JazzMutant has updated the Lemur, a multitouch control surface. Here are the highlights: Revamped Editor Designing interfaces for the Lemur has never been easier. Version 1.5 features a highly improved JazzEditor, that provides a more efficient way to design your personal interfaces and lets you easily route your control data – MIDI and OSC –… Read More JazzMutant Updates Lemur to 1.5
Designer Sari Maani has come up with a design concept for a Portable Creative Studio: “The device combines all basic requirements such as wireless internet access, speakers, sound card. While the touch sensitive screen, allows application of different software that mimic complex and usually expensive hardware such as keyboards, Synthesizers and other instruments creating an… Read More Portable Creative Studio Design Concept
Sorry SynthTech. Studio-quality modules, 1/8″ thick aircraft aluminum panels, Bourns pots and Switchcraft jacks are great and all, but they don’t have the personality of the Thingamagoop, an ugly monster analog synth from Bleeplabs. Yes….it’s got cheap electronics, it looks like they built it in a napkin dispenser and it is limited to making bleeps… Read More Bleep Labs Thingamagoop – Ugly Monster Synth
It looks like Italy may be the place to be for rats that rave. Italian scientists have found that the effects of ecstasy are more pronounced in presence of music. At least, if you’re a rat. The scientists gave rats ecstasy and exposed them to music at club noise levels. Measurement of electrical activity in… Read More Rats on Ecstasy Go Clubbing and Trip for Days in the Name of Science
Otafuku Rex is a cyberfunk septuplet band that was not borne of a traditional record label, but of a technology/animation company that makes a video mash-up tool – Xipster. Musically they are the brainchild of Brian LeBarton, Beck’s keyboard player. Their music is synth heavy, hip-hop influenced and is delivered by animated characters, bringing to… Read More Otafuku Rex – The New Gorillaz?
Ever wonder what happens to old computers when they die? Apparently, they can get reborn as DJ controllers: via Flickr: “This is homebuilt MIDI controller for NI Traktor. The panel is made of laser cut / engraved, scratch-acid-UV-resistant, very durable plastic. Everythinh is built into black painted C64 case which was absolutly perfect for this… Read More Commodore 64 Reborn as Traktor DJ Controller
Traci Lords, the controversial starlet that screwed the adult film industry by starring in dozens of hardcore movies before she turned 18, has more than her share of skeletons in the closet. One of the most surprising, though, is her album with Juno Reactor (best known for their work on the Matrix soundtracks). Together they… Read More Traci Lords + Juno Reactor = Hardcore Electronica
“What’s to blame for the creative collapse of Ethiopian music?”, you ask. Synthesizers. According to an article in Haaretz, the synthesizer, turned the wind instruments, the source of the vitality of modern Ethiopian music, into superfluous objects, and enabled untrained musicians, who were often untalented as well, to issue discs at one-tenth the price demanded… Read More Music Death Watch: Synthesizers the Cancer of Ethiopian Music
Have you ever thought about buying an expensive robotic vacuum cleaner and turning it into a cheap and tacky-sounding monosynth? Tod E. Kurt did – he’s created RoombaMidi, a Mac OS X application that creates turns the iRobot Roomba roboti vacuum into a MIDI instrument for use by any Mac OS X MIDI sequencer, like… Read More Insane DIY Project: The Robotic Vacuum Monosynth
DJ Diva joins DJ Portial Surreal on the short list of topless DJs. She’s probably the only topless skydiving DJ, though! She started her career in 2002, taking a training course at the Dutch DJ school in amsterdam. At her first gig, it was very hot and several women were topless, so she took her… Read More DJ Diva – The Topless, Skydiving DJ
