Gestural Music Sequencer: Video, Processing, and Ableton Live

Gestural Music Sequencer from Unearthed Music on Vimeo. Something as simple as remapping a single knob can give you new musical ideas. So expand that to entire gestures and live video input, and you can help push your performance in new directions and out of old habits. That’s why it’s always great to see projects […]

So, So Much Follow-Up: MS Paint-Made Music Video

You know the types – I’d say I had a music video made in MS Paint, and you’d watch it and it’d turn out to be made by some hypergenius insomniac who made some intricate animated film using only the spraycan tool. Happily, that is not the case here. “jono” writes to tell us about […]

Music Tech Pronunciation Guide

Pronunciation of some common music tech terms has been a source of debate. Generally, though, there’s only one right answer. I had hoped to kick off a pronunciation guide yesterday or today, but now I really can’t resist – not with none other than Tegan & Sara getting together to debate the right way to […]

Performance Videography: Get Up Close for More Exciting and Editable Footage

Segue – Reset (Live at Big Day Out 2008 Two-up Edit) from Jaymis on Vimeo. How do you make live performance documentation that doesn’t suck? You’ve been there: you’re trying to shoot footage, you’re trying to edit footage someone else shot, or you’re trying to tell someone shooting footage how to take material you can […]

Shooting Video For Gigs: Take That Camera Close and Make It Look Like Stuff Happened

I’m in the middle of editing a video that combines an artist interview with event footage. The supplied raw material is 10 minutes of interview footage and 45 minutes of the event, shot from a single camera. From that footage I was able to extract 5 minutes of usable interview, but just 40 seconds of […]

A Kick. A Snare. A Hat: How To Produce and Perform an Audiovisual Club Piece

Robert Heel is a visual musician who’s been creating some lovely instructional films on topics dear to the heart of a visualist. Of special interest, A Kick A Snare A Hat. Documenting a little AV performance in Resolume Avenue. A Kick A Snare A Hat from Robert Heel on Vimeo.

Apogee ONE: USB Interface with Internal Mic, Guitar, Mic In, $249

What do most musicians really need out of an audio interface? The answer to that question can vary wildly, but for a whole lot of people, it’s as simple as wanting to get an instrument and/or vocals in, and a basic, high-quality stereo mix out. That’s it. That’s part of why Apogee’s new compact ONE […]

Gijs’ Servo Sequencer, Opto-Mechanical Music, Events in Breda + Eindhoven

The Servo Sequencer with its hypnotic-looking optical disc. Photo courtesy Gijs Gieskes. Artists Gijs Gieskes’ sequencers are almost like physical, mechanical software, an expression of musical structure in object form. As such, even as they make strange sounds, they become musical sculpture. His latest Servo Sequencer combines optical and mechanical process, as frequency circles spin […]

Ableton Live Touch with Free Usine; Why Touch, Multitouch Works for Music

There’s plenty of rightful skepticism about the use of mainstream displays for multitouch in general purpose computing. And why not? As a full-time replacement for other input, multitouch probably doesn’t make sense. But for music, the equation is changing. Multitouch capabilities are showing up on commodity-priced PC computers like the multi-touch enabled HP laptop models […]