“Games” are, at their heart, high-performance, real-time-optimized, interactive three-dimensional graphics engines. And that means that, by focusing on their live graphical capabilities, they can become incredibly advanced live visual instruments – the stuff of VJs and visualists. A number of artists have put that to good use. Riley Harmon sends along his work with the […]

Bliss – SevenUpLive 1.4 Preview from bar|none on Vimeo. monome lovers have come from all over the planet to exchange tips and creative ideas and check out music here in Princeton, New Jersey at the Monomeet. I’m here shooting some video, so expect a feature and links to some of the projects in a few […]

I got to spend yesterday working with the Launchpad; see the video above which I think should help you get a sense of scale and what it looks like. (Also on YouTube) We have additional videos from other sources below. It’s only been public for less than 24 hours, but as we did with the […]

A monome-like grid controller built for Live, shipping in November for $199 – and I’ve got a first hands-on look with the hardware. The feature that makes Ableton Live Ableton Live has always been its Session View, an array of Lego-like blocks of music triggering samples and patterns. In the grand tradition of the MPC, […]

It’s simply stunning some of the terrific instrument and effect plug-ins available that are now free and open source – yes, free as in freedom, not just freeware. I had commented in the past something along the lines of, “boy, wouldn’t it be great if this now meant, say, a Linux port?” and then went […]

Alongside our Renoise + Indamixx netbook-optimized production competition, I’m kicking off this week a series of CDM and guest tutorials on working with Linux audio tools, Renoise, and more. First up, here’s a basic look at how to route the free-as-in-beer linuxDSP effects toolkit into the powerful, modern, open-source DAW Ardour. Correction: I implied that […]

I want to highlight a comment from a recent story in which I was reflecting on how to approach Processing, and – in a larger sphere – design simplicity. Tom writes: My opinion – the problem with Processing is that is not part of a software ecosystem. Flash is aligned with Illustrator and After Effects […]

At work in Renoise. Photo (CC) Federico Reiven [blog]. If you’re ready to show your skills creating digital music, we want your work. UPDATED! New contest entry page, new deadline (10/25): http://www.renoise.com/competitions/indamixx/ Plus tips, tracks, and more to give you additional inspiration: More with Less:”Efficient” Renoise Music Tracks and Tips Renoise, the "bottom-up" music production […]

It’s a strange and wonderful sampling instrument and live rig, capable of mangling and remixing live, synced to tempo. It’s proof that live computer performance doesn’t have to be in only one tool, or use one technique. It’s a ready-to-play, affordable instrument you can pick up and use. It’s a Reaktor patch gurus can pick […]

Nodes of musical events, arrayed onto virtual tracks, in Jakob Penca’s iLoveAcid sequencer. Take a weekend, and make something: that’s the challenge behind the Music Hack Day, which joins a growing phenomenon of events built around collective creation. (CDM held its own tangible interface hackday online, which I definitely hope to follow up soon!) Initiated […]