Music

We uncovered lots of fantastic technology-driven innovations at NAMM recently, but as we saw with PocketStrings, not all good ideas are built around transistors. Chord Dice is another example. This clever songwriting and teaching tool dispenses with chord charts and books and hangs musical theory on the roll of the dice. Read More

When you hear the word "Walkman" you probably envision an 80s and 90s-era cassette player with AM/FM stereo and headphones. It's a far cry from Sony's Walkman B170 line which features small (only 28g or 1oz) colorful, and sound-rich MP3 players bearing the Walkman logo. Read More

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest things to happen with in-ear earphones in recent years is customized fitting. Products such as those made by Ultimate Ears, for instance, are made to fit precisely into each user's unique ear structure. The catch is that said users must first pay a visit to an audiologist and get an ear imprint made, send that imprint away to the company, and then wait to receive their custom-molded earbuds in the mail. Canada's Sonomax Technologies, however, has come up with an alternative - earphones that you can mold to your ears by yourself, at home. Read More

Eight years ago, California musician Andy Graham had a fateful meeting with a shipping crate. The container had a tightly-wound steel strap wrapped around it, and was slightly dented at the top, creating a small gap beneath the strap. By slapping that strap against the crate, Graham discovered that he could make all sorts of interesting noises. That experience motivated him to create the SLAPEROO, a unique musical instrument that we spied last week at NAMM 2012. Read More

Artists often say they can find music in everything, particularly nature. The question they often face is how to get the general public to hear the same tune that they do. One German artist, Bartholomäus Traubeck, seems to have hit on one straightforward method to accomplish this with some clever technology. Using a digital camera and some software, the artist has built a unique record player that spins cross-sections of trees instead of vinyl and translates the rings into piano music. Read More

Apps that transform an iOS device into a portable DJ system (such as Algoriddim's djay app) have been around for a good while now, but the restricted screen space on small devices can lead to somewhat limited mixing functionality. Budding party disc jockeys can get more control from physical deck emulators like Numark's iDJ Live, but those with an appetite for real-time mixing of music stored on more than one device have now been catered for with the upcoming release of the iRig MIX from IK Multimedia. This compact mobile mixer can auto match the tempo from any type of audio source with the tunes on a connected iOS device, features an extra input for an instrument or microphone, and comes with four free music apps. Read More

One of the nice things about having a WiFi network in your home is the fact that you can enjoy online music anywhere in the house ... through a computer or mobile device. Now, however, you have the choice of instead placing Altec Lansing’s new LIVE 5000 Wi-Fi speaker wherever you wish, and listening to that same music through it. You can also wirelessly link together a string of the speakers in different rooms, and use them to either distribute the same music throughout the house, or play different music in different rooms. Read More

Mogees is great news for all the air guitarists out there. This tiny device, built by Bruno Zamborlin for his Arts and Computational Technologies PhD project, offers a whole new way of expressing yourself musically, even if you don’t have the slightest idea how to play an instrument. Mogees, or a “Mosaicing Gestural Surface," is based on a simple contact microphone that turns any hard surface into a musical interface for triggering audio samples. What sets Mogees apart from other interfaces of this kind is that different types of touch stimuli generate different output. Simple gestures like scratching, rubbing or tapping can produce a surprising array of sounds worthy of a serious experimental music set up. Read More

Taking an old computer or game console and modifying it for music isn't very new; it's even spawned its own style of music called "chiptunes." But most artists that do this end up standing behind a table while they perform, since that gear can take up quite a bit of room. So, like the keyboard player who looked at the guitarist and said, "Hey! I want to do that!" one musician has created a handheld musical instrument out of a 1970's game console. Australian chiptune artist, cTrix, crafted together an Atari 2600, some custom software, and various musical modifiers to build a standalone instrument that he calls the "gAtari 2600." Read More