You know the ideal audiovisualist setup: two PCs, one running sound, one running visuals. But connecting those two machines can be less than ideal. Enter EthernetMidi, a completely free implementation of MIDI over Ethernet. It’s Windows-only for now – the Mac has its own free MIDI-over-IP implementation built into the OS. But there’s reason to […]

Product Placement from Matti Niinimäki on Vimeo. It’s like Creature Comforts for the ad industry. But look out, traditional animators – still images can come to live almost magically through the interactive powers of Animata, an open source animation tool. In a brilliant series of animated interviews, Product Placement populates its scenes with classic ad […]

Dreaming of a future in which music, instead of just being rendered audio files, arrives in fully generative, interactive form? Albums might “listen” to the world around you, and listeners could record their own alternate versions of music and share with others. RjDj, the generative mobile music platform for Apple devices, realizes that future right […]

Projector-type 3D scanning seems very functional, but I would expect it to lose accuracy as the object size decreases. So for scanning small objects (such as Lego), Lego genius Philippe Hurbain has come up with a scanner made of lego. Philippe’s instructions also includes (under “3D reconstruction”) a technique for creating a “complete” 3D model […]

No Carrier (a.k.a. Don Miller) has released glitchNES, a ROM (read: game cartridge) that makes user-controlled visuals on the old school Nintendo Entertainment System, with results that resemble the effects of circuit-bending. glitchNES is free, open source, and runs well on NES hardware and in accurate emulators, e.g., Nestopia. Get it from No-Carrier.com. As Don […]

An unfortunately-worded tip jar at the Hanoi Airport. Photo: theloneconspirator. Here’s a different take on soundware business models: offer your stuff for free, then depend on donations. That’s the tack at Togeo Studios, who have an impressive collection of packs. Wave Attack I, for instance, includes single-cycle waveforms with arpeggiated sequences and leads. Their work […]

Look out, Akai APC40. There’s another contender in the emerging Controller With Lots of Buttons And Also Faders and Knobs and Crossfader product category. Livid’s Ohm64 combines the light-up button grid with faders, knobs, trigger buttons, and most importantly, unique customization options and a lovely wooden case. What’s unique about this one: High-end materials: anodized […]

This is quite a week for visualist software – the release of Resolume 3, the 1.1 update to GrandVJ, and now an announcement regard Livid’s lightweight VJ app, Cell DNA. At US$149, it’s a neat little no-nonsense app — there’s even a lighter Cell Standard. What strikes me about the interface is that it’s reminiscent […]

Okay, it looks a little scary, but just think of that as an added way of convincing your friends you’re a total badass. You may have heard about Pure Data (Pd), the open-source cousin to Max/MSP and a powerful tool for visual programming or “patching” music and multimedia. Pd has even appeared in the iPhone […]