Pinnacle Video Transfer: Grab Analog Video Without a Computer

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. […]

Plugins From the Edge: Free SynthEdit Source from Jack Dark

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) […]

Theremin Music for Aliens, Theremin of the Damned

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 […]

Musicians, Like Writers, Left Out of Online Revenues – Or Not

Thom gets his own poster, courtesy M.A.C. Kingsley. Because new records have sound all over them, and you should probably get paid for that. Television itself (well, American TV — BBC is doing just fine) has ground to a halt over online revenues for writers. How are musicians doing? Not so well, say Radiohead. Ars […]

Yottamusic Dead; Subscription Music in Intensive Care

Some time in the last few days, browser-based music tool Yottamusic went kaput. For those of you who never saw it, the site was brilliant. Like the Rhapsody music service, Yottamusic featured all-you-can-listen music for a subscription fee, all playable in a cross-platform browser. (Yes, even Firefox for Linux worked just fine, thanks to a […]

CDM Asks: What's the Best, Low-End Visualist Camcorder?

Quite a few of you raised an eyebrow when we topped our gift guide with the Canon HV20, an affordable (as little as us$700) HDV camcorder. Like the New England Patriots (that’s American football for the rest of the world), the Canon HV20 appears to be largely unbeaten as the best-available visualist-friendly camera. It’s small, […]

CDM Asks: What’s the Best, Low-End Visualist Camcorder?

Quite a few of you raised an eyebrow when we topped our gift guide with the Canon HV20, an affordable (as little as us$700) HDV camcorder. Like the New England Patriots (that’s American football for the rest of the world), the Canon HV20 appears to be largely unbeaten as the best-available visualist-friendly camera. It’s small, […]

New Low-Priced Euphonix Control Surfaces, Leaked Early?

An anonymous readers tips us off on new control surfaces from Euphonix, a maker usually known for products at the higher end of the market. Whether this was an intentional post or not (it looks like you can pre-order the product), it’s definitely something new, and could mean you get a little Euphonix love in […]

Deckadance DJ Software Now in Beta for Mac

Ed.: Deckadance DJ software has been on our radar for some time on the DJ software front: lots of MIDI control (with one caveat; see below), agnostic support for multiple vinyl timecode systems, and most interestingly the ability to run the whole app as a VST plug-in. Dreams of loading Deckadance into Ableton Live danced […]

Free Interactive Snowflake Generator (Quartz Composer Composition)

Here in Los Angeles the weather is currently sunny and warm – great for going to the park, but not so much for creating that Xmas/New Year’s Wintry feeling. Here’s a patch you can use to fill the room with snowy interactive goodness. Fire up your Projector, Big Screen TV, or Wrist-worn LCD Display and […]