Today: Circuit Bending in the Netherlands

The Netherlands is already a artistic-technological hotbed, and today (Wed. 29.10) some of their best circuit benders are gathering in one place, including regular favorite of ours Gijs Gieskes. (Gijs made the wonderful, spinning device above, which I missed when it came out — see it on Music thing.) If you can make it, we’d […]

elastic~: Pitch, Speed Control Module for Your Max 5 Patch

If you’re looking for pitch- and speed-independent warping and other sonic effects, and Max 5 is your modular patching tool of choice, a new tool is now available to add to your arsenal. elastic~ is an object similar that allows high-quality audio warping. The developer claims it uses the “same algorhythm as software giants Cubase, […]

Nominees Wanted: The Most Inspiring Visualist Lovers' MTV Music Videos of All Time?

Back from the dead: music videos, from the network that forever ruined the term “VJ.” Photo: James Good. I’m just wrapping my head around how huge this is, but MTV has posted a massive archive of music videos on their site. That can mean only one thing: it’s time to assemble CDMotion’s list of the […]

Ask CDM: What Can Replace a Drowned Kaoss Pad Entrancer Video Effects Unit?

Alan from FoundLight writes in: I have been using a korg entrancer for the last 4 years as a most essential part of my set up. I was providing the visuals on Saturday night for Dubfire when some clutz spilt his pint all over it… it’s buggered! Do you know of any other more recent […]

Daito Manabe Makes Music with Parts of His Face

Facial music, indeed. Daito Manabe has made the music the controller and his face the controlled in a new project. (As several commenters were quick to note, I got this exactly backwards when I posted this a few minutes ago: his face is the output, and the music the input.) Daito Manabe is a Japanese-based […]

Projection as Augmented Reality: Mapping Magic, Made with vvvv

Conventional projection hasn’t come very far since the magic lantern days of a century or so ago. Projector + flat, rectangular surface = image. But naturally, with computers, it’s possible to do far more. The idea is to contextualize a projection in its surroundings, and give the illusion that instead of being simply a rectangular […]

Free OpenSoundControl on iPod, iPhone: Mrmr is Here

What if controllers were not only wireless and multi-touch, but could find software to control automatically, or share control between more than one person or more than one computer? On one-level, yes, Mrmr is a free and open source OpenSoundControl app for iPod and iPhone. But on a deeper level, it’s an illustration of how […]

Calling Samplers, Sharers: Creative Commons Now in SoundCloud

SoundCloud, the music and sound sharing service we saw launch this month has added a very important feature: support for different licenses. When you upload tracks, you can elect to protect your work with a conventional copyright or opt instead for a Creative Commons license. That’s an important feature I’d like to see all these […]

Cheap Gear: The $42 LCD Monitor Review (and Other Inexpensive Visualist Bits)

I’ve recently had another shipment arrive from previously mentioned purveyors of cheap gadgetry, DealExtreme (disclosure: Affiliate links used, if you buy stuff I get a (tiny) cut). Last time I write about the site, I noted that super-useful VJ things such as preview monitors weren’t available. They are now. As you can definitely tell from […]

Media Consumption: VideoThing on Boxee, the Open Social Media Centre

Over at Video Thing, Wiley is espousing the competition-winning Boxee – an open-source “social media player”, based on XBox Media Centre, and running on Linux, Mac, Windows, and in the VideoThing setup, AppleTV: I’ve been using an AppleTV since it was released. A device with great potential (cheap, HD enabled, great integration with iTunes) crippled […]