Cakewalk’s New Monster Roland Integrated Software, Control Surface, I/O, Synth

“Integrated” hardware and software is a mysterious thing. It tends to hit extremes. At one end of the spectrum, you have bare-bones hardware bundles with an interface and software, or basic integration features so an audio interface doesn’t require extra configuration or a control surface works out of the box. These might save you a […]

Pro Tools 8 Announced: New UI, More MIDI, Elastic Pitch, Bundled Instruments and Effects, Integrated Sibelius Notation

Pro Tools 8 is up on Digidesign’s website. Rather than copy and paste their features, I’ll let you read. This may not shake you from your music making tool of choice, but it looks like it could be, at long last, the substantial refresh for Pro Tools users of that platform have been waiting for. […]

Resolume Avenue 3 Beta Released: Get Your Cross Platform Audiovisual Software On!

Since its official announcement in July, Resolume 3 has been causing excitement with its cross-platform, beatmatched, AV, VST-compatible next-level-ishness. Peter and I have had a great time playing with the private beta, but we know that the real capabilities of new software don’t appear until the public starts messing with it. Public, it’s time to […]

Behind the Scenes with Justice in Rio

Here’s a unique chance to step onstage with electronic duo Justice – well, through photos, at least – on tour in Brazil. Behind a stack of Marshall Amps and other gear that looks ready to push back an invading horde of Barbarians with a battering ram, these two have some very lovely goodies for live […]

Compression Lovers: Free Audio Damage Plug-in, Ableton+Reaktor Trick

Sure, we may live deep into the future. High in our Blade Runner apartment studios, we use androids for all of the vocals. Yet we still have that occasional need for good, old-fashioned compression. Like the soy-based dinners we microwave and the synthehol beer we wash it down with, it has to be simulated. Audio […]

Polar Views of Video: Fodder for 3D, Pixel Bender Effects?

2.5D – Polar Panoramic Video from Valentijn Kint on Vimeo. Speaking of Adobe’s new Pixel Bender, VKNT writes about work he’s doing with polar views, as modified in an application that processes panoramic images called Pano2VR. It’s not a real-time process, in this case (though the finished result is built in Processing), but I don’t […]

More on Adobe’s Pixel Bender in CS4 and Flash, GPUs, and Performance

Pixel Bender from Adobe is capable of developing all manner of filter eye candy, like these selections from users at the Pixel Bender Exchange (many of them free to use). In case you didn’t watch comments on my Pixel Bender preview, there was some good discussion, including Kevin Goldsmith, who manages the Adobe Image Foundation […]

More on Adobe’s Pixel Bender in CS4 and Flash, GPUs, and Performance

Pixel Bender from Adobe is capable of developing all manner of filter eye candy, like these selections from users at the Pixel Bender Exchange (many of them free to use). In case you didn’t watch comments on my Pixel Bender preview, there was some good discussion, including Kevin Goldsmith, who manages the Adobe Image Foundation […]

Apple Sees Light, Drops NDA; Let’s Start Talking!

To any of you who get tired of incessant griping, remember: sometimes, people listen — especially if the griping is well-reasoned and constructive. Such seems to be the case with Apple’s NDA on mobile application development. Apple announced today: …the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in […]

Covering Thom Yorke’s The Eraser on Monome, and an All-in-One Setup for Ableton Live

Reconstructing The Eraser with the monome from makingthenoise on Vimeo. Via Monome virtuoso Matthew Davidson (aka Stretta, the man who has built a lot of the patches that give the Monome its unique personality), here’s a video that really demonstrates how the Monome turns a set of buttons into a way of arranging and performing […]