Ilan Katin, a close friend and GarageCUBE employee, has let me know that the developers of the Mac VJ application Modul8 are looking for a new programmer to help with the next version of their software. Think you have what it takes? OpenGL shader chops? C++ skills? Interface design? Performance optimization? The list goes on […]

MP3s, bad because they have less music in them. So much less music, in fact, that your brain loses the ability to feel emotions listening to them. Okay, sure, over-compressed MP3s sound awful, especially at lower bitrates. But get ready for some strange psychoacoustics here, folks. Producers howl over sound cut out by MP3 compression […]

DIY Gorillapod with parts from Home Depot with a Cannon HV10 attached. I like to shoot video, but I rarely ever plan my outings – so this means I’m either carrying a lot of gear, or I’m always ill prepared. I was pleased to stumble upon some instructions for building a Gorillapod and a String-tripod/monopod […]

Nice work if you can get it: visualist Toby / tobyz, aka *spark, had one heck of a live visual rig for the Geneva Motor Show’s Ford booth. One ongoing challenge for live VJs is making it clear what they’re doing. Solution: “VJ Crew” t-shirts, lovely women (can’t hurt), and, of course, giant touchscreens for […]

In the New York area (or within Amtrak distance)? Mark your calendars for August 23. We’re teaming up again with Make Magazine and homemade marketplace/community Etsy to host the second evening of handmade musical creations at Etsy Labs in Brooklyn. This means software and hardware, sensors and controllers and game systems, custom Max, Pd, and […]

Ardour, the free and open source DAW for Mac and Linux, has already won some fans by providing robust audio multitrack features in free software, along with some unique innovations (like robust support for inter-app JACK audio routing). But one major complaint has been a lack of serious MIDI tools. MIDI functionality is baked in, […]

What’s that flowing out of this classic synth? Could it be a ghostly life force, ready for incarnation into a modern Prophet — erm, synth, that is? (Hooray for bdu’s lovely Flickr collection of synth ephemera. Dave Smith Instruments, the boutique synth shop responsible for the beloved real analog-meets-digital Evolver line, have been hard at […]

My God … it’s full of screens: If you really want live visualism and VJing to make an impact, step one is giving your display mechanism a major upgrade. Great content and artistry matters, but without a way of communicating to them the audience — well, you musicians know what it’s like when the PA […]

Andrew Stone has added the term Elton Johning to the Urban Dictionary; head over there and give it a thumbs up. Quick review: the term means to unplug from the Web to allow yourself some creative space, a concept suggested by Sir Elton John himself, who wants someone to tear down the Internet so we […]

Bridging the gap between music visualizer and game, Masaya Matsurra’s musika brings a unique experience to Apple’s iPod. Matsurra, best known as the creator of PaRappa the Rapper for the original PlayStation, has long used Apple’s tools as a means of creative expression. He sees the iPod as a natural for interactive music visualization. “The […]