In just over a year, the open source Monome hardware has become a cult hit among musicians. A grid of buttons seems deceptively simplistic; I have to admit I was skeptical at first. But the Monome has spread by word of mouth because this simple design can be elegant, because the build quality and touch […]

Macworld, naturally, spends a lot of time focused intently on Apple hardware while I get distracted by beatboxing parrots and modular synthesizers built out of yarn and rubber bands. They have an excellent write-up of the significance of the MacBook Pro Santa Rosa upgrades, with comments on their benchmarks of the equivalent refreshed MacBooks: MacBook […]

Audio, relying primarily on the CPU, can do fine on the non-pro MacBook: a fast CPU and FireWire 400 can be all you need. But for visualists, the GPU has become more and more vital. The integrated Intel GPU on the MacBooks is surprisingly capable, and certainly gets through basic video mixing. But throw enough […]

There’s a reason all these MacBooks have become a big hit with laptop musicians. Expect to see so many of them you get sick of seeing them. That’s why we strongly suggest customization, like making a new case out of mylar or something. Apple has unveiled its revised MacBook Pros today, with some subtle but […]

We are saddened to learn that Juan Antonio Argüelles, “Argu(ru)”, died Sunday night in a car accident. He was respected as one of the most talented plug-in developers anywhere, as the creator of plug-in house discoDSP, and later a developer of plug-ins for Image-Line. He had a deep role in the creation of FL Studio […]

Lightborne writes us: Hi, first of all I wanted to say I love the site and have been checking it daily for about a year now, as well as createdigitalmusic. I just came across a clip on youtube that really puts what I’ve seen of people abusing Wii remotes so far to shame. This seems […]

Editblog does more tests of SmoothCam, plus comparison tests. Editblog has responded to Anton’s SmoothCam tests with some tests of their own: SmoothCam is smooth, but slow [Scottsimmons.tv] Scott’s tests run even slower than Anton’s, regardless of codec. I asked Anton about this, and his take was that the technology was really intended for short […]

Okay, Akai. You’re going to have to get on the ball, fast. Sure, the new MPCs have all kinds of sophisticated music production capabilities. But can they remix the sultry, animal call of The Cheat, or make the ladies swoon with a solo by Strongbad?* Onetwo, short video made with looping … uh … things […]

We can’t truly celebrate the anniversary of Star Wars without a nod to the Electric Moog Orchestra’s rendition of the soundtrack, as observed by Matrixsynth. Unfortunately, this only exists on LP, and I imagine George Lucas would hurt us if we somehow got the thing online. That, and apparently — according to Matrixsynth commenters — […]

Graffiti with audio tape instead of paint. High-tech graffiti is all the rage these days. Alongside various forms of LED graffiti and “photonbombing” with non-intrusive video projections, some artists are moving to the medium of sound. It’s not quite the same as the geniuses risking their lives to tag subway cars and long-forgotten tunnels, and […]