We routinely see visualizations of air or auto traffic, but the lowly bicycle remains off the grid. So, from the perspective of the data itself, a visualization of bike movement is already getting interesting. What’s nice about this project by Kitchen Budapest and UrbanCyclr, though, is that the visualization itself is unexpected. So many data […]

Out of the noise of the Internet, don’t be surprised if some of the music being made is – unexpectedly – wonderful. So it is with a compilation curated by Chris Randall from the Analog Industries community. Unsuspected Sounds is unexpected. It’s proof that those people writing all those comments really do have time to […]

If you’re looking to build your own instruments and effects and sequencers and play with patching, you really don’t want this software. No, seriously – while a fascinating, fun tech demo, something like the desktop Pd or Max is probably what you want. (As we saw earlier this week, Pd-extended just got much easier to […]

The cast of characters crazy enough to try this. Image courtesy Native Instruments. In 1985, Thomas Dolby, Herbie Hancock, Howard Jones, and Stevie Wonder met onstage in Los Angeles to perform a Synthesizer Medley. (See video, bottom.) Can vocalist/electronic music legend Jamie Lidell (and keyboadist Mr. Jimmy), experimental sound guru and producer Tim Exile, champion […]

What would you want in your pocket for DJing? How about some key recognition and tracking, key mixing aid, BPM tap — and a flashlight (torch)? For the DJ who cares about mixing songs together in key and precise tracking of BPM, automatic recognition may just not cut it. One DJ and developer, Pete Simpson, […]

It’s like musical survival training. Quick: you’re stuck in a hotel. Can you make some music? Our friend Recue, aka Riku Annala, was unexpectedly being stranded in a hotel and made it into a musical opportunity. The results are damned fine listening. (Thank whatever act of God / airlines prompted this.) You can enjoy the […]

Pure Data is a wonder: a free and open source environment for creating your own musical and multimedia creations with graphical programming, from Miller Puckette, the original creator of Max. You can produce everything from interactive sequencers and drum machines to synths to video performance tools by connecting patch cables visually, and you can run […]

We’ve passed from Record Store Day to Earth Day – and here’s the perfect segue. Having ventured into the woods to find a music release, now we can hear trees transformed, by way of sampling, into catchy rhythms. Our friend Diego Stocco, that evergreen source of creative timbres, now makes everything from trees to beans […]

If you’re heading out into the wilderness to find a record store, why not actually head out into the wilderness – the one with trees – and find music there? Today, a you’ve no doubt heard, is Record Store Day. The official site is a useful resource, today and around the year. Today brings a […]

This collection of Instagram photos inspired an ambient compilation at the end of last year – one well worth adding to your listening queue now. Since then, challenges opened to a community on SoundCloud have produced hundreds of terrific tracks – and the latest weekly challenge is on now, with a deadline midnight Monday. Where […]