After years of bitmap-based graphics and tiny knobs, making interfaces scalable could be the next challenge for music software, regardless of platform. Today, it’s the iPad; tomorrow, it could be a new generation of touch-equipped devices, or greater sensitivity to people with aging eyes and vision problems. Musicians, translating invisible sound to the metaphors of […]

For all the hype around mobile music creation, here’s a story with an ending in the opposite direction. Independent developer Olivier Gillet is the reason a lot of people see handheld gadgets as potential music making devices; he’s the creator of the brilliant Bhajis Loops for Palm. But, as if to prove that hardware can […]

This cat is … slightly camouflaged. Photo (CC) Tambako The Jaguar (but yes, this is a snow leopard). Mac OS X 10.6.3 looks like it may be a significant update for graphics performance, but good luck trying to figure out what’s changed from the vague update log. There is mention of “compatibility issues with OpenGL-based […]

The folks at Miro have a handy tool for fool-proof, dummy-friendly video conversion for mobile devices. Drop nearly any file, and it converts to MP4, OGG Theora, or specific presets for devices from the TMobile G1 to the iPod – and even FLV. It’s available for Mac and Windows only, not Linux. I imagine that’s […]

Among the highlights of the product releases last week, Roland has a new virtual analog synth (the SH-01) and shoulder keyboard (AX-09) that look friendly and relatively affordable (especially once you account for street price, not list). They have that convergence of certain selling points that I think will make them popular – maybe not […]

Photo (CC-BY) Eoin Gardiner. With talk of tablets, experimentation with interfaces, new developments in low-cost and low-power processing, and ongoing challenges with access in different parts of the world, in 2010, it seems everyone is asking fundamental questions about what digital platforms and computing platforms should be. There are few contexts to better explore that […]

SunVox, the quirky and cool modular music creation software, already runs on a ton of platforms. Starting now, most of those platforms can run the tool for free. (The one exception: iPhone/iPad.) That means you get a rich music creation environment that can run on everything from an ancient PDA to a desktop computer, complete […]

Augmented Sculpture by GROSSE8 & LICHTFRONT / Passagen 2010 from Lichtfront on Vimeo. Part of the beauty of projection is its ability to mix light and sculpture, so it’s with great pleasure that I come across this fantastic, organic and origami-like work by Cologne-based Grosse8/Lichtfront. The big accomplishment of this work, evident only as you […]

FINE COLLECTION OF CURIOUS SOUND OBJECTS from Georg Reil on Vimeo. Commentary would spoil the video above, but to me it’s a reminder of the power of theater in all we do with technology and musical objects. The arrangement includes six exceptional exhibits from the world of sounds and acoustics. At first sight looking trivial, […]