So, you’ve seen lots of interesting looking iPhone apps, but most of them strike you as gimmicky. Others have interesting workflows, but limit you to working on the mobile device, not switching back to a computer. And maybe you’re perfectly happy with a phone running Windows Mobile or Palm OS. Enter SunVox. This is not […]

The iPhone has become an almost absurdly-popular platform for music apps this year, even given more capable, more plentiful PCs. But to those who don’t yet “get” the appeal, talk to a mobile music addict: having the ability to be creatively musically in corners of time that would otherwise go unused, like a cramped bus […]

A refresh for an old friend. Click through for full-sized image. MetaSynth has long been something special, a rare tool beloved by sound designers and fans of unusual software for music. The creation of software designer Eric Wenger, creator of the 3D modeling tool Bryce, expressed his unique vision of how computer design could work […]

Resolume 3.1 is here. The big news: a VJ app, an audiovisual app that supports Flash playback natively. Channels work. ActionScript 3 code (finally!) works. For Flash fans, of course, this is utterly huge – and if it means a few Flash-programmers-by-day become VJs by night, I’m all for it. (Now, if we could just […]

Through the power of skin-safe conductive ink, Scottish electronic artist Calvin Harris has collaborated with a team to make a synthesizer out of himself and a group of models in bikinis. That’s just fine, Calvin – now what are you going to use for your remaining two wishes? The project is the creation of Calvin, […]

dromama from Altitude Sickness on Vimeo. Turning one knob and bouncing up and down may work for some, but virtuoso electronic performers want more live control out of music. Why? Because we have more fun. Raymond Weitekamp is a monome power user based at Princeton who has organized like-minded monomists. As with Edison’s performance work […]

Ready to evolve past the mouse and keyboard? Squidy helps bind together all the possible “natural” user interfaces by putting touch, ink, speech, and vision and tracking together in a powerful set of libraries. In other words, if you’ve got a novel interface, Squidy will help you not only make sense of it, but use […]

OpenCV in action: Fungi by Todd Vanderlin. (CC) Linux can be an ideal operating system for visualists – with a little attention, anyway. Because it’s a free OS, you have a unique amount of control over hardware, and you can easily deploy your setup to any machine – perfect for last-minute computer changes for gigging, […]

Float away with Mujik… from The Amazing Rolo on Vimeo. Musical technology is often designed to be “hard” in character. Interfaces are cold and technological-looking, futuristic like spaceships, or made to replicate antique gear to make guitarists feel nostalgic. Musical interfaces consciously avoid anything “childish” – calling something a “toy” being the worst possible insult […]

In some of the news I’ve missed in the last couple of days are some unusual announcements. Urs Heckmann can be fairly considered one of the great soft synth designers, with accomplishments like Zebra. His latest, Bazille, like many recent soft synths, is a hybrid: FM synthesis plus phase distortion plus the obligatory subtractive synthesis. […]