NAMM supposedly stands for the “National Association of Music Manufacturers.” It’s purportedly a trade show for music instruments and technology. But, for brief but glorious moments, “NAMM show” translates in English to “ridiculous musical stuff.” Just how ridiculous? We’re talking guitars made out of football helmets. Just in case you think you might extract any […]

From ribbons to multi-touch, musicians are looking for expressive controllers, ones that allow continuous control for performance. Oh, yeah, and it’s like totally super-cool on the original Star Trek when people run their hands over the Transporter controls and the blinky lights move. I mean, like still super-cool, even in 2008. (Hint: try to look […]

The world’s smallest projector is dead — long live the world’s smallest projector! PC Magazine reports from CES 2008 that Microvision’s PicoP projectors are smaller than an iPod, battery-powered, and make teh visualz with fricking laser beams. Max resolution 848 by 480, zoom 1:1, brightness and frame rate unknown. From Microvision’s marketing materials, it seems […]

The world’s smallest projector is dead — long live the world’s smallest projector! PC Magazine reports from CES 2008 that Microvision’s PicoP projectors are smaller than an iPod, battery-powered, and make teh visualz with fricking laser beams. Max resolution 848 by 480, zoom 1:1, brightness and frame rate unknown. From Microvision’s marketing materials, it seems […]

There are giant donuts in LA? I’m so there. Photo: Rigmarole CDM is on the road to California! If you’re at NAMM, mark your calendars now. In addition to our full coverage of the NAMM trade show (covering new and odd music things with video, photos, and sound), we’ve got a party planned. (Whoo!) Attending […]

Or, I should say, vim, vigor, vivaciously vivid vertex vitality, vivisected for your voraciously voyueristic viewing in vvvv. VertexNoise[take2] from desaxismundi on Vimeo. This beautiful work comes from French-based desaxismundi, who’s also on Flickr. I’m always struck when similar, elemental techniques can yield unique results. vvvv, for those who don’t know it, is a cult-hit […]

Photo source: Bent Festival LA. Ed.: Circuit bending too destructive for you? Don’t let that scare you away from this year’s Bent Festival, in NYC, LA, and Minneapolis. Key pioneering circuit benders like founding artist Reed Ghazala are quick to argue that bending is a creative, not a destructive act — though some more radical […]

Pinnacle’s new Video Transfer box is a portable analog video (S-video/Y-c and composite) and stereo audio (RCA) h.264 encoder. The Video Transfer box has no built in storage – you supply it. Touting iPod video compatibility and USB Mass storage support, you can in theory hook up any USB 2.0 device to record video to. […]

If you like your plug-ins extreme and dangerous — like causing bodily injury to pregnant women and children dangerous — here’s some good news from you. Legendary (or perhaps infamous) Windows VST plug-in developer Jack Dark has decided to leave the scene, and he’s leaving his source projects for plug-ins released on DarkWare and (later) […]

Seed Magazine asked recently, “Who Speaks for Earth”? Answer: Russian kids playing Theremin music! In 2001, Zaitsev and a group of Russian teenagers created the “Teen-Age Message to the Stars,” which was broadcast in August and September of that year in the direction of six stars between 45 and 70 light years from Earth. The […]