer, producer, and owner of the landmark Sear Sound recording studio in New York has died at age 79. Sear’s career covered almost everything […]