It's more addictive than Angry Birds, perhaps as relaxing as transcendental meditation, and satisfyingly simpler than GarageBand. It's Otomata, a newly programmed generative sequencer designed by Batuhan Bozkurt, a Turkish sound artist, computer programmer, and performer. But really, it's best described as an audio/visual music toy that anybody can play online—with beautiful results.
Tired of getting calluses from incessantly strumming along to 'No Woman No Cry'? Just hook up to the brain-music system and use your brain power to play a tune instead. I'm not talking—humming along in your head. The machine, created by composer and computer-music specialist Eduardo Miranda of the University of Plymouth, UK, is composed of electrodes taped directly onto your skull that pick up tiny electrical impulses from neurons in your brain and translates them into musical rhythms on a co...
Pogo is Nick Bertke, originally from New Zealand who has been remixing and DJing since he was 9 years old.
Every key on a telephone keypad has its own sonic signature, a sort of calling card composed of two distinct tones: one high, one low. While it's easy to tell the difference between the individual pitches in a single row—see, for example, this article on using your cell phone as a musical instrument—, it's often difficult to differentiate between notes within the same column. Unless, of course, you outsource the work to a computer! Which is what Uruguayan hacker [Charlie X-Ray] recently set o...
From an episode of the Frank Sinatra Show in 1951, Larry Griswold performs death defying stunts in the name of entertainment. Griswold, an American gymnast, entertainer, and co-inventor of the trampoline, proved again and again that flirting with death is sure to please a crowd. Meanwhile, in the parallel universe of Julie Taymor's accident prone Spider-Man musical, the New Yorker makes a similar case in point. The production has been plagued with injury after injury- broken wrists and ribs, ...
What do you get when you take a run-of-the-mill kitchen knife and add a simple synthesizer circuit? Behold, the Syntheslicer! Creator Jonathan M. Guberman writes:
My bestest friend in the whole wide world, threw this incredible International-themed party for her sons 2nd birthday. This is her story:
While digital samplers have their merits, they're predictable in a way that can cause them to sound stiff or sterile. The solution? A return to the analog, tape-based samplers of yesteryear, which, with their inherent mechanical noise and euphonic distortions, offer a more musical take on the sampling process.
Written by JD Coverly of WonderHowTo World, LoadSave: Want to take a break from all that Red Dead redemption stuff? Well Ubisoft, the makers of the hit game Just Dance, is bringing you Dance on Broadway! The new game releases today, June 15th. Price: $39.99
Facebook's camera platform is the augmented reality vehicle of choice to promote the latest musical effort from Taylor Swift. T-Swift's new album, Reputation, dropped today. To get her fans psyched, an AR effect electrifies the user with virtual lightning, while a snippet from one of her songs plays in the background. Previously, Lady Gaga opted for a Facebook filter to promote her Netflix documentary, Gaga: Five Foot Two, which premiered Sept. 22. (Personally, I'm more excited about the new ...
Austrian composer Peter Ablinger has created a "speaking" piano. Ablinger digitized a child's voice reciting the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court to "play" on the piano via MIDI sequencer. Apparently, the computer is connected to the piano, which analyzes the human speech, and then converts it to key-tapping.
Swedish advertising company, Rolighetsteorin, recently created musical stairs reminiscent of Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia's beloved FAO Schwartz piano scene in Big. The campaign is for Volkswagen, though I'm fuzzy on the connection between the two.
Take the best RPG of all time. Combine with the only instrument with invisible strings. And you have pure elf-worthy magic!
How can an orchestra be stupid, one may ask? Well, when musically measuring a toaster next to a cello, one device certainly comes across as inherently… dumber. Think 200 vintage vacuum cleaners, blenders and washing machines assembled into a whirling, ringing, humming cacophony of daily function. It's not exactly music to the ears, but a kind of robotic harmony is formed.
The Writers at io9.com have been running through a fantastic series of blog posts, in which they're teaching their readers about the history of great 80s sci-fi and fantasy. Because so much of this is right up my alley, I though I'd aggregate their aggregations, so to speak, and write a little retrospective of my own.
When I was unemployed I looked for different ways to make money. Most of that work was connected with online stuff; I’ve tried writing content, refreshed my old Photoshop skills and even created postcards, but then I realized that my passion to music can bring me more money than all of the other work. I was an active member of a few musical forums and started to add affiliate links to my posts instead of simple ones, so they can be profitable.
The xylophone is a musical instrument of incredible expressiveness, get expert tips and advice on the crafts and music in this free video. Make a copper xylophone - Part 1 of 21.
WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the most popular communities. Users can join and participate in any World they're interested in, as well as start their own community.
How to be a better guitarist
Words that will help you with your writing Alliteration - The repetition of aconsonant sound. This si important because it makes words stand out, and because it can help set the mood for something.
Minecraft was first released just a few years ago, but when a paradigm-shifting piece of media comes along the rest of the world is quick to take inspiration from it. The absolutely terrible XBLA knock-off FortressCraft was the first, and last month a much more interesting game called Terraria came out on Steam for $9.99. It is clearly inspired by Minecraft, and there is a long checklist of identical features. It is, nonetheless, a very different product, and just might be called the first in...
