“Windows 8,” in Microsoft brand vaguery, can refer to all sorts of technologies, from infamous new sets of colored tiles that mostly confuse users to touch-enabled ultrabooks to tablets to Surface to Surface Pro, from computers that run Intel chips that run traditional Windows software to ones with ARM chips that don’t. In the near […]

Onyx Ashanti can wail on a computer with no computer in sight, jamming on a virtual horn that has vanished into his cyborg-like live rig. Mouthpiece and head-mounted prosthesis replace what might have been a virtual reality helmet – or sax reed. Sensors in his hands provide more expression. But this isn’t just some flash […]

Call it the Mutable Fun Pack. The Synth Happy Meal. The Family Variety Bucket. The Anushri doesn’t have quite the sound design depth that Mutable’s Shruthi-1 does, but in its place, you get a whole mess of different features. It’s an analog synth, with an additional digital oscillator. It’s got its own step sequencer/arpeggiator. It’s […]

Endeavour’s evo keyboard closely resembles a conventional music keyboard controller. But its piano-style keys and high-performance internals are custom engineered from the ground up for additional expression. High-speed connections mean lower latency than is possible with MIDI, and touch- and pressure-sensitive keys allow additional ways of adding to a performance, all in an aluminum case […]

In an extended fancy on the sounds inside the body “Organ Alpha” is a kind of responsive musical instrument that transforms human input into surround-sound audio. Your body speaks, it listens, and it answers. Sensors watch for movement inside a virtual stomach, as stethoscopes dangle, inviting input. Watch for the kid’s reaction in the video. […]

The story around digital DJing increasingly seems to be controllers built around specific software. As Native Instruments pushes their Kontrol line for Traktor Pro, Serato has rebooted both their software and their hardware approach. Serato DJ is the new generation of Serato software, with some much-requested features making their way to the tool. But whereas […]

“I am an app, I am an island…” On iPhone and iPad, there is now no shortage of apps that make interesting sounds. But producing music is for most people organizing sounds, and so, that same abundance of apps can become a weakness. You’ve got one thing that makes great noises, another thing that records […]

Years ago, when the phrase “controllerism” was still yet-to-be-coined and there was no official hardware for Ableton Live, DJ Sasha had one hell of a custom piece of kit. The Maven featured oversize, hard-to-disconnect plugs and beautiful metal hardware. Years later, it’d still make any Ableton user drool. What’s a Live user to do? Stop […]

Watching a skyscraper go up is always fascinating. For a long time, the thing basically looks like a bit pit in the ground. After some time, you get the beginnings of a skeleton. Suddenly, the structure rises at a near-impossible pace, climbing into the clouds faster than you’d imagine. Then, it’s at a point when […]

“I Have Nothing to Say and I Am Saying It,” a John Cage title, might well be the creed of the blogger – doubly so this music technology writer. So, here we go again. The notion of John Cage at 100 is humbling in itself. The idea that Cage is a century old cements the […]