Come on in; the water’s fine. A chain of remixers cross oceans as they remix “Oceandrift,” by Kelp. Photo (CC-BY-SA) Derek Keats. The opening track is aptly-named, a diving bell launched into aquatic depths of ambient sound. But on this release, it’s just the beginning of the journey. From Kelp’s track “Oceandrift,” a set of […]

Cover image by Michael Cina. Courtesy Ghostly. Let me drop journalistic distance for a moment here: the last Willits + Sakamoto outing, teaming up Californian Christopher Willits and Japanese composer/musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, is one of my favorite albums. So I’m thrilled to hear these two are doing another release. Willits’ dreamy, evocative reveries meld perfectly […]

Users are already getting their hands on vjay from Algoriddim, a VJ app for the iPad. The novelty is clear: vjay’s features aren’t so different from a typical VJ app of a few years ago, but fitting that on an ultra-compact, touchable tablet is another matter. Readers of this site responded negatively to a lot […]

Some people release remixable stems. Some people release little tools or utilities. Glitch Factory is a complete tool set for live performance, combining performance presets, an Ableton Live set, and even remixable track stems. It’s like getting to borrow someone else’s computer to see how they play – after they first cleaned everything up and […]

TRI▲NGLE from Onur Senturk on Vimeo. While various powerful options are available, Cinema 4D has become a go-to tool for three-dimensional motion graphics, including those looking for a factory to produce slick visuals for live performance. Now, that power is free for students. (free as in beer – something I hear students also use for […]

MacBook Air, now starting at US$999 and with USB3 and Thunderbolt onboard. Photo courtesy Apple. Apple, of course, rolled out new Mac laptops yesterday. The most desirable of these – new MacBook Pro laptops with ultra-high-resolution Retina Displays – will require a significant budget, with pricing beginning at US$2199. And it could be worth it […]

Surrounded by a whirlwind of gear, Sam Barker has been collecting musical tools – vintage and otherwise – since his first track, produced at age 13. Believe it or not, this is his old studio – the new one, with nd_baumecker, we profile below. Photo courtesy Leisure System Records. Being futuristic – really looking forward […]

For all the sophisticated synthesis and remix tools out there, for a lot of musicians, the best thing sound technology can do is just give them a way to record and play. Looping is a simple technique – it involves recording a snippet of sound, playing it back, and then adding layers. But used masterfully, […]

You know in sci-fi how you’ll see robots and other machines that can transform, re-program themselves on the fly for a new task? (Okay, sometimes they’re evil robots.) Well, imagine a single-board – looking a bit like an ultra-compact computer – that does that for sound, and you have the basic notion of the RetroCade […]

Try a little thought experiment. In one column, write down everything you want in an audio interface. You probably come up with things like physical controls, proper meters so you can see levels, and lots of ins and outs (including digital and MIDI). Now, in another column, describe what you want it to look like. […]