The Roland CMU-800-R, a rare computer music production accessory for the Apple II, in near-mint condition in Chris’ collection. Photos (CC-BY-NC) Chris Randall; used by permission. By day, Chris Randall makes great music software and blogs, but as his not-so-secret Micronaut alter-ego, he’s building a triptych of EPs on the theme of electronics. These aren’t […]

Earlier this week, I took a quick overview of what options you can choose for connecting MIDI to the iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad. Make no mistake: the coming of iOS 4.2 will broaden your options for mobile MIDI on Apple gadgets. But I realized a somewhat glib comment in my story made some folks […]

Over 25 years later, portions of MIDI introduced early on in the spec remain relevant. And if you want to connect your MIDI-equipped gear to Apple’s iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad mobiles, you will soon have an array of choices. In iOS 4.2, best known for leveling the playing field between Apple’s handhelds and tablet, […]

AmpliTube 2 arrives today with new effects, recording, bounce to audio, export/import, practice tools, and in-app purchase of extra stomp modules. I’ve been playing with a pre-release version for the last few days. Combined with an audio interface like IK Multimedia’s own iRig, AmpliTube 2 turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a handheld, pocket-able […]

Tonight, interactive artists are taking over an Internet Cafe and turning it into exhibition space, running artworks that function in regular browsers. Artists: Erik Andersson, Cory Arcangel, Michael Bell-Smith, Charles Broskoski, Jon Cates, Aleksandra Domanovic, Doubble Happiness, Constant Dullaart, JODI, JK Keller, Greg Leuch, Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied, Duncan Malashock, Eva & Franco Mattes […]

Music software development includes some of the most sophisticated, expressive software out there. But it has long faced serious challenges in sales – audio software still appeals, generally, to a small slice of people, made smaller by factors ranging from piracy to the sheer complexity of available audio tools. As computing’s distribution model for software […]

Unlogo Intro from Jeff Crouse on Vimeo. As the Internets work themselves into a kerfuffle over Gap’s laughably bad logo redesign, here’s a different tack: eliminate logos from your world. Developed by Jeff Crouse, Unlogo is an entirely open-source project that draws on Intel’s incredible computer vision library, OpenCV, to train computers to see logos. […]

You hear the repeated chorus: music in the digital age has become meaningless and valueless, like turning on water from a tap in the middle of Rome. But, quietly, a movement is stirring that is reclaiming the value of music. Armed with nothing more sophisticated than markers, paper, collage materials, and imagination, they send mixes […]

It’s a week of mobile geekery and music as I travel to Stockholm. I’m speaking at the Android Only developer conference; I’m excited that there’s discussion not only of Android development per se, but also networking, the open-source CouchDB database (which itself has some promise for music projects), cross-platform development in JavaScript and dynamic languages, […]

Photo (CC-BY-ND) verityatthedisco. Remember the music industry? We used to talk about radio play and record deals. Now, we’re talking developers, APIs, and analytics. Of course, the test, now as then, is whether there’s actually substance for music listeners and artists. On Friday, we looked at Apple’s Ping and how, via TuneCore, artists who aren’t […]