Augmented Structures v2.0 / Istanbul Design Biennial / October 13th – December 12th, 2012 from Refik Anadol on Vimeo. Our century is marked by a wash of data, flooding out of explosive urbanization. Humans and numbers, it seems, are now densely packed, dynamic, and essential. Yet with that same density, they threaten to become invisible. […]

Breaking into the DAW and production market isn’t easy to do. Bitwig Studio has been criticized by some – including this author, in a couple of instances – for not differentiating itself in particular from rival Ableton Live. But in the latest beta video, we start to see something genuinely new in how VST plug-ins […]

From Japan, of course. Yes, continuing our coverage of stuffed, singing creatures – see our Theremin Cookie Monster via Koma Elektronik – here’s another entry. Cleverly, the aperture of the frog’s mouth determines pitch. Take that, Teddy Ruxpin. Thanks, Wouter Jaspers!

Let’s enhance! So, it seems a bit like Elektron might be working on a 4-voice analog synth. That is, especially since that’s what’s in the image found on the teaser site. Wonder what we can learn from the other corners of the image. I think the most interesting question here is whether Elektron does something […]

The miracle of recording is somehow no less extraordinary in this digital age – the ability to capture sound, the revolution that transformed music making worldwide, for better and for worse. In fact, if anything, the abundance of digital music is causing some people to rediscover the recording techniques that preceded it. Andy Deitrich of […]

Some art requires creative applications of technology in order to refine technique. At top, below: [Processing co-creator] Casey Reas. Digital minds converge at various places on the globe, but I’m uniquely excited for Resonate Festival 2013 in Belgrade, Serbia. I can think of no other place where this many different kinds of visualism intersect, from […]

I hesitate to give teaser/hype campaigns extra words, but there’s simply too much anticipation about whatever Swedish hardware maker Elektron is doing to ignore it. The makers of Machinedrum, Monomachine, and Octatrack have a minisite through which they’re gradually trickling out teasers for whatever they’re doing next. The safest bet – particularly given the samples, […]

Can a compact controller not only shrink the conventional music keyboard, but transform it, too? The layout on the just-announced QuNexus is something familiar to keyboard players. But the QuNexus assumes some new ways of playing, with keys that sense pressure and an instrument that you can tilt. Following in the footsteps (fingertaps?) of Keith […]

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 […]

As controllers get wild and creative and integrated with software, here’s one that might be simple and versatile enough to work with anything for some time. Photos courtesy Livid Instruments. Finally: a boring controller. No, that’s a good thing. We’re in an amazing era of controller hardware, witnessing an explosion of kit with fancy features, […]