Intua BeatMaker: Music Suite for iPhone and iPod Touch

Mobile music suites date back to the first PDAs; the Palm has long been a stand-out platform with apps like Chocopoolp’s wonderful Bhajis Loops. The iPod Touch and iPhone have been a hotbed for development, thanks to sharing development frameworks with the Mac. That led our iPod/iPhone software round-up to be bursting with good stuff. […]

Sourcing Synths: Resources for x0xb0x

We got a couple of good notes on how to source your own x0xb0x synth kit. In general, I wouldn’t recommend the x0xb0x as a first synth project, but that said, there are some good resources out there if you decide you want to give this synth a try. Likewise, the resources on Lady Ada’s […]

Inspiration: Vintage Computers Parts Cover Radiohead

Big Ideas (Don’t get any) from 1030 on Vimeo. In case you haven’t seen this, James Houston has produced a short film in which an assortment of old computer gear “plays” Radiohead’s “Nude.” We’ve seen various bicycle parts and such performing music around here, but not the actual components of computers in this way. James […]

Moog Guitar Brings Infinite Sustain, Ladder Filter, But It’s US$6495

Infinite sustain, a Moog filter, and — metallurgy? Welcome to the world of the Moog Guitar. It’s not a digital instrument, and it’s not a synth, but I’d say its unique focus on timbral shaping places it squarely within the interests of folks who read this site, and keeps it true to its Moog name. […]

Beyond the Guitar: Hacked Instruments, 8-bit FX, Amp Simulators on Synths, More

The world this week lost one of its great musical innovators, Bo Diddley. DIY instrument builders and anyone who enjoys abusing their guitar (or, perhaps, any instrument), you owe a great deal to "the originator." In the service of his unique and powerful expressive imagination, Bo Diddly hacked and attacked guitars, producing for the first […]

More from Mutek: Tech and Gear Spottings, Ecology and the Planet

Liz and Peter Dines continue to send dispatches from the epic MUTEK festival in Montreal. Stay tuned to our events.createdigitalmusic.com page for the latest. Among the new reports: various Reaktor spottings among artists, insane turntable abuse, and even a discussion of how arts events can reduce their impact on the planet. (Oddly enough, that last […]

I Met The Walrus: Smooth Motion and Animation with a Bed-Ridden Beatle

Here’s a lovely piece of animation and motion design (oh, and talking, if you’re in to that kind of thing): Here’s a wonderful film we sneaked in at the end of BUG 07 that I think withstood the crappy sound. It’s called ‘I Met The Walrus’ and although it isn’t strictly a music video it […]

Lala, Free Music Streaming, And Why Two-Tier Pricing is the Future

It’s clear that the new world of music listening involves more — more music, listening in more places, with more styles of music from more places in the world. So, naturally, it makes sense that we won’t pay per-album fees for everything we hear; even if you were addicted to your indie college radio station […]

Processing + iPhone, Via JavaScript, SpiderMonkey, OpenGL ES

Despite my complaints about trying to run Processing in JavaScript in a browser, the recent port of Processing’s syntax to JavaScript has a lot of potential. Part of the underlying lesson here: platform-independence is cool. So where better to show that off than the iPhone/iPod Touch: a showpiece for Apple’s proprietary, platform-specific goodies. German user […]