Announced this Week: Gear for Musicians You’ll Probably Want

Part of why we run Create Digital Music and Create Digital Motion is that there’s a lovely parallel to what’s happening in digital music making and what’s happening in visualism and live visuals. Which is to say, in case you haven’t been following CDMusic lately, there’s plenty of gear you may want. First and foremost, […]

Fun with OSC: Step Sequencer for Resolume

Making software more controllable opens it to all kinds of new possibilities. We saw some of this work, including Gian Pablo Villamil’s “chaos mode” implementation for audiovisual VJ app Resolume Avenue, last week: Visual Control: TouchOSC + Modul8, Max + OSC + Resolume Chaos Mode Now Gian Pablo is on a roll, with a new […]

Kontakt, Battery: Enhanced, More Compatible, 64-bit Memory

Even on Mac, the new Kontakt can use the memory you’ve got installed. On Windows 64-bit, Kontakt (and Battery, too) can use memory beyond … well, what you’d even imagine installing. Native Instruments has updated its sampling engine, releasing beta versions 3.0.5 for its Battery drum sampler and 3.5.0 final for the flagship Kontakt sampler. […]

Fonts Made by Motion of a Car, as Designers, Race Driver Meet

iQ font – When driving becomes writing / Full making of from wireless on Vimeo. It’s Fonts: Tokyo Drift. No sooner than I start talking about making motion from type, here’s an example of making type from motion: Two typographers ( Pierre & Damien / plmd.me ) and a pro race pilot (Stef van Campenhoudt) […]

Motion from Type: A Treasure Trove of Inspiration on Vimeo

Maradona 1986 from SQUA on Vimeo. We have funny biases when it comes to visual expression. Text is — content. It’s the information. It’s not a graphic. Graphics are something else. (At least, such is the perspective of those of us speaking Western languages, constructed from phonetic symbols and not pictographic or ideographic symbols.) But […]

Bill Gates Says 3D Camera Control Coming to Windows, Credits MS Research

Microsoft’s Project Natal – whether it proves to work for console gameplay or not – clearly represents a significant technical advance. What’s remarkable is the combination of 3D camera hardware with intelligent software for 3D sensing an intuitive interfaces. (And that’s without talking about the helpings of augmented reality and even voice recognition Microsoft has […]

Akai Does Mini MIDI Keyboard, Pads, a la Korg nano – But with Real Action?

Updated images: The official LPK25 and LPD8 images, courtesy Akai Pro. (Thanks!) Click for larger versions and a look at the controls. Korg’s nano series has been a huge hit. Now it’s Akai’s turn, with their own mini USB pad and keyboard controllers. (Note: given lengthy product turnaround in this industry, these may actually have […]

Beautiful Sonic Sculptures from Portugal, and Announcing Handmade Music Porto

Sonoridades Líquidas [Liquid Sounds] from Rui Penha on Vimeo. Wonderful work in sculpting sound into beautiful handmade electronic-acoustical instruments is pouring out of Portugal. Now we get to see more of that work – and if you are in Portugal, you can share in person at a new event. The Handmade Music project and community […]

Huggable Plush Synths and Soft Circuits, and Handmade Music NYC Thurs!

Electronics and synths are hard and you can’t hug them; plush animals and toys and blankets and pillows are soft and huggable. And we won’t even get started on the slightly-absurd gender associations of soft textiles and hard, toxic electronics. Or at least, so goes the traditional assumption. But increasingly, designers are becoming interested in […]

More Hackday Goodies, with a Beer Bottle Percussion Machine

Electronics and code and whatnot are great fun, but a lot of people want to know, how can they add actual, physical motion to a project? I’ve rounded up the last few odds and ends from the London Music Hackday organized in the offices of The Guardian, and came across Alistair MacDonald and Mr. Duck’s […]