November, 2008 archive

This video demos processing an analog Jomox Xbase999 beat with the Jomox M-Resonator Analog Filter Machine.
The M-Resonator has two analog resonant low pass filters interwoven into a feedback matrix that has an envelope section as well. This box is capable of a wide variety of tones- from subtle filter sweeps to extreme feedback,.

Lil Jon isn’t exactly my cup o’ tea – but you have to give this guy credit for the way he works the Open Labs MiKo.

Nice retro demo of Folktek’s beautiful touch-based synth interface, the Harmonic Field. 
The Harmonic Field is a collaborational work by Arius Blaze and Ben Houston. Aside from basic controls for pitch, volume and activation – it is all touch based. There are four panels of twelve points each that allow the user to play a full [...]

This is a video demo of the Use Audio Plugiator tabletop synth.
The Plugiator is a hardware module for running software synths, and is available as a dedicated box or as a card for CME Keyboard Controllers.

The Smule team does their holiday greetings on the iPhone Ocarina app.

This video catches trance artist Dali at the Psychodelic Progressive Trance concert, singing, soloing on the synths and adding a little percussive spice:
The crowd doesn’t seem to notice anything unusual about Dali’s performance.
Can you tell when she’s faking it?

This is off-topic, but Paul Devereux is an expert on the archaeoacoustics – megalithic acoustics & their possible applications. He’s written a book on Stone Age Soundtracks, the acoustic archaeology of ancient sites.
The video is a little dry – but the information is deep and interesting – and seems to tie into some of the ideas that Steve [...]

The finger BassLine (App Store link) is a musical instrument for the iPhone and the iPod Touch that’s heavily inspired by the legendary Roland TB-303.
It turns your iPhone/iPod touch into a monophonic synthesizer with built-in pattern-based step sequencer, and it’s priced at a bite-sized $3.99.
Bassline doesn’t accurately duplicate a 303’s look or sound – but it does [...]

Jimmy Hotz uses the Hotz Box to explore new musical frontiers of real-time performance.
The Hotz Box was invented by Jimmy Hotz and first manufactured by Atari.
More on Hotz Super Instruments at Hotz’ site.

Shuriken.se has released Eckel – a MIDI-generating VST that creates rhythmic music based on the Euclidean algorithm:
The Euclidean algorithm (which comes down to us from Euclid’s Elements) computes the greatest common divisor of two given integers. The structure of the Euclidean algorithm may be used to automatically generate, very ef?ciently, a large family of rhythms used [...]