Better support for music and audio is still evolving (as well as lots of stability and compatibility improvements), but I have faith open-source coding tool Processing [site | on cdmu | on cdmo ] could yield wonderful new visual interfaces for music. Daniel Piker has the latest addition, inspired by a recent post here: FizzyNumberMusicMaker […]

Sound designer, technologist, and remix artist Francis Preve sends us some gifts of techno and technology to celebrate his first solo release. For your brain, we’ve compiled the tutorials he’s been working on for Beatportal, which together provide a really great look at some basic music production skills. For your ears, we have his new […]

Hello, harp feedback! I love my job. I get to watch as Peter Dines, contributor on our Kore/Komplete site for NI, constantly cooks up brilliant ideas for sound design. His latest screencast plumbs the depths of Native Instruments’ Massive synth, which he uses in conjunction with Kore. We’ve already seen Peter make song arrangements out […]

CONTAKT @ Amsterdam from Ali M. Demirel on Vimeo. David Lublin at Vidvox points us to this fantastic video from CONTAKT, playing live in Amsterdam with Richie Hawtin: I’ve started to use Kineme plugins for Quartz Composer in my live set. Here is a good example based on ‘tb soundflower’ composition by alx toneburst. I’ve […]

Cypod sends his simple but handy adjustable tremolo plug-in, which he’s made available free: Tremolo Audio Unit [Cypod blog] But that’s only half of the reason this is cool. He used the SuperColliderAU tool, which allows sonic effects built in the free, open-source audio coding language SuperCollder to become standard AU plug-ins. (He demonstrates it […]

Keith, maker of a wearable wristwatch Theremin, sends his Ars Electronica-winning project Moving Mario. Yes, this is just the sort of thing you might think of, but not actually do. He did it:   It’s a gimmick, of course, but I really like the questions it raises. By making Mario’s virtual space physical, you really […]

Squarepusher has taken over the music page of the Guardian, and the results bring joy and smiles to children and the young at heart. Just how great is it when Squarepusher is in charge? Music singles are complete and utter fluff, and he’s not afraid to say so, picking them apart one at a time […]

Beep-it from Michael Una on Vimeo. Cast your shadow, shine a light, make a square wave synth make noise. Michael Una is at it again. This time, he’s created something called the Beep-It. It’s a wonderfully elegant design for a light-controller soundmaker, an optical Theremin. He describes it to CDM thusly: This minimalist electronic musical […]

slicedbread, on behalf of The Covert Operators, has released a free Windows utility that generates “endless harmonic oscillators” for Ableton Live’s Simpler and Sampler instruments. (Since this was a released, a Mac build has been made available, as well; see link below.) Even if you don’t intend to use the utility directly, pay attention – […]

Stribe1: Touchstrip + LED Bargraph Display from CuriousInventor on Vimeo. The Stribe, created by DIYer Josh Boughey, was always an interesting concept. It combines a set of touch sensors with strips of LEDs for visual feedback. But partly because of the nature of the problem, and partly because of how it was designed, the original […]