Ableton co-founder and general visionary Robert Henke (also known as Monolake) gave a full-length workshop in New Zealand recently. If you’re up for 90 minutes of discussion of musical and sonic techniques in Live, plus a look at his unique Monodeck controller, the whole video is there. But that’s not the main reason the video […]

Jeff Mission writes to say he’s been working on a new project that couples the Wii remote with generative visuals — all built in free software. Like it, but think it could go further? It’s free, so have a go (soon, at least). Jeff writes: Chris Korda, developer of the open-source VJ softwares Whorld and […]

The Digital Worlds blog, an Open University blog, has an excellent look back at the artistry of early video tubes entitled “Oscilloscopy.” There’s John Whitney’s “showreel” from 1961, which shows off the ground-breaking (1961, folks!) possibilities of his “mechanical analog computer,” as appropriated from an antiaircraft gun director. Wait … say that again? Yep, Whitney […]

To celebrate Yuri’s Night, CDM is organizing a big design challenge. Bring your craziest, most futuristic musical interfaces / hardware projects / custom synths and controllers, and face off with other designers to win a Yamaha Tenori-On and other prizes. Musical expression and space, after all, go together. The record above carried a special mix […]

  Photo: Lydia White. How nerdster-chic is this: a global convergence of the exploration of space exploration, ecological savvy, technological innovation, and musical-motional performance, in honor of Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin launching the first-ever human flight into space? Described as “Cinco de Mayo” for space, Yuri’s Night is a 35-nation cosmorave. It was big last […]

I noted in January that enigmatically-talented programmer Jack Dark had released the source of his misbehaved SynthEdit-made plug-ins for Windows VST. Here’s one of the fruits of that release: a glitching, stuttering sonic thing that now also syncs to your host, so your little glitchstutters hit on, um, an eighth note or whatever instead of […]

Windows is getting enough instrument and effect madness for free to make your head spin — a lot of it previously commercial software. Here’s the latest addition: Beatburner, a looping sampler combined with a wave shaper and enveloped filter. In short, Beatburner takes your loops and makes them into sonic insanity. I’ve been playing with […]

It’s no secret: the once wildly-popular ArKaos VJ software has been looking a bit long in the tooth lately. And upgrades only get you so far: sometimes, as software matures in its life cycle, you have to redo the foundations. That’s what ArKaos has been working on, and the results, renamed GrandVJ, are due out […]

The nicely-growing Digital Tools blog has an excellent interview with visualist Paris Treantafeles, who works with lo-fi 8-bit-style visuals using tools he’s built for GBA and the Linux-powered Gamepark. Interestingly, while a lot of people will dismiss the 8-bit movement as “nostalgic” — implying it’s just 20-somethings pining for their Mario-playing childhoods — Paris’ inspiration […]

Good news: the Korg DS-10, a Nintendo DS musical instrument (synth + drum machine + sequencer) based on Korg’s MS-10, is not going to be limited to Japan, despite what the publisher’s website says. From the DS-10 blog: Hi there! my name is Tomi from AQI Inc.and I’ll be in charge of this product for […]