Unreal Engine 3, by way of the Unreal Development Kit, is now available free for non-commercial use. That means that not only are its capabilities for games accessible, but all sorts of other possibilities for art, visualization, and, yes, live visuals. Unreal is scriptable, customizable, and powerful, making this pretty massive news. The feature list […]

Sune Peterson a.k.a. MOTORSAW sends in this live AV collaboration with Schmid. It’s a beautifully constructed half-hour set, building from simple downbeat with minimal feedback to a frenetic, camera-shaking climax. Live at home from Sune Petersen on Vimeo. Sune also had some great thoughts in his email about performance, which I’d like to share: This […]

Designing Sound, as the name implies, focuses entirely on the craft of audio from film to games. While there are industry-driven sites devoted to the topic, this blog is entirely the labor of love of composer and sound designer Miguel Isaza, whose writing has also appeared on Spain’s Hispasonic and Monofónicos. (Miguel also tweets to […]

I’m headed to Boston next week for a workshop and evening performance – and that’s the perfect time to share some of the good folks I get to work with. You can catch them in person if you’re in the greater Boston area, and expect more on what they’re doing here online following the event […]

It’s been a while since I’ve banged on about my experiments in cheap, fast music video production, but that doesn’t mean I’ve slowed down. Recently I got a group of my favorite things together: A projector, a $4 Ikea rear projection screen, my Vixid mixer, Korg Entrancer, video camera, some home made pizzas, and Canadian […]

Daedelus joins me for a discussion on performance controllers, as part of an artist lineup ranging from dub pioneer Scientist to beatbox legend Kid Beyond and… a lot of other folks, too. Photo (CC) musiclikedirt. It’s music production. It’s … lasers. If you’re in the LA area, you’ll want to be there. If not, let […]

Max For Live Sneak Peak from max4live on Vimeo. Suddenly, I have an image of American Ableton hackers patching on their MacBook over Thanksgiving turkey. After a long, long wait, a public beta of Max for Live is available. The software incorporates the full version of Max/MSP/Jitter – complete with visual output, video processing, and […]

Ableton is 10. Does that make anyone feel old? Live in action; photo: Marco Raaphorst. As the company turns 10, Ableton has introduced a set of discounts and giveaways, the most notable of which is a new entry-level edition of Live. Live Intro smooths out a lot of the wrinkles between different starter versions of […]

Photo (CC) Tim Douglas. Critics frequently attach the phrase “lock-in” to Apple’s iTunes Store – iTunes – iPod/iPhone combination. But, in the post-DRM age, what does that mean, exactly? First, you have to recall that while for many of us the manual drag-and-drop music management is appealing, it isn’t so for many average consumers. They […]

Data and images courtesy Mint.com. Mint.com, the online financial management tool, has put its numbers together with market researchers NPD Group to analyze music spending. The results: when it comes to consuming recorded music, digital music continues to rise. At the same time, so does Apple’s grip on the music consumption market, a combination that […]