Digital Graffiti at the Olympic Village from Alex Beim on Vimeo. Live, interactive visualist performance has made its way to the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. Thanks to Alex Beim for the tip. Now, am I the only one watching pairs figure skating and wondering what an algorithm would look like that would generate those […]

DMX (aka DMX512) is the lingua franca for lighting that MIDI is for music. (It even has a number of similarities to MIDI, and as with MIDI, I do hope eventually we’ll see more intelligent networked devices – but, for now, it’s what you use.) The folks at Synthe-FX have developed a mobile app with […]

The Body, The Circuit, The Computer and The Voice: robot cowboy from STEIM Amsterdam on Vimeo. If you want to look for some of the roots of live electronic musical performance, STEIM is one place to start. Founded in 1969 by a group of Dutch composers (Misha Mengelberg, Louis Andriessen, Peter Schat, Dick Raaymakers, Jan […]

This freaky-looking screen image: yours free. It looks like you’re navigating some microscopic rover on another planet. Awesome. More software is speaking timecode, opening up control of digital sound to real, physical vinyl on turntables. The latest addition: Time TunnelXL is a pair of externals that decodes Native Instruments’ Traktor Scratch vinyl and scratches not […]

Computers can have longevity as musical instruments, but it takes a little extra effort. (CC-BY-NC-SA) Bill Van Loo. Computers and computer software can have as much or even more longevity than traditional music hardware – that is, if elements like copy protection don’t intervene first. As a postscript to the discussion last week, prompted by […]

One of the big advantages of building a project around a single effect or idea is that you can spend time experimenting, and build interesting permutations of your central idea: A Thing For Me from Metronomy on Vimeo. From a ridiculously basic central tenet, and some reasonably simple motion-tracking and animation, this piece unfolds some […]

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 […]

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 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 […]

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 […]