Ableton snuck a feature into a late beta of Live 6 that will make many users very happy indeed: crossfader curves. The Live user community, as usual, is even more on top of the new feature than the Abletons. Live forum contributor kabuki from Texas tested, graphed, and labeled the new curves: Curves in all […]

You don’t have to be a Native Instruments programmer to build far-out instruments in Reaktor — you just might need some assistance. If you’ve got Reaktor but haven’t had the chance to get deep into build your own instruments and effects, CDM forums contributor Peter Dines has some terrific resources for you. These should be […]

Tired of interfaces that give you lots of inputs but can’t support many mics at once? MOTU’s 8PRE has 8 mic pres, one FireWire interface, under US$600. MOTU hasn’t yet announced their newest audio interface, but it’s emblazoned in an ad on the back cover of the October issue of Keyboard. The 8PRE is a […]

Charles Altmann has raised the bar: don’t talk oldskool and turntables unless you’re prepared to build your own turntable out of raw parts and wood. Altmaan DIY Turntable By using simple pieces of plywood and raiding his mother’s sewing box, Altmann says he kept his total parts cost under US$50. He even sources intake valves […]

Great idea, the product is still in the buggy alpha stage. However, it’s free. it hosts DX AND VSTs, and can act as a plug-in in any DX or VST host. Did I mention it’s free? It’s pretty sweet for Win users that have a DAW that doesn’t support DX effects (like Live, Bidule, Usine, […]

Sure, between applications as full-featured as Bias Peak and Apple’s own Soundtrack not to mention freeware like Audacity, Mac users are a bit spoilt for choice when it comes to audio editors. But for those like myself who long for the simplicity and elegance of the long gone SoundEdit, Rogue Amoeba may just have the […]

While Peter is away I thought I’d visit a topic central to what CDMu is about, but rarely visited: Procuring Music. We (and by “we” I do of course mean “you”, powerful yet supple reader) spend rather a lot of time analyzing and discussing the tools and processes for creating music, but don’t seem to […]

Hardware synthesizers are wonderful, especially when they’re homebuilt. Jarek Ziembicki’s AVRSYN started life as an experiment to see if it was possible to cram a complete virtual analog synth into an affordable off-the-shelf microcontroller chip. He succeeded in creating a dual oscillator MIDI-compatible synth that even includes a knob-based user interface. Paul Maddox quickly saw […]