Music scores remain one of the best ways to record or share many musical ideas. If you’ve done even casual notation, you’ve likely had the experience of scrawling something down on a scrap piece of paper, manuscript or otherwise. Imagine, instead, quickly scrawling something in the now-ubiquitous web browser window. Gregory Dyke writes with a […]

iPad meets Mac, new generation meets, old – what next? Photo (CC) Hassan Hodges. Steve Jobs is threatening to destroy the Internet. And it’s not even his fault. No, I’m not talking about whether or not the iPad supports Flash. I’m talking about the new propensity of various analysts to redefine computing, technology, and apparently […]

RichardL notes some potentially major news this afternoon. Shortly after my post, Steve Jobs himself reportedly answered an open letter written by free software advocate Hugo Roy. Hugo’s letter contained suggestions about whether a standardized unencumbered video codec needed to accompany the video tag in order to be truly “open.” The original post, on “hugo’s […]

Cymatic ripple from flight404 on Vimeo. It’s a beautiful age emerging for people making art with code. Tools like Processing and OpenFrameworks are as much about a philosophy and way of life as a specific tool. They’re not only about free and open code, but lightweight syntax, pulling together libraries that make media “just work,” […]

Grain Main Frame is a sound sketch, a one-off piece of software that loads audio files and plays them via several inventive, homebrewed sample players. Via granular techniques, methods of slicing sounds into tiny grains and then re-assembling them, a single sound can be stretched, sliced, and retriggered creatively. The software supports drag-and-drop functionality, as […]

Pictured: Looks native, but this app is built with a cross-platform library. And really, for music making – or great, immersive development, in general – does it matter? The iPad has inflamed plenty of passions online. On this site, I’ve gotten a little flak from iPad lovers and haters alike. It goes something like this: […]

And yes, there’s even built-in control surface support for the Wiimote. I have to give that a try to figure out how the heck that works. Why wait for The Future, when you can have a full-featured DAW that supports OSC (OpenSoundControl), right now, today? That DAW turns out to be Ardour, the open source […]

That didn’t take long – there’s already a how-to video for using an iPad as a multi-touch controller for Ableton Live. Great work, Atlanta music tech wizards! You can thank RyanNoise.com. Note: See notes for why they’re using this combination of software. Code is online in GitHub. Updated: the video has been refreshed (clips needed […]

Joshue Ott’s Multidraw in action, as an Apple mobile provides wireless, collaborative drawing for anyone. Today, iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, but tomorrow, more computers and devices will be supported. Come learn more in NY, using free (as in freedom) tools – or choose open source tactile controls in LA – or stick around for more online. For […]