The Rock Band keytar Rock Band 3 Wireless Keyboard, next to an iPod touch, for scale. What if a gaping product hole for musicians were filled by a game company instead of a musical instruments company? There’s no need to imagine: pick up the new Rock Band 3 keyboard, and you’ll see what I mean. […]

A toy controller – in a good way. The Mustang Pro guitar controller for Rock Band 3 is equipped with a full MIDI implementation and standard 5-pin port to connect to synths and computers. Since the very first Guitar Hero game, musicians have found ways of converting game music controllers into genuine music controllers, through […]

iOS has proven some of the appeal of on-demand interactive artwork and audiovisual toys. But even the iPad is limited to a 10″ screen; these days, the biggest screen in the house that isn’t a TV is often attached to a computer. (In fact, I regularly run across people who use a large computer monitor […]

iOS has proven some of the appeal of on-demand interactive artwork and audiovisual toys. But even the iPad is limited to a 10″ screen; these days, the biggest screen in the house that isn’t a TV is often attached to a computer. (In fact, I regularly run across people who use a large computer monitor […]

Play testing Rock Band’s challenging new play modes. You know, challenging — kind of like music. Alli Thresher, community moderator, and Jessa Brezinski, intern. What Harmonix has achieved with Rock Band, and their original Guitar Hero, is remarkable. At their core, these games are descended from arcade rhythm games, reducing music to simple coordination of […]

Must-read: Chris Adamson, one of the few developers with real experience with Java and multimedia, lays out just how bad the situation is with Java on the Mac: shoes[1].drop(); I think the problems here are not insurmountable – it’s just a matter spending energy on the future of development in Java, not ranting at Steve […]

Music software development includes some of the most sophisticated, expressive software out there. But it has long faced serious challenges in sales – audio software still appeals, generally, to a small slice of people, made smaller by factors ranging from piracy to the sheer complexity of available audio tools. As computing’s distribution model for software […]

Apple just killed their implementation of Java on the Mac – which just happens to be the only really usable implementation of Java on the Mac. There’s no other way to say it: Java developers on the Mac have relied on Apple’s implementation, and that implementation is not moving forward with Mac OS, period. I’m […]

What if you could make any device or any software a re-programmable musical instrument, effect, or soundmaker? Your phone could be a touch-controlled effect, your tablet a sketchpad for interactive drum sequencers. Patches assembled on your desk on a computer could be taken with you in your pocket. And what if you could do all […]

I covered the OTO Machines Biscuit early this year, in particular noting the design process of creating new hardware. Hardware today is back with a vengeance, but with the flexibility of software: the gear is contained in a single object and interface, but can be upgraded just as computer code on a desktop can. Sure […]