It’s all been done. That’s generally the impression one might reach with interactive design, and perhaps in no technology more than the “follow visitors walking around the space” computer vision trick. But as interactive art matures, those basic tropes are becoming the basis of new, sometimes beautiful ideas. Case in point: London/Berlin-based agency Random International’s […]

Disappointed our electronic music present didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to when it was still the future? Sad you didn’t get shiny, knob-laden synths, robot masks, blindingly-colorful lens flares, funky-crisp electro jams, and beloved music distributed on cassette? Well, you could sit around getting all wistful, or you could simply make that […]

Oblong g-speak from Oblong Industries on Vimeo. Los Angeles-based Oblong are doing some wonderful work with gestural interface design and their own homebrewed tech. I review a bit of what this means for the challenging area of building an entire music app today on Create Digital Music. (I feel if stories aren’t regularly overlapping on […]

From the Lab: Airborne Beats from Oblong Industries on Vimeo. With hand gestures recalling those that first reached the mainstream in Minority Report, “Airborne Beats” lets you make music just by gesturing with your hands and fingers in mid-air. You can drag around audio samples, and make gestures for control, controlling both production and performance. […]

Here in flatland, ideas for musical interfaces may have become largely well-trodden. Not so in the third dimension. And so, one of the most unusual audiovisual interfaces has now hit beta, ready for you to explore. And that does mean “explore”: think navigation through spinning, animated galaxies of musical objects in this spatial modular sound […]

BEATSURFING #5: JAM at VLEK from Vlek Data on Vimeo. Vlek’s Beatsurfing app is one of the most strange and wonderful things on the iPad, producing quirky, drawn controllers that open up new musical avenues. It’s so strange and wonderful, in fact, that it’s befuddled some of you who tried to use it. So, good […]

Facebook is bragging about one number, in particular – one billion users – this week. But they’re also releasing some other hard numbers on how people are using their service. Much has been made of how Facebook has transformed social gaming and, via Instagram specifically, photography. But just on Instagram’s heels is none other than […]

Native Instruments is continuing their hardware attack with a new device that combines three tools: controller, mixer, audio interface. Those knobs and faders control software, as an integrated controller for Traktor, but internally, the Kontrol Z2 is also a mixer and computer soundcard. It’s geared primarily for Traktor users, of course, but with pricing under […]

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 […]