New Soft Synth for the … Apple II, and a Plea for Longevity and Economy

Pay attention, kids. This is a real computer. (Oh, yes, and if there weren’t already enough computing geek cred in this shot, check the Amiga developer poster on the wall.) Photo (CC-BY) Blake Patterson of ByteCellar.com. iPad, wha? How about new music creation software for the Apple II platform? 8-bit weapon has a new instrument […]

Touch: Argos Builds Interfaces for Windows, Mac, and Soon iPhone, iPad, Beyond

Argos Interface Builder, v0.20 from Dimitri Diakopoulos on Vimeo. You know the game: you decide you want exactly 8 knobs and 10 faders. But your hardware interface has 8 knobs and 8 faders. And then you realize you could use 4 more knobs. The appeal of touch interfaces is clear: you get controls that grow […]

iProcessing Puts Processing.js on iPhone – But What About Browsers?

iProcessing is a fascinating little free app and framework for the iPhone that makes it easier to develop visual apps using Processing.js (the JavaScript port of Processing). First, the good news: It’s a great illustration of what’s possible with HTML5’s canvas and JavaScript; namely, high-performance animations supported within the browser framework rather than in a […]

Touch: Meet the Multitouch Guitar – Plus An Open Source, iPhone Solution, Too

As multitouch becomes more widely available, there’s an opportunity to re-imagine all sorts of interfaces. And yes, that includes the guitar. I’m way behind on mentioning it, but thanks to all the readers who spotted the fascinating Misa digital guitar. Strings and frets are each replaced with digital touch controls, and the soundboard touchscreen is […]

Touch: Bridge iPhone and Max/MSP Control

What happens when an interface is no longer locked to the screen? What about making control simply work from your hand, on a different screen, with awareness of the world around it? Simple as the early implementations may be, that’s really the vision behind mobile control applications for music and visuals. c74 is a lovely […]

Touch: What’s Next for Lemur? Video Shows Tighter Ableton Live Integration

A frequently asked question around these parts is, what’s next for JazzMutant’s Lemur? The dedicated multi-touch hardware showed that touch could be a powerful means of interacting with music and visuals, years before “iPhone” and “iPad” became household words. But now, make no mistake about it, new, cheap hardware is moving in on the Lemur’s […]

DIY Music Tech Community Round-up; Reflecting on the State of Music DIY?

The elegant patterns of a circuit board, as photographed by / (CC-BY) Last week, what was intended to be a day of posts wound up being several days of updates on events centered around music technology and DIY creation. Here’s a birds-eye view of what we covered, some of the events you can catch in […]

Augustus Loop Tape Delay: Now with 64-bit, OpenSoundControl Support

Augustus Loop is a tape delay effect with some out-there features – try a one-hour maximum delay setting, tap-in length, virtual tape features, the ability to sync multiple instances, and lots of unusual sound design features. It can do things that even tape wouldn’t imagine. Version 2.2.0 has some nice new features. It incorporates 64-bit […]

Chime, Beautiful New Music Game on Xbox 360: Play to Philip Glass, for Charity

One Big Game is a charity assembled by game developers to raise money for children’s organizations. Musical games look to figure prominently in the series. Design legend Masaya Matsuura (PaRappa the Rapper, Vib-Ribbon), father of rhythm games and without whom there likely would be no Rock Band or Guitar Hero, has signed. And the first […]