Digital turntablism is nothing new. But Ammobox, debuted at the first-ever CDM Futuristic Music Design Challenge, is unique in a number of ways. What creator Nathan Ramella has done differently: 1. He’s demystified digital vinyl timecode. With no previous DSP programming experience, Nathan created his own custom tool for reading vinyl timecode — and explains […]

Shining, happy people bending toys. Photo by Beatrix*Jar — see our interview. Despite the name, the Bent Festival this year promises to be about not only circuit bending, but DIY sound in general. (Circuit shaping? Circuit straightening? General circuitration?) Our friend and CDM regular Mike Una has put together fantastic art installations for Minneapolis. Workshops […]

Dateline: Brooklyn. Yeah, you’ve heard all sorts of stories about hard drive failure rates and why you should back up. But here’s a new one: someone might steal your hard drive, while it’s plugged into your laptop, in the middle of a set, as happened to Matthew Dear earlier this month.. Given that hard drives […]

Resolume at work: Miki Grahame VJing. Photo by yoz. Those of you not on the mailing list for Resolume missed a double bombshell coming this weekend at Paris’ Vision’r VJ festival. Big story #1: open visual plug-in standard gets hardware savvy. the official release of FreeFrameGL 1.5 will happen, hosted by Resolume’s Edwin and Bart […]

In the unlikely event of a water landing, use the Tenori-On to triangulate the mysterious radio broadcast coming from the French woman on the desert island. Erm, sorry — yeah, I finally got DVDs to watch Lost. Random Mode in the Tenori-On manual; image (C)2007 Yamaha Corporation. Here’s the good news: the Tenori-On is really […]

Creator Toshio Iwai strikes a "mad scientist" pose for photographer watchlooksee in London. Peter Dines, known for his work with Reaktor (don’t miss his fantastic Reaktor Tutorial Project blog) got a first-hand look at the Yamaha Tenori-On’s first North American stop on its launch tour. He brings us some impressions of the launch, and introduces […]

I still love the idea of soft circuits: electronics packaged in soft form factors instead of hard. It’s a big challenge — for one, you need some soft fabrication skills along with electronics skills, and then you have to contend with keeping your electronics happy in a soft (warm) place, which is the opposite of […]

We’ve seen lots of gadget lust around the tiny Pacemaker mobile DJ device, but could you, say, show up in Miami with one and DJ? Alfred Nerstu, who’s actually an Assistant Art Director for Pacemaker’s maker Tonium (not a PR person), sends along this video they made. Answer: yes, you can be taken seriously with […]

video mlr clone demo from themoves on Vimeo. I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of using the Monome, the popular open-source, button-bestrewn controller device, for visuals and not just sound. But I haven’t seen any examples in person. Via comments on Monday’s Live + Isadora story, here’s one example by Joshua Nugent. The software […]

We had a blast (ahem) Saturday night at the Yuri’s Night party at NASA Ames Research Center; stay tuned for video and more, including the results of the Futuristic Musical Design Challenge. But that’s no reason the party has to end. If you’ve listened through all 55 songs on the 45 Tribute and want still […]