Perhaps fueled by YouTube comepetition, robotic instruments are looking more and more impressive. What I’d most like to see: a robotic battle of the bands. The latest creation comes to us from the all-robot band The Trons, based in New Zealand. They have cute names, and I bet the ‘bots are more fun to date […]

Can $130 buy you more versatile digital musical studio hardware than (bizarrely) a Nintendo DS loaded with homebrew software? The software keeps rolling in. The wonderful cellular automation synth glitchDS has just gotten its 1.3 update, with per-sound volume, a tap-able “pad play” page for triggering samples, quick snapshot saving, and other improvements. Better still, […]

Helene Berg is a cellist. She’s also an animator, video artist/filmmaker, and does yoga and water-aerobics. So when she plays cello, it’s fitting she might play more than just any old cello. Enter the lasercello, an augmented rendition of the traditional instrument designed by Jonas Ericsson of the Stockholm design agency No Picnic. Documentation is […]

Andy Vaz. I’m Chicago-bound this week, and really excited about the events I’m part of, in case you’re in the area: Wednesday – Re:vivify audiovisual social: Eco-conscious setting and cocktails, all live audiovisual sets. I don’t know these folks, but looking forward to meeting them! “Alexander Bassett going away party, plus live sets by Release, […]

Plug-in crafter daz disley writes to alert us to his Windows VST plug-in collection. The beta-grade plug-ins are all available as donationware. There are various warnings about “try at your own risk,” which reads to me as an invitation. Three effects have been polished into finished versions; you can get all three for EUR25 if […]

Eliot Van Buskirk has, as always, terrific music coverage for Wired. The story this time: how Metallica’s Radiohead/Nine Inch Nails-style Internet release, free of DRM, seems only to make people angry. It gives a glimpse into how the Internet release could evolve over time, outside the aura of joy in which the latter two bands […]

CDMo reader Memo writes: I’m just rushing out the door off to Glastonbury to set things up.. I thought you might be interested in this little (!) project… Glastonbury 2008 PI Teaser (Webcam Piano + Psychedelic Fluids) from Memo Akten on Vimeo. Everything is entirely camera driven and realtime. Originally started this app in processing, […]

Tired of all those DIY electronics projects making an awful racket? This one is whisper-quiet. You may have to turn up your volume to hear it at all. Project creator Andrew Benson (maker of many wonderful things for Cycling ’74) writes: I just finished sewing together an FM synthesizer that lives on a wristband and […]

The mobile recording space keeps rolling along. Alesis is the latest company to try to turn the iPod into a usable digital recorder. With up to 160 GB of storage, the fact that the iPod is a mobile hard drive you may already own certainly has some appeal. But what about quality? The Alesis ProTrack […]