Thought every twist on Tchaikovsky had been exhausted in holiday seasons past? Think again: San Francisco-based composer Flip Baber (aka johnnyrandom, pictured) writes to tell us about a compositional challenge that made him turn bike parts into instruments: I was recently approached by award winning advertising agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to do a composition […]

M-Audio may not spell the word “connective” / “conectiv” right, but they’re getting some very positive feedback from their new DJ line, including Torq (the DJing + vinyl control solution), Conectiv (the audio interface), and X-Session Pro DJ control surface. I’m hearing great comments here from readers, and there’s other word around the Interwebs. Some […]

We’re not going to be satisfied until every touch controller in the house is functioning as an X/Y pad for music. Nintendo DS? Check. Wacom tablet? Tablet PC? Claro que si. So what’s up with your Palm? That stylus isn’t doing anything. miniMusic has the hookup: AxisPad miniMusic [Product Page] Interestingly, the X/Y pad here […]

Circuit bender Gijs Gieskes does work that can be seen as beautiful kinetic sculptures as much as instruments and synthesizers. That’s certainly the case with his Sega MegaDrive2: watch as he reroutes patch cords via magnetic connections in a lovely tangle of wires, or listen to the mechanical sounds of the device in operation. (This […]

Bill Van Loo writes to tell us about a QWERTY keyboard that started its life as stock Apple hardware and wound up a custom-configured, custom-painted controller for Ableton Live: I just finished reworking an old USB QWERTY keyboard to serve as a custom keyboard for controlling Ableton Live, and thought you might like a look. […]

With its touchscreen input, compact size, internal Nintendo-style synth, and wireless Internet connection, the Nintendo DS has a lot of appeal for music use. The challenge is how to hook it up to a computer. TheRain has a hardware hack called DSMIDI: with a little soldering and hacking, you can connect the DS to a […]

Our own Jaymis has left CDMotion for a couple of weeks for something called a “vacation”, but he’s left a terrific gallery of images from the Elements 7 / King Unique event in Brisbane. In an intimate club venue, Jaymis fired up his full live performance VJ setup, complete with Behringer controllers and Resolume video; […]

It’s visual inspiration time: Enough with getting depressed about culture and the future. I’m convinced we’re on the brink of a new Renaissance, and thanks to the power of the Web, you don’t just have to go to one place (Florence, Paris, New York) — you begin to realize the multi-talented visionaries are everywhere you […]