Mixxx running with a custom skin. Mixxx is an impressive-looking, fully free and open source DJ package for Mac (Intel only), Windows, and Linux. (It’s also the featured DJ tool on the Indamixx, Linux-based ultra mobile PC – mine just arrived, so hands-on is coming soon.) Adam Davison from the Mixxx development team points out […]

When I first saw the iPhone at Apple’s keynote in 2007, my first thought was, this could be an interesting controller: big, pretty display, accelerometer sensors, and multi-touch input. It’s not without some problems (namely, small amounts of latency, the lack of tactile feedback inherent to touchscreens, and the size of your fingers reducing accuracy). […]

Whether you care about the iPhone or not, the Summer of iPhone Development reveals a lot about where mobile computing, and mobile music creation, might be headed. That includes Apple’s challenges as well as its accomplishments. Despite the hype around Apple’s platform, the iPhone and iPod Touch have some strengths and weaknesses, just as any […]

Live beginners, want to graduate to Live ninja? Sample pack maker Infrasonik has posted a video that walks you through a number of shortcuts for Ableton’s software. (Via wire to the ear and Synthtopia; I agree with Synthtopia that the narration is a bit cheesy at moments, but yes, it’s still quite useful to have!) […]

When the creative team behind Radiohead’s new video for House of Cards released 3D imaging data of Tom Yorke’s head, I’m sure they looked forward to finding out what people would do with it. I’m guessing one thing they didn’t expect was for someone to go manually through the data and painstakingly reproduce it in […]

XLR8R TV Episode 71: Daedelus from XLR8RTV on Vimeo. XLR8RTV has a fantastic video interview with one of my favorite artists, Daedelus. The man is, as always, like pure musical joy. He talks about his musical influences, the early connections he made (including at USC, alma mater of a number of the CDM community), his […]

CDM friend and deep thinking visualist Jean Poole has been migrating a swathe of articles from a defunct web host, and some great interviews and reviews have bubbled to the surface: Artist interviews… A Brief History of VJing in Australia ( longgg interview heavy piece focussed around late 90s onwards), The Light Surgeons (UK), VJ […]

Don’t toss that Windows Mobile gadget yet. In fact, you might want to keep glued to Craig’s List for a used unit, if you like the idea of road warrior music production on the cheap, sans laptop. Amidst all the hype around the iPhone and iPod Touch, Windows Mobile devices could actually win on power […]

The iPhone and iPod Touch are getting their share of metronomes, guitar tuners, sonic toys, and even one fairly full-featured sample-based drum machine / arrangement tool (BeatMaker). But what about live synthesis? Noise.io (short for Noise for iPhone) claims to be the “first” synth. (I believe, technically, that honor goes to Einar Andersson’s iPhone synth, […]

The making of: Nokia Friends, generative characters from postspectacular on Vimeo. Karsten Schmidt sends us a behind-the-scenes mini-movie that reveals how he created pudgy, bouncy animated characters using generative code in Processing. It’s fun to watch these cute creatures evolve through a process of iteration, from bare-bone physics to the finished product. The results are […]