Like the press covering film and many other specialized fields, video game journalists use all sorts of jargon to convey to their knowledgable readers as much information about a game as quickly as possible. For non or newbie gamers, this can be extremely confusing.
Video games and art have somewhat of a sticky relationship. Many video games have large teams of talented artists doing amazingly creative work, and yet the art community is only just beginning to utilize video games as art (sometimes). Perhaps if video games were shown not just as a medium of expression, but as a means of creating great art as well, the art community would be forced to consider it differently. The third part in the Hacked Kinect series will focus on the artistic possibilitie...
Welcome to Dubstep everyone! This is a World dedicated to the howtos of Dubstep production. I will make updates around the genre and post them as blogs as well as build a database of howto videos on creating Dubstep music, resources and ideas.
So you know what language you want to learn You've got your language picked out and you're ready to dive in, so let's move on to the first step in building a language foundation:
Writers room is great for the new young writer who is just looking for some good feedback and guidance. Go to the BBC writers room. They can read your scripts and pieces for you to help you out and give you good feedback. Take a look.
DRUM! Magazine — the leading magazine for drummers and percussionists worldwide — has announced the biggest drumming event ever to take place in Northern California. On Friday, August 13, drummers will descend on the San Jose Repertory Theatre in the heart of Silicon Valley to witness three of the world’s most exciting drummers — extreme drumming sensation Marco Minnemann, Tower Of Power funk master David Garibaldi, and former Mars Volta wunderkind Thomas Pridgen — for an evening of mind-blow...
Red Dead Redemption LA Times Article http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-reddead-20100425,0,3266497.story
Veronique Chevalier coined the term "superculture" as a descriptor for the burgeoning realm of steampunk, and it's now gaining a foothold...She now has her very own footnote in steampunk history, #81 to be exact!
Tim Hawkinson is an artist who truly inspires. The Los Angeles based artist creates complex, whimsical sculptures with simple mechanics and basic materials. One of his most notable pieces is the art-world-renowned "Uberorgan", a giant football field sized, fully-automated bagpipe, cleverly constructed with plastic sheeting and pieces of electrical hardware.
If you're a musician in need of some lessons, there's no better way to learn than with MusicRadar's so-called "Tuition" instructions. Although the title tuition is misleading, this video class is anything but costly, because it's free, right here. Whether you're looking for help with your voice, bass, electric guitar, drums, guitar effects, piano, Logic Pro or production techniques, Music Radar is here to show you the way.
This week's review roundup is a diverse lot. They really only have two things in common—their indie origins and puzzle elements. Otherwise, they come from France, Spain and the U.S., a few from unknown designers and one by the guy who inspired Minecraft.
What's more fun? Winning against your friends or winning against others with them? It's an age old question, and in video games, the former one-on-one multiplayer has been the norm. But cooperative multiplayer has made a comeback, with Halo and Diablo II starting the trend, the first mainstream shooters and RPGs with great co-op modes. And now good local and multilplayer co-op games are available in almost every genre.
We don't often get super excited about upcoming flicks over at thesubstream.com, especially during the long, hot & more-often-than-not disappointing stretch of cinematic cruelty that summer has become. We've been hurt before. We've been buoyed up on cresting glorious waves of hype and what-ifs and heady nostalgia only to be sent hurling like a fat guy from Ohio on vacation down onto the cruel, razor sharp Jar-Jar Binks reef.
Levon Helm... The longtime drummer for The Band , Levon Helm wore many musical hats throughout his long career, including multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, impressario, studio owner, studio engineer and producer. He grew up working on a farm in Arkansas; his first instrument was guitar, which he began playing at ag eight, but after seeing the F.S. Walcott Rabbits Foot Minstrels, he decided to ...
Submit The Rattling Wall is accepting sophisticated short fiction, travel essays, and poetry submissions for Issue 4 until April 1, 2012. The literary journal accepts simultaneous submissions, but asks to be contacted immediately if work that a writer has submitted for review has been accepted for publication elsewhere.
When it comes to finding great new tunes for your music collection, the last place you would think to look is YouTube. But more and more artists are posting music videos on the popular video hosting site as a means to getting noticed and hopefully—building a fan base. And since YouTube is not just a music video site, there's quite a bit of junk to sift through, making it virtually impossible to find new songs to add to your iPod's repertoire... unless you use Cantio.
Video games have been a purely digital medium for some decades now. They exist in the electronic nether, embedded on discs and projected on screens. Since digital distribution has gained popularity, even the physical manifestation of the game disc is going away, leaving games (especially digitally distributed indie games) more ethereal than ever before. It is unclear whether this slightly unsettling fact was on the minds of the three people who made Receipt Racer, but regardless, it stands as...
Yup, that's right! There is a new larp starting up near me, called Cobalt Nightmares, where the theme is Post Apocalyptic Fantasy. I have to admit, I absolutely adore the Post Apocalyptic genre (especially that awesome Fallout LARP in Poland), and I'm interested to see what happens when it becomes a fantasy game instead of a science fiction game.
Inception may not be the lead contender for the 68th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best movies and television from 2010, but Christopher Nolan's film still collected four nominations— Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score.
