MilkyTracker, the free and open source GPL tracker tool, is now available on Android, thanks to some cross-platform goodness. (Developers: see SDL-lib, which brings a flexible multimedia library to Android and enables a host of multimedia and games, and the NDK, Google’s JNI-based toolset for C/C++ on the platform.) So, what does this mean? It […]

Once upon a time in media art, keeping your “secret sauce” of techniques confidential and proprietary was more or less given. Nowadays, though, collective knowledge about how to make stuff helps everyone improve their craft, and push the media forward – perhaps more in line with mature, traditional art technique. So, I hope we’ll more […]

Behold the power of the Web: composition ideas become a tool, a tool becomes a means for even casual users sharing musical sketches, and a browser toy can be a window into a Turkish sound artist breeding musical DNA like some people breed strains of flowers. Otomata is a simple generative online grid-based sequencer, owing […]

The Molten drum machine meets MIDI and sync, via the Camera Connection Kit. It’s just one of a number of improvements that have made iOS tools more mature, more powerful – and easy to integrate with other, less Apple-y hardware and software. Image courtesy One Red Dog. It’s nice to think software gets better, not […]

Juergen Koppmann, Vienna-based digital media artist, shares his latest creation – “a video shredder live VJ box” that applies horizontal oscillations to “grind” and distort video signals. Specs: 3 horizontal line oscillators, triggered by 3 arcade buttons all 3 can be combined for line and color grinding of any video input signal. additionally voltage reducer […]

Juergen Koppmann, Vienna-based digital media artist, shares his latest creation – “a video shredder live VJ box” that applies horizontal oscillations to “grind” and distort video signals. Specs: 3 horizontal line oscillators, triggered by 3 arcade buttons all 3 can be combined for line and color grinding of any video input signal. additionally voltage reducer […]

Ding dong, the score is dead… or not, in fact. Photo (CC-BY) Steve Snodgrass. There’s a peculiar false controversy going on at the moment over music notation. First, the blog for online (Flash-based) browser notation editor Noteflight introduced a manifesto: Music Notation Today, Part 1: A Brief Manifesto The essay by president Joe Berkovitz is […]

Ribbons are so in this year. Thanks to Trent Reznor picking up the Dewanatron Swarmatron, they’re even winning Oscar Awards (after a fashion). Coagula aka Giuseppe Di Cillo has been in touch with me for some time about his evolving DIY ribbon controller. Now he’s pulling out all the stops: his full version includes a […]

Before Microsoft made Kinect’s 3D-sensing, skeletal-tracking “natural interaction” a console tech, it got its start via maker PrimeSense on the PC. Ironically, efforts by hackers to do amazing things with Kinect may be part of what has given Kinect traction – certainly, launch titles were extremely limited. Now, the same natural interaction looks to come […]

Strings of numbers are everywhere in our world, tucked just outside our awareness alongside identifiers like bar codes. Dutch media artist and inventor Leo van der Veen simply plucks that information and brings it to the fore. Barcodas is a barcode-scanning iPhone app that deciphers common EAN and UPC codes and translates them into musical […]