Happily, despite this image, NI is not adding Apple iTunes-inspired CoverFlow to KOMPLETE. But they are refreshing synths and effects, updating to the shiny, new Kontakt 3 sampler, Guitar Rig 3 guitar rack, and Massive synth, and cutting the price. Lost in the shuffle: vocoding and spectral delays. Native Instruments remains the unchallenged heavyweight of […]

Some were disappointed that the Segway was not, as promised, “an invention that will “sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking.’” But there’s hope, in the form of Brisbane, Australia-based electronic duo Segue’s vision for the future. Clearly, the first Segway was just a 1.0 device. What it needs is […]

Click To Play Video link [blip.tv / Etsy] The crazy gimmicks are fun, but what drives people to build or customize their own musical creations is ultimately the desire to make music. Etsy.com dispatched a lovely videographer to cover the most recent Handmade Music night, co-organized with us CDMers and Make Magazine. Check out the […]

Working on digital visuals for choreographer Grisha Coleman’s echo::system, I got to try some new techniques for running visuals. These were necessary experiments, so naturally we had some things that worked well, and some that didn’t. (For more on the piece, see the project site; warning: auto-playing audio via Flash!) Two particular pieces of gear […]

Jim Aikin remains one of my heroes in music technology journalism. As a magazine writer, book author, and editor (including a long stint on staff at Keyboard), he’s contributed an immeasurable amount of the writing about evolving music tech over the past decades. I’ve also gotten to appreciate his craft and insight as a reader […]

Since picking up my HVR-V1P I haven’t actually spent much time editing or otherwise working with HD video, instead spending my time out on the road shooting and performing. After returning (and taking a holiday) the rest of the band have settled down to recording an album and I, as part of my preproduction schedule, […]

The ways in which people can reimagine the beloved turntable seems boundless. We’ve seen bass guitar turntables, computer scratching visualizations, turntable-controlled vibrating chaise longues, and turntables embedded in tree trunks as art installations. Still, there’s more: TurntablistPC is an ongoing art project coupling a vintage turntable with a vintage PC, creating a hybrid, record-playing server […]

One of the wonderful things about music in general is that basically anything can become a musical instrument — digital, electronic, or otherwise. The barrier to entry is neither skill nor means, but will. (or is that general craziness?) Musician and builder Eric Johnson surprised us at the last handmade music get-together in Brooklyn with […]

Footsteps from the abyss of total unawareness, musician and musicologist Clive Wearing has two lifelines: love and music. Suffering from an amnesia that robs him of nearly all memories beyond a few seconds, these bring him back from a waking death and become life and being itself: “I picked up some music,” Deborah wrote, “and […]