As many ponder the fate of hardware mixing, mixing in software continues to advance. And in a reminder of just how many different applications video mixing can have, here’s a fascinating article about a new open-source Linux-based video mixing tool called Snowmix: Copenhagen Suborbitals Release Snowmix, an Open Source Video Mixer [The Power Base] What’s […]

You can dream of something, you can complain about it on forums, or you can do it. Sneak-Thief, aka Michel Morin, is a doer. And what’s great about him is that he doesn’t just produce geeky, obsessive hardware – he has the musical chops to match. He can wrangle his own hardware, coding in C, […]

Brilliant in more ways than one, this LED wall is affordable, practical, beautiful, and completely open source, from physical design to software. Hans Lindauer of Portland, Oregon sends us his project, constructed with collaborator Alex Norman for the band STRFKR, on tour with it now. Check it out in action: It defies the idea that […]

Beat Bricks – A LEGO Step Sequencer from superquadratic on Vimeo. There’s something about that feeling of snapping a LEGO brick in place, a tactile connection to childhood memory. So, while it’s perhaps neither necessary nor terribly practical, this rig that turns a LEGO board into a step sequencer is somehow irresistible. And, like any […]

You know in sci-fi how you’ll see robots and other machines that can transform, re-program themselves on the fly for a new task? (Okay, sometimes they’re evil robots.) Well, imagine a single-board – looking a bit like an ultra-compact computer – that does that for sound, and you have the basic notion of the RetroCade […]

I’m sure you’ve gazed up at big LED screens on stadiums and convention centers and the like and said this would be a lot more fun if I could play video games on it. Developers Mode Set got to live – and share – that dream. And they didn’t stop there: they built the whole […]

Live electronic musician Moldover’s MOJO is the Sherman Tank of controllers: enormous, indestructible, destructive. It’s also a deeply involved build, costing US$1999.00. If you want to get some of that … um, MOJO … but don’t have two grand lying around, or if you want to adapt it to your own mojo, Moldover’s work is […]

From top: Sarah Pease’s glass jar portable speaker design, and the David A. Mellis open source creation that inspired it. audioJar image courtesy Sarah Pease; all other images (CC-BY) David A. Mellis. Who says you can’t make your own consumer electronics? David A. Mellis, a co-creator of Arduino who now is starting a PhD in […]

Even before we get to the “open source hardware” angle, it’s special just finding something that can function as a self-contained, digital visual instrument. And Milkymist more than qualifies, as a video synth that can produce seemingly-endless generative outputs from raw image and live video inputs. But it is significant that this is open source […]

Come on – you know that occasionally you want technology to respond when you slap it. As my sister watched an episode of the television show Quantum Leap, I thoroughly enjoyed watch Dean Stockwell’s character Al give his pocket computer, looking for all the world like a 7″ tablet, little helpful smacks. SmackTop does that […]