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Category Archives: software

Blogging is a real-time strategy game

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Anna watched me Twitter over my shoulder for a while, and then announced: “I get it. It’s a video game where you compete for attention from strangers on the internet.” She’s completely correct. Having a web presence is a real-world immersive internet game where the scoreboard is your stats page or follower list. Like any [...]

Also filed in autobio, hardware, web | Tagged attention, blogging, civilization, recursion, simcity, social media, social networks, stats, twitter, video games, wordpress | Comments (0)

The web browser as a musical instrument

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Over the weekend we stayed with Anna’s sister Joanna, her husband Chris and their adorable new baby Lucas. Chris and I spent some of the time talking about electronic music and the internet. He’s a social media professional and a music fan but not a musician, and it was cool to hear his perspective on [...]

Also filed in music, web | Tagged book, daft punk, delicious, design, drum machines, electronica, fun, interface, internet, inudge, minimalism, multitracking, reason, remixes, sequencing, social media, tenori-on, toys, visualization, web browser | Comments (4)

Auto-tune on the iPhone

Saturday, September 5, 2009

It was only a matter of time before the Autotune The News people got T-Pain on board. The newest version of this software lets you sing with Auto-tune over anything in your iTunes library. Pretty amazing hip-hop and electronica scratchpad, except that it crashes two minutes into each recording. Still. Auto-tune the Pro Tools plug-in [...]

Also filed in hardware, music, web | Tagged advertising, autotune, book, fan art, hip-hop, interface, iphone, karaoke, social media, t-pain | Comments (0)

Game controllers as musical instruments

Friday, August 21, 2009

This is a picture of my electronic funk-soul-R&B band doing a show. From left to right, it’s Nicole Bishop, me and Barbara Singer. We were the whole band for that show. I did all the beats, samples and keyboards from my computer using a video game controller. Here’s a screenshot of the program that the [...]

Also filed in autobio, hardware, music, video games | Tagged book, composing, electronica, hip-hop, improvisation, interface, keybs, mapping, max/msp, midi, programming, reason, sampling, sequencing, synths, video games | Comments (2)

Welcome to warp zone

Monday, August 17, 2009

When I was a kid I played a lot, and I mean a lot, of Super Mario Bros. My grandpa once asked me to explain the game to him after he’d watched me play it for the nine thousandth hour. I tried hard and couldn’t do it. There’s a lot that defies intuition. Like how [...]

Also filed in autobio, hardware, math, music, science, video games | Tagged autobio, book, chiptunes, computers, eighties, electricity, electronica, microchips, nintendo, remixes, super mario bros, video games | Comments (1)

Can robots DJ?

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Now that I have an office job, I’m spending a lot of time under headphones while I correct people’s grammar. It’s a good opportunity to explore the outer reaches of my music tastes. The office has some networked Itunes libraries heavy on the Pitchfork 500, and I have whatever I’m bringing from home. I’ve also [...]

Also filed in music | Tagged algorithmic composition, bjork, book, database, dj, herbie hancock, hip-hop, internet radio, itunes, kanye west, napoleon dynamite, netflix, pandora, random, remixes, shuffle, thelonious monk | Comments (4)

Loop mode: improvisation is composition is recording

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Before digital recording media, recording artists faced a tradeoff between spontaneity and perfection. Recording take after take until the performances are spotless can quickly suck the joy and energy out of the music. But the kind of sloppiness that goes unnoticed in a live performance can get on your nerves after many repeated listens. It’s [...]

Also filed in music | Tagged audio editing, beatles, book, composing, gnarls barkley, hip-hop, kind of blue, looping, michael jackson, miles davis, music, pro tools, psychology, recording, thriller | Comments (2)

Nah, na na na na nah na naah, Katamari Damacy!

Monday, July 27, 2009

Japan doesn’t have a substantial psychedelic drug culture that I’m aware of, but you’d never guess it from Katamari Damacy.

Also filed in music, video games | Tagged book, chiptunes, design, japan, katamari, music, video games | Comments (3)

Auto-tune (is) the news

Friday, July 24, 2009

The Gregory Brothers (including a sister-in-law) are musicians here in Brooklyn who have a series of videos called Auto-tune The News. Here are a selection of their better episodes as of this writing.

Also filed in music, science, web | Tagged anxiety, audio editing, autotune, book, computers, evolution, hip-hop, joe biden, katie couric, martin luther king jr, mashups, music, music theory, news, politics, pop, rnb, steven mithen, tv, youtube | Comments (0)

A synthesizer is like an axe

Thursday, July 23, 2009

I found this picture of Herbie Hancock on some dude’s blog. There was no caption or any other context. So I posted it on my Flickr with a note asking if anyone could identify the computer Herbie is sitting in front of. A couple of days later my friend Mike responded with this video of [...]

Also filed in hardware, math, music, science | Tagged book, computers, drum machines, eighties, electronica, emotion, funk, herbie hancock, interface, jazz, keybs, music, quincy jones, sequencing, sesame street, synths | Comments (0)

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