For many living in the age of the computer, a performance mixer has gotten more useful, not less. It’s a no-brainer for DJs mixing records with digital, but it can be useful for other electronic musicians, as well. (For some of the readers of this site, that might mean mixing in hardware synths, multiple laptops, […]

A book surprised our friend Anton, Jitter wizard and visualist: can feedback (video and otherwise) be understood more deeply in relation to consciousness? -Ed. Wandering through a Barnes & Noble book store on the way to the checkout the other day, the cover of a book grabbed my attention. The cover showed the intricate geometries, […]

I think we’ve reached a geekdom singularity. Nintendo Wii controller + physical computing + OpenSoundControl + Mac + Kyma granular synthesis = Star Wars lightsaber sounds? Nicely done, Matteo Milani! More details from these Kyma sound synthesis experts at Unidentified Sound Object, which also has lots of resources on sound design in general on the […]

What’s circuit bending? Glad you asked: West Coast vs. East Coast vs. Third Coast: now it’s on, circuit bending fans. If you’re in California or Minnesota and were cranky that New York got the awesome Bent Festival and you didn’t, it’s your turn this week. Thursday through Saturday, Bent is moving out to Los Angeles, […]

Think vintage video hardware has nothing on classic analog music synths like the Moog and Buchla? Think again. The Rutt-Etra video synthesizer, circa 1972, did sophisticated video raster manipulations. The invention of Steve Rutt and Bill Etra, the Rutt-Etra may not have had its Keith Emerson, but it did inspire Nam Jun Paik and Gary […]

The Video Critter hardware video synth kit seen here last year has been incarnated as a Cellular Automata kit from the good folks of MAKE Magazine. MAKE has been nice enough to do the scary bits for you: the board is assembled and programmed, so all you have to do is make a nifty case. […]

This week I thought I’d shake things up a bit and post a few of the videos that came in over the last few days. It’s Friday folks! I hope everyone has an awesome weekend. That said, I hope you enjoy at least one of these. Do make sure to check out the last video. […]

Imagine the Apple TV as live music and visual instrument, and not just a way of watching archived Battlestar Galactica? Our friend Jeff Gambera has been busy hacking his Apple TV for just such unusual purposes. He’s gotten the real-time audio and music workstation Ableton Live working; even the demo song runs. (Plenty of people […]

Hispasonic has a hands-on video with the Dexter control surface. I must say, I’m impressed with how far the Dexter has evolved in its user interface over the Lemur. There are a lot of new widgets to support the DAW functions, and (finally) real interactive interlinking of control pages from the main screen, such as […]