Hardware workflows can be musically productive and rock-solid reliable. But why choose between hardware and software? Combine them. DirectEMX is a VST Editor for a Korg Electribe MX. Now, why would you want to drag a mouse around when you have physical knobs? DirectEMX has a number of answers to that. You can copy and […]

Kflux looks like a killer patch for Max for Live, a granulator you can drop in for sound-bending effects and, if you’re decent with Max, open up to learn more about how it works or edit to customize for your own purposes. At EUR9,99, seems like a must-buy if you’ve got a copy of Max […]

Photo (CC-BY) Lululemon. (Bonus points if you spotted their logo, yoga fans, though “ohm” works well for us, too!) Black Friday, named originally for the day on which retailers typically broke even for the first time in the year (think black ink), has become a holiday for sales in the US. I’ve seen a handful […]

Photo (CC-BY-ND Dave/riptheskull. Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers. I was thinking about technologies for which I’m particularly thankful, some non-obvious, some perhaps so obvious they might be easily be taken for granted. Each I hope represents some opportunities for others. At the risk of starting a Thanksgiving roast, in no particular order, here are […]

She’s a composer, a sound designer, a performer, and a violinist; she’s recognized as an expert in Ableton Live and has worked with artists ranging from Cirque du Soleil to Kanye West. But now we really get to hear Laura Escudé’s musical vision as a complete picture in her debut album this year, Pororoca. That […]

Seven Mantas from bar|none on Vimeo. You’ve got fingers. Those fingers are incredibly sensitive and expressive with pressure, which can translate to music. Happily, touch panels and velocity sensitivity can coexist, as we saw yesterday. There’s more where that came from. bar none points us, via Twitter, to work he’s doing with Ableton Live-controlling patch […]

Keyboards have worked for centuries, but they restrict continuous expression and pitch. Touch is more flexible, but most readily-available touch controllers (like the iPad) lack pressure sensitivity. That leaves ribbon controllers. When do you don’t have quite what you want, you make your own. Just ask Rasmus Nyåker of the Copenhagen Noise Lab. Rasmus writes […]

Vintage radio equipment, ca 1957, (CC-BY) the Seattle Municipal Archives. Oliver Chesler and his Wire to the Ear blog have long been among my favorite reading on the Web. It turns out he and I have both been pondering the idea of doing an audio podcast to talk about trends in music and technology. After […]

Interactive Puppet Prototype with Xbox Kinect from Theo Watson on Vimeo. When Microsoft gobbled up vision technology and announced they were channeling their own research into a product for their game console, artists, researchers, and hackers lamented. It seemed the tech might be destined only for a handful of mainstream game titles. Hours after the […]

Open source for the sake of it is one thing. This is open source hardware and software for the sake of making lighting more awesome. Open source hardware is the basis of a sophisticated, wireless lighting rig. It’s already syncing to music with Pd, and automatic lighting control right from free DJ software may be […]