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 […]

I admit to being an incurable retro junkie. With that in mind, it’s worth making Super 8 part of your digital image arsenal. Even though few Super 8 cameras have been manufactured since the early 1980s, Kodak still offers a solid lineup of color and black & white film for as little as $14 per […]

Just under 2 months since the 2.4 Public Beta, Resolume have released v2.4 Final. New Features since 2.4 Beta: Added new overlay mode called Alpha Luma Midi start/stop configuration Hold down the ‘Ctrl’ key when using bpm up/down controls and you will be able to jump by 4 beats at the time instead of only […]

Matrixsynth and sequencer.de have blown the cover on an upcoming series of rackmount ASB synth modules from Creamware. Apparently, €444 will get you a 1U rack unit that contains the heart and soul (well, just the electronic bits…) of either the Minimax, Pro12, or Prodyssey virtual analog synths. Each device features a power switch, blue […]

Live 6 isn’t even out yet, but here’s a “secret” feature Ableton developers were able to sneak into a recent beta. Sources at Ableton say this won’t ever be documented, but they do plan to put it on the forums. I’m most interested to see what Live hackers and hard-core users do with this. The […]

My review of the Novation ReMOTE SL keyboard/control surface is in the current issue of Keyboard and free online. Here’s a taste at how I approached the review: Music stores and closets alike are full of controller keyboards aimed for use with software. Most seem identical save for a set of drum pads here and […]

Logic Pro has some incredible instruments, effects, and (if you’re good with the Environment) absurdly powerful MIDI configurations. It’d be great to take those onstage and switch between them as easily as you switch patches on your hardware synth. Enter OnStage: Fluqe OnStage It’s a simple utility: hit a program change, and call up one […]

From my review for Macworld.com: Rax 2.0, a music utility from plasq, the creators of Comic Life, brings the same kind of easy access to virtual musical instruments and effects plug-ins that Apple’s Front Row provides for music, videos, and photos. With a virtual mixer, a facility for creating custom songs and sets, and a […]

You heard it hear first. For those of you who just joined us, Mono Touch is a simple clone of the Ableton Live template from Lemur, though without the Lemur’s multi-touch capability, hardware, physics, customizability, and essentially everything other than the look of the interface. My criticism of this effort — which gave no credit […]

If you take digital photos and care at all about your signal, then you should own, or be planning to own, a digital SLR camera. Of the stuff people don’t understand about DSLRs, the easiest to explain and see is dust. You change lenses, some dust gets in and lands on the sensor, each subsequent […]