Drag Windows into GNU-Land with MinGW, Let Free Visualist Tools Roam

Behold, the power of GNU! Photo (CC-BY-SA Demet. I love Windows. And by “love,” of course, I mean “tolerate grudgingly.” After all, good as Mac OS X is, running Windows means the ability to get the latest-and-greatest graphics drivers, run-on-anything hardware capabilities, promising new multitouch laptops, terrific gaming, wonderful visual tools like vvvv, quick-and-dirty video […]

Ms. Pinky + Max for Live = Scratch Anything in Ableton

Ms. Pinky Revised from Mastah Lee on Vimeo. What should DJing in Ableton Live look like? How could conventional vinyl cueing and scratching be integrated with the Live environment? Serato and Ableton gave us one possible answer to that question last week with The Bridge. Their solution: use your Serato DJ set normally, and simply […]

Drum Lapse: Rock Band Network on CDMu, Gaming as Gateway to Technological Performance

Through my adventures with the Herovision project and Game On (previously on CDMo), I’ve posted a bit about Rock Band and rhythm gaming. Alongside the recent public beta release of Rock Band Network, Peter posted a QA with some more technical details on how the process works. As digital creatives and performers, I can imagine […]

HAITI 2010 Monome Community Compilation + Other Efforts to Help in Haiti

Album artwork by Pau Cabruja (www.pauk.org) . Artists and creators around the world have been moved by the suffering of Haitians in the wake of last week’s earthquake. There are ways we can help, like giving to relief organizations to give them the capacity to respond wherever needed. The next crisis could be halfway across […]

ffmpeg Video Conversion Recipes: Building on Your OS; Splitting Video, Audio

Compact cameras like the Kodak Zi6 (or my shiny, new, optical image-stabilizing HD Zi8) sure are convenient. They also do some weird things with their video and audio encoding. ffmpeg to the rescue. Image (CC-BY) Ofer Deshe. I freaking love ffmpeg. This command-line utility, backed by one of the most versatile video engines anywhere, can […]

NAMM Picks: Dave Smith Mopho Keyboard, $800; Video

Dave’s got a new keyboard, and the headline gives it all away: it’s a Mopho, but adding keys and more control, all for $800. There’s a myth out there that the computer music user and hardware synth lover are two different people. Au contraire, mon ami. Thanks, indeed, to Dave Smith himself, the computer and […]

Testing Notebook: Want to Help Us with Linux Video Editors (or Just Follow Along)?

Photo (CC-BY-ND) Matt McGee. Video editing on Linux can work — I’ve seen some terrific stuff. The trick is figuring out the proper configuration. Before you say, “ah, yes, you’ve just terrified me into never touching Linux again” — this post isn’t for you. For you, the idea is for us to research some of […]

NAMM Picks: Roland’s Octapad Updates a Classic Percussion Controller

A lot of the music tech industry involves incremental improvements and fairly routine hardware. Amidst the crowd, certain devices are special. They might not even appear so to a general audience, but they have a special place in someone’s music making. For whatever reason, some Roland percussion controllers fit in that category. As electronic musicians […]