New features in Modul8; for more shots, see Modul8’s Flickr stream. Mac-only visual tool Modul8 is getting some significant improvements in version 2.6, available now as public beta. The final version will cost EUR49. Snow Leopard users, this corrects some compatibility issues with Apple’s new OS, which I believe now brings all the major visual […]

It’s a strange and wonderful sampling instrument and live rig, capable of mangling and remixing live, synced to tempo. It’s proof that live computer performance doesn’t have to be in only one tool, or use one technique. It’s a ready-to-play, affordable instrument you can pick up and use. It’s a Reaktor patch gurus can pick […]

Nodes of musical events, arrayed onto virtual tracks, in Jakob Penca’s iLoveAcid sequencer. Take a weekend, and make something: that’s the challenge behind the Music Hack Day, which joins a growing phenomenon of events built around collective creation. (CDM held its own tangible interface hackday online, which I definitely hope to follow up soon!) Initiated […]

An almost perfect example of some deep and subtle work with a flexible tool, creating magical results: Ólafur Arnalds – Ljósið (Official Music Video) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo. If you’ve spent any length of time with Particular, you’ll recognize this instantly. The look of the Spherical Field and spread lines of particles when the […]

The wait is over – and rumors that Melodyne’s bleeding-edge technologies to allow direct access to notes in polyphonic audio had failed to come to fruition turn out to be false. (I was skeptical about those rumors in April.) Melodyne DNA did take longer than expected to ship, but then, that isn’t exactly news in […]

Photo (CC) our friends over at Synthtopia. I was one of the first people outside Native Instruments to lay eyes on Maschine, and immediately I saw something with real potential. Here was a software drum machine that was different: it was a real attempt to fuse some of the advantages of a software interface with […]

KORG has other new product announcements, and I think both are going to be big hits for them. The SV-1 stage piano falls well into the category of “why didn’t anyone else do this first?” First, it looks beautiful – finally, a keyboard designed for the stage that actually looks good onstage. (I don’t know, […]

It aims to do what for sampling what the insanely-popular microKORG keyboard has done for synths: that is, invade bedrooms and bands everywhere, and inspire a kind of love that other hardware finds elusive. But it also combines the micro-keyboard form factor and mic with everything that has made the KAOSS Pad series popular. It’s […]

Laser Cave Prototype from Suryummy on Vimeo. It’s a testament to the power of digital visuals that flat, 4:3 or 16:9 rectangles can be endlessly fascinating — just as some of the greatest music records of all time were produced in mono. But part of the reason why resources like the Video Projection Tool excite […]

Laser Cave Prototype from Suryummy on Vimeo. It’s a testament to the power of digital visuals that flat, 4:3 or 16:9 rectangles can be endlessly fascinating — just as some of the greatest music records of all time were produced in mono. But part of the reason why resources like the Video Projection Tool excite […]