Sometimes, audio products come in sexy, exciting packages. But sometimes, they simply solve a set of problems. And the products that fit into the latter category can be as beloved (dare I say sexy), if not more so. Since I first saw a prototype in the fall, I’ve been eagerly awaiting trying out Cakewalk’s V-Studio […]

Look out, Akai APC40. There’s another contender in the emerging Controller With Lots of Buttons And Also Faders and Knobs and Crossfader product category. Livid’s Ohm64 combines the light-up button grid with faders, knobs, trigger buttons, and most importantly, unique customization options and a lovely wooden case. What’s unique about this one: High-end materials: anodized […]

PEMF Lessons: Bidule – Direct Cabling & Your Default Layout from Primus Luta on Vimeo. Ed.: Music creation is all about the special relationship we have with certain, powerful tools. And one app that gets very little attention is unquestionably the deep but elegant modular patching environment Plogue Bidule. CDM turns to power user Primus […]

The Latest Version of Bidule features an OSC Monitor and WaveViewer. Ed.: Plogue Bidule is an unusual animal: this affordable patching tool resists conventional ways of doing things, down to its hatred of the number “1.0.” But Plogue has an underground following inside the already-underground world of modular patching tools for creative music. I’ve invited […]

Delia Derbyshire, UK electronic composer extraordinaire and BBC Radiophonic Veteran, inspires depths of love and respect from us electronic muzos male and female that defy description. As Tara Busch from AnalogSuicide puts it, people aren’t just fans: they’re Delians. I think if you could see the image inside the heads of Delia fans at the […]

AudioMulch isn’t just a sequel or a new episode. This is AudioMulch: The Next Generation. We have holodecks in this one. That’s the claim of the developer, anyway, and looking at the features, I have to agree. AudioMulch has long been a cult favorite for people wanting to patch together unusual sonic tools and performance […]

This time tomorrow (6PM AEST, 8AM GMT, 3AM New York), I’ll be streaming live with AV turntablist Sampology from the Game Over party at the State Library of Queensland. Following on from our previous Game On Set. Sam will be kitted out with Serato’s Video-SL (review on CDMo), and I’ll be bringing a brace of […]

Ed.: Scott Pagano is one of a handful of people you could call visualist superstars. He’s become a headline staple with some key electronica events and artists. But that’s not why I’m excited to see him here – I’m thrilled that he geeks out on some of the same stuff that makes me hot and […]

Unboxing the Lemur, (CC) Bjarke Bech. Before the iPhone, before HP computers and Windows 7 touch features and Apple trackpad gestures, the Jazz Mutant Lemur multi-touch interface was ahead of its time. Today, it’s still unique, in that it’s one of the few commercially-available devices to support OpenSoundControl, it’s a luxuriously-large multi-touch screen, and it […]

Photo: Lee Jordan. Speaking as a sometimes-music-journalist, I’ve always had the sneaking suspicion that we were all part of a vast conspiracy. Our job can become wrapping big-name artists into a polished, glamorous narrative. There are small nods to humanizing them, of course, but the message can quickly become: this person is special and different […]