This afternoon, I’m off to Microsoft’s Vista launch shindig. I’m hoping there will be clowns and ponies. After all, Microsoft can afford a party. As for the OS itself, I can’t resist relevant quotes from Star Trek III: Uhura: Would you look at that! Kirk: My friends, the great experiment: The Excelsior. Ready for trial […]

While on the subject of Gallo Speakers, here’s about as far as you can get from the baby-sized A’Diva satellites: speakers that tower 78″ tall, pack some 12 4″ aluminum woofers each, and deliver nearly omni-directional sound. Micro speakers (5″ each), yes, but in a slender but tall enclosure. The Reference 5LS speakers, due third […]

Well, clearly, these two pieces of gear are entirely different. I’m sure Behringer didn’t rip off the Roland. They’ve got two expression pedals. Totally different. Brad Sucks, the one-man band known for Internet stardom and Brad’s brilliant title “I Don’t Know What I’m Doing”, is taking on laptop performance. First job: find a way to […]

We’ve been waiting for a sub$200 field recorder. CDM’s Josh Jancourtz found this one at NAMM: no availability, no PR, but some interesting details. Here’s a serious play for budget mobile recording from Zoom: a US$199 recorder with an integrated mic and some unusual flexibility thanks to 3 integrated capsules. Translation: point this at whatever […]

No press release, no specs, but our own Josh at least got some “spy pics.” At Sony’s NAMM booth I came across this nameless prototype mic pre that matches their popular PCM-D1 flash memory field recorder. No release date, price, or even a name. (If you don’t feel like waiting you might look at the […]

Photos: Josh Jancourtz for CDM Have you ever plugged your headphones into your microphone? Well now you can! Besides winning a nomination for longest alphanumeric name, the USB2200A microphone from sE Electronics features a 1/8” headphone output and volume control on its body. This allows zero latency monitoring from the Class A 1” cardioid condenser […]

Move over, Adobe — Ubuntu Studio, due in April, promises to put a full, completely open-source graphics package together for Linux. The OS and apps will all be bundled together for easy installation. We recently covered pure:dyne, a high-performance visual OS. Ubuntu Studio looks a little friendlier and broader for newcomers; it’ll be interesting if […]

It takes a dedicated turntablist to use a deck as a melodic instrument. It makes Theremins, violins, and bassoons easy to play. Kypski shares the Beatles’ Michelle in scratch form: Yep, I’m sticking to keyboards and Theremins. This does make me wonder, though, about fun ways of playing things involving giant mechanical wheels, though, which […]

Linux is looking better and better as a fully open-source, multimedia-optimized operating system for visualists. Adobe has announced the availability of Flash Player for Linux. The bad news is, it’s x86 only, and as expected, there may be some issues. But the good news is, it’s here, and early reports indicate it works. Even as […]