In images by Benjamin Gaulon, Evan Meaney, NOSYNC, Galen Richmond, and Phillip Stearns, circuit bending – most associated with sound – becomes visual medium. “Glitch,” to me, is an incomplete word for this work, and one that can in some cases give the uninitiated the wrong idea. These are electronic visual textures, as raw and […]

The Swarmatron, made infamous by The Social Network, is just one of the crazy sonic creations we’ll be seeing this weekend. Photo credit: Joshua Sarner. This weekend in North Adams, Massachusetts at MASS MoCA, the band Wilco is gathering their very own music and arts festival, Solid Sound. It’s become a real oasis of unique […]

The original Walkman had two headphone jacks. (@OReillyMedia reminds us – and if you look closely, you can spot them!) Couples sharing iPod earbuds was an early sign of communal listening. So, how did the portable player turn listening inward – and how can you turn it back in the connected, Web age? Industry titans […]

All photos by Marsha Vdovin for CDM. Click for full-sized, gear pr0n versions. Print large-format, hang above your bed. CDM guest and photographer Marsha Vdovin joins us for a photo essay. Given free reign to choose what she wanted to do, she visits a Buchla module maker. Photos can speak volumes, and here the beauty […]

All this power, all this technology, and … yup, we’re making another aquarium. Works for me. As part of WebGL’s ongoing growing pains, Web engineers have gotten into a war of words that finds even some Microsoft engineers squaring off against other Microsoft engineers. Look closely, though, and you’ll see some real progress on making […]

All this power, all this technology, and … yup, we’re making another aquarium. Works for me. As part of WebGL’s ongoing growing pains, Web engineers have gotten into a war of words that finds even some Microsoft engineers squaring off against other Microsoft engineers. Look closely, though, and you’ll see some real progress on making […]

Pictured: Loopseque, in final form (top) and sketched on paper (bottom). Images courtesy the developers; visit them on Flickr. Saturday afternoon in Toronto, I’m giving a talk to the North by Northeast festival on music software and tablets. I’ll explain a bit about what tablets are about, and some of the software that’s out there […]

The latest iteration; image courtesy Roger Linn Designs. Moving beyond touching a screen as two-dimensional plane, Roger Linn’s concept music controller, the Linnstrument, adds tactile response and expression. Roger calls it “3D Note Expression,” but in lay terms, it means pushing harder on the controller makes it respond differently, as you’d expect from a physical […]

From game accessory to ubiquitous visualist tool, Microsoft’s surprise hit. Photo (CC-BY-ND) “My name is on my driving license”. EyesWeb is a rich toolset for computer vision, interactive software for Windows that lets you apply any number of vision techniques to intelligently analyze a video image. Since it sends OSC data, it can interact with […]

Moog Music has made official the launch of the Moogerfooger MF-108M Cluster Flux. Leaked specs went out yesterday. I was editing a book; hopefully you were doing something less work-like, such as sipping beers aside the beach with your iPhones completely powered down and stowed. But now that it’s official, we know full specifications on […]