Barry Vercoe, who made coding sound accessible to all, has died

Barry Vercoe, composer and music scientist, founded MIT’s electronic music efforts and helped shape the Lab’s efforts in digital synthesis and machine listening and learning. But his biggest impact came outside the academy: as the inventor of Csound, he took the original innovations of Max Mathews and made them accessible to everyone. The live coding scene that followed has transformed the practice of coding sound into a new form of musical performance.

Unity 6.1: performance, Web and device features, free for personal use

Unity offers a powerful alternative to Unreal Engine for artists, with some unique features and broader device support, including the Web. And while pricing caused some heated discussions a while back, the important thing to know is that students, personal users, and educators can all use Unity for free. So let’s check in with Unity, which has just branched into stable and latest-and-greatest branches with Unity 6.1. Here’s what’s new.

Peter Kirn - April 28, 2025

Patch in VR using gestures, not controllers: PatchWorld update

Virtual patching has reached a major milestone: you don’t need a controller. Using just your hands and natural gestures, you can now build up entire interactive worlds, connect virtual wires, tweak knobs and faders, and play virtual instruments in PatchWorld on Meta Quest. Combined with Mixed Reality, virtual physics, and support for OpenSoundControl and Ableton Live and Link integration, it’s a glimpse of how mixed reality and VR can work for music making.

Peter Kirn - December 24, 2024

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