For anyone waiting to hear some news, Avid is live-streaming their press conference from the Audio Engineering Society (AES) convention in San Francisco, at 4PM California time (7 PM Eastern). Okay, they’re not quite Apple – I’ll be seriously freaked out if CEO Gary Greenfield showed up in a black turtleneck – but it’s an […]

Syphon VDMX 5 Beta 8 integration Demo from vade on Vimeo. Once upon a time, we imagined a future in which computer applications shared content, media, and data effortlessly, where different tools all coexisted. The reality we got was, in almost every category, far more monolithic. By exploiting a little-known feature of the Mac’s graphics […]

Over 25 years later, portions of MIDI introduced early on in the spec remain relevant. And if you want to connect your MIDI-equipped gear to Apple’s iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad mobiles, you will soon have an array of choices. In iOS 4.2, best known for leveling the playing field between Apple’s handhelds and tablet, […]

Tim Exile is a mad, Reaktor-patching genius. What I love about his instruments is the emphasis on performance. THE FINGER put you at the helm of wild, keyboard-based effects. THE MOUTH continues the MIDI keyboard triggering, but focuses, as the name implies, on using your voice and microphone as the main input. See some of […]

Brian Eno’s Small Craft on a Milk Sea comes ashore in the US today on Warp Records, produced with collaborators Jon Hopkins (whom I recently interviewed and covered live) and Leo Abrahams (a wonderful and dexterous composer and musician himself). You can hear the full album on Grooveshark. Update: The Grooveshark available was apparently premature, […]

say Hello to KONKREET PERFORMER from Konkreet Labs on Vimeo. Berlin-based artist Shai Levy of Konkreet Labs shares their upcoming Konkreet Performer, an OSC controller application running on iOS that combines touch control with interactive visualization. The experience rethinks what A/V performance control could be, with a wild, alien interface of circles and particles interconnected […]

While Mac blog TUAW calls on Apple to kill optical drives (does Apple need that kind of encouragement?), the shiny digital compact disc and the album in general still have their devotees. Sure, album sales are down. Sure, digital downloads are in. But look beyond business or practicality for a moment at these exotic hand-constructed […]

Cakewalk’s SONAR has always been a compelling choice of DAW on Windows. Under the hood, its 64-bit processing, 64-bit mix engine, balanced complement of editing features, and quite-nice array of instruments and processors has held enough appeal. But then there’s the interface, which hasn’t held up to the tools underneath. Being pretty isn’t only cosmetic; […]

Photo courtesy Indamixx. Touch form factors make sense for music creation on the go: a mobile tablet with finger-based interface seems ideal for performance and travel. In the fast-evolving hardware, though, it’s tough to work out exactly what will be a hit and what will be a flop. Multitouch tablets have splintered in two – […]

Canon 7D vs. Barbie Video Girl from Brandon Bloch on Vimeo. Ah, the eternal debate over what constitutes a “toy.” We’re again seeing it as musicians snap up the cheap, smartly-designed keytar for Rock Band 3. (That should make a nice visual controller, too, though perhaps visuals are really the perfect application for the guitar.) […]