musical controllers
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On Expressivity In Musical Performance: The Korg Wavedrum
When we talk about “expressivity” in musical performance we’re usually referring to the degree to which a musician is able to coax emotion or affect out of his or her instrument and make it seem to “sing” (the human voice remains our gold standard of musicality). We expect, as well, that there be some kind of obviously Continue reading
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On Techlust: Native Instruments’ Maschine
I’m at Tekserve, in the audio department, and I spot a beauty: Native Instruments’ Maschine, a hardware-software rhythm machine. I move in for a closer inspection. Its top is made of metal and I run my fingers across the smooth, cool brushed surface. I pick up the musical object off the display table and assess Continue reading
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On Designing New Musical Controllers
A while back I wrote about MIDI hardware controllers which are used by musicians who want to control their computer software. (You can read the post here.) Why does one need a controller when performing music with say, a laptop? For one thing, it gives you the sense of having physical, tactile control over your Continue reading
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On The Monome Community Earthquake Disaster Emergency Album
The other day I talked about music in terms of its having no specific meanings, and so available for us to project what we want onto its designs. But this doesn’t mean music can’t be made in the service of a worthy cause besides its own pleasures. In the days immediately following the recent huge Continue reading
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On Becoming A Virtuoso Of Knobs, Buttons, and Sliders
In the course of preparing for a paper on laptop music making as creative practice I’m giving this summer at Cambridge University, I’ve been thinking about how exactly one goes about performing music with/on a laptop: What are the decision-making and problem-solving processes musicians use in performance and in preparing for performance? I’m approaching topic as Continue reading
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Interviews with Roger Linn
Instrument designer and musician Roger Linn is perhaps most famous for inventing the first drum machines (in the early 1980s) to use digitally sampled drum sounds, the LM-1 and LinnDrum. In the years since, Linn teamed up with Akai to invent the MPC-series of drum machines/sequencers, and lately Linn has turned his attention to making Continue reading
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You Are The Controller
Last week Microsoft released the Kinect controller for their XBox video game console. The Kinect is being hailed/hyped as the next step in gaming technology as it does away with the most annoying part of the gaming experience: those little handheld controllers that serve as an interface between the player and the game. Nintendo’s Wii Continue reading
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