In code and 3D models, in live visual performance and augmented architecture and dance, in VJ sets and futuristic 3D demos, shows and games, visualism extended to new ways of transforming perception. For just one slice of what happened this year, entirely by the numbers, here are the stories that scored the most page views […]

2011 has seen sweeping changes in technology and music, alongside the loss of titans Max Mathews and Tsutomu Katoh, two pioneers of our world. Some of these stories passed quietly; some with great fanfare. Here, we reveal those stories that attracted the greatest number of Internet eyeballs, a metric not necessarily of importance but certainly […]

The iPad becomes a canvas for a game with an atypically-musical, interactive sound score. All images courtesy the developers. Photos by whatkristensaw. Truly generative musical scores in games have been few and far between, and “music games” has traditionally meant arcade-style rhythm games in which you repeat phrases or whole songs as accurately as possible. […]

There are times when something happens that reminds you why you make the sacrifices to do what you do. A real highlight of 2011 for me was Gwydion ap Dafydd appearing with the MeeBlip, our open source synthesizer, baked into a cookbook. I knew Gwydion had gotten creative in making a housing for his MeeBlip […]

If you liked the generative, probability-based sequencing seen earlier this week, here’s another example – and it’s free and open source, so if you do want to pick it apart and you own a copy of Max/MSP or Max for Live, you can. Co-creator Giuseppe Sorce points us to the work: This is a simple […]

Graphics are good. Graphics are shiny. But when it comes to reality-bending, emotionally-immersive, perception-shifting power, look to sound and music. At least that’s the feeling you could get after playing Dimensions. Following their reactive music tools and Inception dream states for iOS, RjDj have turned their mind-altering sonics to gameplay. As with previous releases, these […]

A lot of people have waited a long time to see this happen. Lemur software running on the iPad, courtesy Liine. Click for bigger version. Before the iPad, before the iPhone, and indeed before the masses understood touch interfaces would be a big deal, there was the Lemur. Dazzling people with high-contrast, colorful controls, this […]

I was actually pleasantly surprised to see our MeeBlip open source synthesizer make a cameo in the latest teaser video for Lemur on iPad, the app I saw in action at Berlin’s Watergate. I expect we’ll have full details soon – and I hope to visit the MeeBlip-in-a-book again soon; even apart from being flattered […]

Dig into humanity’s past, and alongside the earliest tools, you’ll find some of the earliest instruments. Designing objects for expression seems to be an essential part of civilization. Martin Kaltenbrunner, a co-designer of the Reactable tangible music interface, is also a professor in Interface Culture at the Linz University of Arts in Austria. There, in […]

Compare the complex model of what a computer can use to control sound and musical pattern in real-time to the visualization. You see knobs, you see faders that resemble mixers, you see grids, you see – bizarrely – representations of old piano rolls. The accumulated ephemera of old hardware, while useful, can be quickly overwhelmed […]