Taylor Swift may have been invading your TV this year. But did you know she was an indie artist? Photo (CC-BY-ND) Wendy aka freshfruit. The one thing you probably aren’t thinking while watching the Grammys is “wow, look at this amazing showcase for independent music.” (Last night, I expect you were thinking something more along […]

360° “lenses” (which generally aren’t actually lenses, but spherical reflectors) are perfect for simple, single-shot video production. Especially given some inventive viewpoints, staging, or post-production. Recently Merlot’s “Loser” impressed me with its combination of a surround angle shooting and a snorricam setup. LOSER – Merlot from Julien Widmer on Vimeo. I was reminded of this […]

Push the button: Kokoromi’s Gamma game challenge, which we saw earlier this week, challenges game designers to build an entire gameplay mechanic around a single button. What can be done with a single hardware object – a self-contained, one-button invention? We’re looking for creations that answer that question, inspired by games (and encompassing hardware games […]

Photo (CC-BY) Liz Bustamante. Ed.: Make no mistake about it: digital sound tech, from mixing to processing, has evolved to a fidelity on par with its analog predecessors and opening possibilities well beyond what they offered. But the making of that evolution wasn’t easy, and it was more than a technical challenge. You can thank […]

RFID tags may have negative privacy associations when they’re used without someone’s knowledge. But embed these simple identifiers intentionally, and they can be a cheap, flexible way of tagging the world around you. Add OSC support with a free tool, and you can make anything into a basic music controller. That’s what Martin Kaltenbrunner – […]

Image Courtesy of Apple. I’ve already expressed my personal disappointment (though not surprise) with Apple’s direction on the iPad, on Create Digital Music. Having gotten that out of my system, however, you can expect remaining iPad coverage on CDM to stick to the facts – and, as always, to track the way people use technology. […]

Would you use this object if it came with restrictions? Photo — of a hacked Moleskin, ironically — (CC-BY-SA) Alexandre Dulaunoy. Apple’s iPad is here. It starts at $499. It’s a gorgeous, brilliantly-designed device that has the benefits of Apple’s cleverly-engineered, best-in-class developer tools for mobile. A lot are likely to sell. And unfortunately, to […]

History, particularly when coupled with hero worship, can be a creative burden. But sometimes, pioneering work is doubly inspiring not only because of what it meant in its time, but for the possibilities it suggests in our time, for our technologies, for our own modes of personal expression. Marcel Duchamp’s work in kinetic, sculptural optical […]

araabMUZIK Live MPC Set Part 1 from Death by Electric Shock on Vimeo. I have exactly zero interest in entertaining the tired hardware versus software argument that surfaced, inevitably, with the discussion of the upcoming Beat Thang drum machine. But behind that question is a very relevant question: why do people love drum machines? Why […]