Remember Patrick Flanagan & Jazari – his band of electroacoustic music robots?
This video takes a look at his DIY MIDI controller, the Meganome.
“I like the feel of arcade buttons and look of exotic hardwoods,” notes Flanagan, “so mass-market products just weren’t right for me.” Continue reading
SoundsOnline.com, a division of EastWest, has begun shipping its “Celtic-inspired” vocaloid virtual vocalist, Avanna.
If you check out the demos on their site, ‘Celtic-inspired’ translates roughly into ‘robo-Enya’.
Yamaha’s Vocaloid technology is designed to let you create virtual vocals by entering lyrics and notes. At this point, the voice synthesis technology is realistic enough to take you into ‘uncanny valley’ territory, sounding realistic-esque.
The new Vocaloid 3 interface lets you import wav files, so Avanna can “sing along” with your compositions from within Vocaloid. Avanna comes with a default reverb for added realism; you can also add vibrato and expression to “her” voice. Continue reading
Retronyms has introduced three new devices for Tabletop, its virtual studio for iPad.
Here are the details: Continue reading
AfroDJMac has released a new Ableton Live Collection created from tuned metallic wind chimes, WindChime Synths:
The Ableton Live Pack includes 5 Instrument Racks, 4 Drum Racks, 4 Effect Racks, plus 10 additional presets. These Ableton Racks are quite diverse and easily manipulated with macro knobs. A couple of the instruments use wind chime samples that were recorded directly to reel to reel tape, adding to the organic feel.
AfroDJMac created an EP, WindChime Ambience, that demonstrates the WindChime Synth pack. You can preview it below:
Electronic music pioneer Isao Tomita, 80, has announced he will feature a virtual singer Hatsune Miku as the main singer in his upcoming orchestra concert on November 23rd at Tokyo Opera City Hall in Tokyo.
His new piece Ihatov Symphony, which expresses the world of Kenji Miyazawa?s novel, will be performed by Japan Philharmonic Orchestra with a conductor Naoto Otomo. Miku will appear on stage as 3D image and sing and dance in time to music.
If you hate AutoTune, prepare to take a long elevator ride down to the previously undiscovered 10th circle of hell.
Developer Smule has released AutoRap, for Android & iOS devices, and, in just a few days, the app has been download 2.5 million times. With Smule?s ?rappification? technology, AutoRap maps the syllables of your speech to beats, to create a unique rap.
Above, Smule mastermind and Stanford Assistant Professor Dr. Ge Wang performs The Cornholio Test.