The Digital Worlds blog, an Open University blog, has an excellent look back at the artistry of early video tubes entitled “Oscilloscopy.” There’s John Whitney’s “showreel” from 1961, which shows off the ground-breaking (1961, folks!) possibilities of his “mechanical analog computer,” as appropriated from an antiaircraft gun director. Wait … say that again? Yep, Whitney […]

It’s no secret: the once wildly-popular ArKaos VJ software has been looking a bit long in the tooth lately. And upgrades only get you so far: sometimes, as software matures in its life cycle, you have to redo the foundations. That’s what ArKaos has been working on, and the results, renamed GrandVJ, are due out […]

I’m teaching a class in NYC next month on Processing at Harvestworks, the elegant, musician-friendly coding language: Processing Class in New York, Online: Art From Code, For Non-Coders [Create Digital Motion] It’s on CDMotion rather than CDMusic for a simple reason — Processing is especially well-suited to visuals, 2D and 3D. But there is audio […]

Proprietary systems like FreeHand’s awkwardly-named MusicPad Pro Plus (Pro Plus, eh?) have offered digital manuscript paper for some time. But the idea there is you buy dedicated hardware; the MusicPad Pro Plus is US$899. With tablet PCs starting at about the same price, and the convenience of having your mobile computer also be your music […]

    It’s Flash 909, and Amiga Flash. Code wizard Andre Michelle has already made a name hacking audio capabilities into Adobe Flash and ActionScript 3. We got to see his work in the form of real-time audio effects processing in the GarageBand-like online sample-and-compose interface for Splice: Interview: How Splice.com Has Taken Music Real Audio […]

We live in an age of disposable electronics. iPod battery wears out or new prettier iPod arrives, and old iPod gets tossed. Or, if you’re Norwegian sound artist and musician Espen Sommer Eide, your iPod could live a second life far more interesting than its first. The SlÃ¥ttberg is a custom musical instrument fashioned from […]

Squint closely at that interface: you’ll be seeing more of it soon. 3L demands a MacBook Pro, and scoffs at your softcore MacBook AIR. And it’s likely to make a big splash in the visualist software world. 2008 is looking like an extraordinary year for visualists: there’s an explosion of new software tools for live […]

Music software maker Cakewalk is now “Cakewalk by Roland” after Roland acquired a majority stake in the company. While the new logo raised a few eyebrows around the show floor, especially after full acquisitions of Steinberg and Emagic by Yamaha and Apple, respectively, this deal is more of a smaller evolution than a big change. […]