There’s only one way to get the exact controller you want: build it yourself. Reader Jason Kramer did just with a custom MIDI control box, built from the Doepfer Pocket Electronic kit. (See the Doepfer link below for a variety of other cool examples): MIDI Control Box flickr set [Jason Kramer] Doepfer Pocket Electronic This […]

Austrian VJs Lichterloh have a novel solution for creating surround projections without needing to render and cut up massive compositions or drop loads of money on multi-head projector setups. Get your push/offset filter ready, because that’s all you’re going to need! You could render loops with the offset filter so they’re scrolling horizontally, but it’s […]

A commissioned installed will transform the Museum of Modern Art in New York into a walk-in/walk-by movie theater. Artist Doug Aitken will be creating his first large-scale installation in the United States. And there’s no question it’s large-scale: the new MOMA has vast, hulking rectangular spaces on its exterior, a nod to the museum’s High […]

No, really. VJing is half motion graphics, half performance and half tech-nerding. Sadly, most of the best motion graphics is going on in TV advertisments, and as I try to avoid watching ads on TV at all costs, I end up collecting the good ones online. When I work with an artist I like to […]

Analog Industries notes that Ableton architect Robert Henke (Monolake) has created a successor to his custom Monodeck controller. The new controller has lots more knobs, LEDs, and buttons. I thought perhaps the controller used Doepfer DIY parts, like its predecessor, but a reader on Analog Industries says it’s actually a MIDIbox-based project. We’ll have to […]

Amplifying violins — and processing them with bizarre Max/MSP patches using mics and pickups and gyroscope bows — is no longer a major challenge. But it wasn’t always so. Early recordings of violins faced the challenge of the fragile sound of the instrument. Builders like John Matthias Augustus Stroh devised a primitive but effective solution: […]

The original design of the violin is a classic, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying to improve upon it with modern tech. While it looks mostly like an ordinary bow, the Hyperbow is designed to electronically measure gestures and calculate force, speed, and bow-bridge distance, thanks to accelerometers, gyroscopes, and force sensors. The bow, […]

We hear lots of discussion of how to make better digital instruments. But to fully understand instrument design, it’s often best to look at instruments from around the world that have evolved over centuries. (Hey, these synthesizers and such, by comparison, are mere infants.) Here’s a fantastically virtuostic performance from 11 year-old Sirena Huang, via […]