Forget predictions. It’s hard enough just processing (or is that Processing) the powerful, new visual tools digital artists got in 2006. With that in mind, we, the Create Digital Motion co-editors Peter Kirn and Jaymis Loveday, take a fond look at our favorite tools and art for 2006. And you can bet that this list […]

Happy New Year’s, everyone. It’s been a lazy, rainy day here in New York opening up 2007, but I’m contentedly looking forward to what for me, at least, promises to be a good year for making music. Sure, forming New Year’s Resolutions is a pretty arbitrary activity, but I say any excuse that lets you […]

Okay, cool — but when will Princeton let these folks play the football games? Move over, marching band: laptop orchestras are here. Princeton’s laptop orchestra PLOrk will be the featured guest at dorkbot in New York this week, but it’s not the only “laptop ensemble.” The Electronic Music Foundation’s Arts Electric notes laptop orchestras span […]

While After Effects is a 3D environment, it’s generally used in quite a limited way, being comprised mostly of 2D surfaces moving in 3D space. Steve Kilisky (After Effects Senior Product Manager) has recently posted some great work by designers pushing After Effects’ 3D capabilities to the limits: AE or 3D looks at a superb […]

While After Effects is a 3D environment, it’s generally used in quite a limited way, being comprised mostly of 2D surfaces moving in 3D space. Steve Kilisky (After Effects Senior Product Manager) has recently posted some great work by designers pushing After Effects’ 3D capabilities to the limits: AE or 3D looks at a superb […]

Visual Acoustics is an online musical toy built in Flash designed by Alex Lampe (“Ample Interactive”) of the UK. (Via Music Thing.) The motion visuals are beautiful, and the music and interface is very reminiscent of Toshio Iwai’s work (see Nintendo’s ElectroPlankton, for instance). As with Iwai’s designs, just about anything you play will sound […]

I wrote today about the Critter Board DIY synth/controller board for CDMusic, but I’m even more excited about the Video Critter: Video Critter DIY, open-source audio/visual electronics platform US$74.95 buys you a fully customizable, programmable DIY board with video out. (There’s also a $45 “mini” board that looks equally tantalizing.) The video routines are already […]

In October, we covered evolving support issues for Apple, Boot Camp Beta, and video output from Windows on Apple’s MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops. Boot Camp is still in beta, but it is widely used, and people understandably want to know if they’ll be able to output from Windows to a projector. It opens up […]

Wish you could build your own music devices? Our friend Jason Kramer points to the Critter Board, a “hardware platform for creating self-contained electronic music devices.” The board looks great: it’s based on the 32-bit 58 MHz ARM microcontroller and programmed in C, like some other boards, but features a unique setup perfect for making […]

Several of you have written to point to a new article by Peter Gutmann, who argues that content protection (known commonly as DRM, but arguably broader than that) will exact a major cost in Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Vista. These issues should be of special interest to Windows musicians: Gutmann predicts Vista’s new content protection features […]