Is it the call of the ocean? The primordial urge to return to our pre-human evolutionary roots, the womb? Hand dryness caused by too many hours at the computer? Whatever the reason, interactive musicians keep designing wild instruments involving water. The latest comes from Australian hacker / designer / instrument builder Sebastian Tomczak. He’s turned […]

What good is open source hardware? How about hacking in additional functionality by adjusting the code and electronics? The creators of Monome have a new video demonstrating some of the possibilities for user modifications to their hardware project. Included: Optical encoders allow additional multi-touch interactions, for a game of Life (the grid-based life simulation of […]

We were already very excited about the DS-Xtreme (“DS-X”) when we first saw it. In brief, why the DS-X makes us drool: DS storage Play media files Run homebrew software Connect directly to a computer via USB No weird hardware sticking out of the back of your DS that could get broken (Previously: DS-Xtreme, Plug-and-Play […]

Music tech videos have begun to infect YouTube (you know, between footage of bunny rabbits opening letters). As the opening moments of wackiness commence, you might think the following videos from cult-success French plug-in developers Ohmforce has plenty in common with the cracked-out Museum of Techno videos we’ve been watching. What these videos have in […]

There are no limits to the new forms the once bargain-priced Casio SK-1 synthesizer can take, transformed by circuit bending. But whereas most circuit-bending involves hacks with wires, bending superstar Gijs Gieskes goes further, by building a large mechanical apperatus to trigger the bent sounds. Gijs sent this link last week and I didn’t get […]

Aside from commercial alternatives, the preferred open source audio editor tool is Audacity. Early releases of Audacity were unquestionably rough around the edges, in terms of both stability and features, but thanks to the efforts of the open source community, the software is steadily improving. Version 1.2.5, released this week, is the new stable version, […]

Firmly in the “start ’em young” category, the TSI (Teething ring Sound Instrument) is designed to allow 0-3 year olds to create digital music in Max/MSP. Pressure from the baby’s mouth suckling at the teething ring is converted to MIDI messages and sent to a sound patch on a connected computer: Pitch corresponds to the […]