Well, those kids today love their Sarah McLachlan, right? There’s no question that GarageBand represents one of the better values in music software, especially since even Apple expect a lot of its users will simply acquire it with their Mac. It still ranks high on software you’d recommend to a beginner on a budget. Apple’s […]

Control hardware complexity like this with the elegance of a single software plug-in. Photo: Matthew Davidson. MOTU is now shipping Volta, the software plug-in seen exclusively here on CDM at the beginning of the year. The Mac-only plug-in finally brings together two distant technologies: virtual software instruments and control voltage are together at last. (You […]

Vocoding Voices in Live 8 from Bjorn Vayner on Vimeo. Continuing our growing collection of Live 8 video tutorials, our friend Bjorn of Covert Operators sends over a terrific tutorial on making use of the vocoder. Now, unlike the “misuse” tutorials we’ve been running, this is actually how this effect is designed to be used. […]

Well, fine, Jamie Lidell. Now you go and ruin it for the rest of us. See, none of us playing with a Nintendo DSi will possibly look as good as you do. I jest, of course. Jamie Lidell, the wildly-talented vocalist, picks up the new, online-savvy take of the Nintendo DS and breathes cool into […]

AR scratching from vanderlin on Vimeo. “Augmented Reality” is a fancy term for describing ways of using computer vision to overlay digital intelligence on images. In other words, you can, for instance, scratch a vinyl record using a camera – plus a tag for identifying the object’s position in 3D space. Cambridge-based designer Todd Vanderlin […]

MacBook USB port, under scrutiny. Photo: Kevin Hiscott. Is your MacBook Pro a rightie? Something’s going on with the one or two left-hand USB ports on all MacBook Pros. I’ve heard some issues with hard disks, and now some problems with audio. (Controllers are evidently just fine.) The solution: use the right-hand USB port for […]

Magic is itself a kind of augmented reality, a willing suspension of disbelief as we watch what we know is a blend between what we’re seeing and what we simply think we’re seeing. We know it’s not all physically happening, but the act of seeing it is enough. So it’s fitting that someone would try […]

3D Computer Interface from Free Flow on Vimeo. During long winters with indoor heat running overtime, I imagine you’ve built up your fair amount of static electricity, and as the sparks fly, wondered why you couldn’t put that power to some good use. Working with electrostatics, a team of students at Northeastern University in Boston […]

For all the emphasis on learning how to use creative tools the proper way, it’s often when you misuse a feature that it really becomes a powerful tool. So, in the spirit of some of the “mistutorials” from Ableton’s own Dennis DeSantis, here’s our friend Michael Hatsis of New York’s Track Team Audio / Warper […]