Surveying toys at a previous Handmade Music night. Handmade Music, the monthly celebration of DIY musical instruments, electronics, and software hits its new home at East Williamsburg’s 3rd Ward tomorrow night, Thursday 12/11 7:30-10:30p. [Directions] Here’s a glimpse of a couple of the projects expected tomorrow night. If you’re not in the NYC area, you […]

Kasio Kristmas from Jim McKenzie on Vimeo. Feeling a warm, holiday glow – or is that just nostalgia for simpler times, times when less digital information was needed to capture sound? Bits were real bits; sampling rates were low enough you could count to the top of them. Kids walked uphill through the snow both […]

Native Instruments Spark plus Blackbox from Create Digital Media on Vimeo. Hands-on control is a wonderful thing, as NI founder and Reaktor “mastermind” Stephan Schmitt noted in our story yesterday on his creation Spark. And LFOs are often not terribly interesting. But even using your feet for modulation, you may eventually run out of limbs. […]

A synth interface, on the surface, is just more knobs. So we look to creator Stephan Schmitt to find out what makes his synth invention tick – and his thoughts on synth-building philosophy. Click for larger version of the UI, which you can access to create your own sounds if you have a copy of […]

I’m busy working on putting the finishing touches on the CDM Winter 08 publication. You’ll be able to get this as a readable e-publication online or even print-on-demand via lulu. What’s special to me about is is that it’s evolving into a different kind of entity. It’s a print layout, but it’s really an extension […]

Reverse Shadow Theatre from gabor papp on Vimeo. There’s no shortage of stunning motion graphics in the world. But something’s missing: human beings. Sure, you can render endless, polished animations, but can you perform with animation like you can a musical instrument? Just as studio recording gloss and sameness has made people crave live music […]

We really do need a new rich Internet platform. We need more seamless platforms that work across operating systems and mobile devices. And, in an issue extremely relevant to this site, we need development tools that make it easier for artists of all kinds to create media software and digital artwork and performance tools. The […]

STEIM in its idyllic surroundings – sixth building from the right. Photo courtesy Florian Grote. Earlier this week, I got some welcome news: the STEIM performance research and development center in Amsterdam is safe for now. STEIM has been a real hub for people doing work in sound around the world, not just in Amsterdam, […]

8-bit audiovisual party Blip Fest started last night here in New York, so it’s only natural we celebrate game systems used for music through the weekend in its honor. (Reminder: come meet up with me and Boing Boing’s Joel Johnson tonight, 6-8p, if you’re going to Blip. Facebook event / CDM post) Sega Master Bitcrunch […]

Living, eating, breathing Game Boys. Meneo, visual/musical artist on Game Boys. Photo (CC) rabato. Retro hardware? Vintage game machines? Old computers? New mobile devices? Whatever it is, we’ll make music and motion on it. The Blip Festival, the legendary international festival of vintage music and visual tech, invades New York today (Thursday) through Sunday. There’s […]