Musicians have long benefited from audio plug-ins; why not visualists and VJs? The FreeFrame plug-in format is the answer to that question, with broad support in favored visual apps like Resolue Avenue, Modul8, vvvv, Jitter, and others. All you need is some plug-in juice to feed them. Enter Marc Wren, whose new sfFreeFrame plug-in is […]

Music notation is powerful because it’s a standard. You can share it between musicians and understand what it means. What if, instead of being confined to individual, platform-specific apps, digital controls for music were the same way? We’re not just talking a MIDI message here or there, either – someone could walk in with some […]

This afternoon, I feel obligated to offer some explanation. Following my post about Julien Bayle’s LFO Everything module for Ableton Live, several readers and a forum thread on the Ableton Live forum raised concerns that a portion of Julien’s Device was adapted from another developer’s work without attribution. Heated discussion on the Live forum spilled […]

The most valuable tech is tech that lasts. And so, combining MIDI (I love the 80s!) with the iPad can make it useful as part of a “studio” setup, not just a replacement for other gear. Here’s the iPad step sequencing our MeeBlip open source synth – no need to give up knobs and tangible […]

Can minimalist controller design make even two knobs into a digital instrument? We’ll soon see. The arc, the new controller from monome designer Brian Crabtree, contains just two high-resolution encoders (known to us in everyday usage as “knobs”). It makes no sound; every minute rotation and a push-button action are telegraphed to a computer. Everything […]

Just push a little harder, each of you, and I’m sure this will work out. Photo (CC-BY) Michael Fraley. Three and two browsers / H.264, VP8 / Two sides can’t agree. Video, playing… / My Flash plugin slows, crashes. / Circular debate You could stop reading there, but by way of further explanation: Have you […]

Elliot Woods writes with an extraordinary proof of concept: it couples the depth-sensing capabilities of Microsoft’s Kinect with projection mapping to effectively “scan” a 3D scene. It’s almost Holodeck good, from the looks of the potential here. Kinect hack + projection mapping = augmented reality +hadoukens): Using the kinect camera, we scan a 3D scene […]

Elliot Woods writes with an extraordinary proof of concept: it couples the depth-sensing capabilities of Microsoft’s Kinect with projection mapping to effectively “scan” a 3D scene. It’s almost Holodeck good, from the looks of the potential here. Kinect hack + projection mapping = augmented reality +hadoukens): Using the kinect camera, we scan a 3D scene […]

I’ll open with what I just said to some (perfectly reasonable) questions raised by Øivind Idsø on Twitter: most users make video with proprietary software and watch it in Flash. The idea is to change that. It turns out to be hard. Open video advocates have now gotten some huge gifts from Google; I’m disinclined […]

Going wireless has long been a desire of musicians, but solutions have been slow to catch on. Two new products add wireless capabilities to your existing MIDI gear; I’ve talked to the creators to explain a bit about how their solutions work. AirPower from Starr Labs uses proprietary 2.4GHz communication for wireless MIDI communication. The […]