Imaginary Instruments: Marker and Paper as Controller

Note Pad from Charlie North on Vimeo. This charming music video from Charlie North imagines creating your own simple music controllers with a piece of paper and a marker. (There’s some similarity to M-Audio pieces there, too.) Of course, that raises another question: could this actually be done? Computer vision isn’t quite intelligent enough to […]

On Behringer’s Track Record, “Value,” and “Copies”

Photo (CC) sleepydisco aka David Wood. In pointing out Behringer’s clone of Apple’s homepage, I may have left some things unclear. I was honestly surprised to find a number of people rushing to Behringer’s defense. I wasn’t trying to score cheap and easy points against the brand, but while venting frustration, I may have underestimated […]

Processing 1.0.7 Has Fixes for Snow Leopard, More

1.0.7 is a must-download on any platform because of key fixes to auto-format, highlighting, exception reporting, and PVector. (See revisions.) But if you’re an early adopter of Snow Leopard, this offers fixes for that, as well: Tweaks for Mac OS X Snow Leopard, to force it to run in 32-bit mode. This should bring back […]

Behringer’s Latest Rip-Off Job: Apple.com

  Look out: Behringer, already a notorious rip-off artist, is taking the “first step in [the] company’s reinvention of online presence.” I shudder to think what the coming steps will look like. But yes, the new site looks a wee bit familiar. It actually gets worse as you dig into the layout. In fairness, for […]

Richie Hawtin Talks Performance, Brings Back Plastikman – By Survey

Plastikman in Second Life. Now, could Plastikman get a second life? Survey says yes. Photo: (CC) Torley. Richie Hawtin has been the subject of adulation and sometimes seemingly-random scorn by readers of this site — blame the passions of the Internet. But amidst that noise has been a clear signal: bring back Plastikman. Richie is […]

“I Am T-Pain” Brings Auto-Tune to iPhone, “I’m on a Boat” To You

Smule, the iPhone/iPod touch development house that has released an Ocarina and a Leaf Trombone to the iPhone, has now partnered with T-Pain and Auto-Tune to bring a T-Pain-branded app to the mobile platform. I interviewed Ge Wang earlier; he gets exceptional music geek cred for the creation of the real-time synthesis language ChucK. But […]

Isadora Update, Video Tutorials for Performance-Savvy Multimedia Patching App

Isadora has a loyal following among visualists and live visual artists, thanks to the fact that it strikes a balance between modular, interactive programming and ease of use. Its killer feature: written by someone who actually does live performance, it allows you to structure your live set in a linear way with scenes. (That feature, […]

Flash + Resolume Video; Resolume 3.1 Gets Critical Update

Flash Playback in Resolume 3 from Resolume on Vimeo. Resolume 3.1, which I wrote up earlier this month, is a huge update for the audiovisual performance tool, with a beat-synced video looper and, oh yeah, Flash playback, even with full support for ActionScript 3. There’s now a video showing off the feature, as seen at […]

Inside Beaterator, Rockstar Games’ New PSP Beat Maker, with Gory Technical Bits

What’s that? A full-blown synth interface on the PSP – in a title from the makers of GTA, with Timbaland’s named plastered all over it? Yep. That’s exactly what it is. As you may know, the creators of games like Grand Theft Auto have collaborated with Timbaland to bring a mobile music studio to Sony’s […]

GPS Beatmap: Ford LTD + Salt Flats = Locative Driving Control Surface

GPS Beatmap from Jesse Stiles on Vimeo. “Locative art,” the idea that somehow location will feed into music and visuals, has eluded culture. We have the technology, in the form of sophisticated databases of location information and highly accurate, publicly-available GPS satellites. But it’s one of those solutions in search of a problem, and begs […]