​ Hello everyone, my name is Diego Leroux. I´m from Buenos Aires, Argentina and I would like to share with the community a new product I've been developing for the past 3 years. It's called Bitmi, a USB MIDI velocity sensitive drum pad. Bitmi was designed to be simple and effective as a tool to record percussive MIDI tracks. It's class compliant so...

Genki Instruments announced that they were shipping Wave, the ring that lets you control sound with motion. With three easy-to-use buttons, Wave allows musicians to easily change sounds, parameters and effects using gestures. Since being funded on Indiegogo, many well known musicians have used the Genki Wave on st...

Geert Bevins' watch app lets you wear your MIDI controller on your wrist Geert Bevin (who was one of the main people who developed MIDI Polyphonic Expression)  recently released MIDIWrist.  MIDIWrist truns your Apple Watch intoa MIDI controller.  Here is a pre-release demo using the Moog Model D iPhone app (Geert does a lot of w...

When you're songwriting, you want nothing to get in the way of your creativity, and you want as fast a workflow as humanly possible—so for those reasons, you're better off starting the songwriting process with MIDI rather than recording audio (if not you're not a keyboard player, even a simple MIDI guitar controller like the Jamstik+ or You Rock gu...

REX files chop digital audio into "slices," each of which is associated with a MIDI note. Playing a MIDI note triggers its associated slice, which is why REX files can follow tempo variations—slices can trigger at a faster or slower rate as you speed up or slow down a MIDI sequence. However, what really makes this fun is that you can also re-arrang...

In the days before click tracks, tempos varied because musicians are humans, not crystal-controlled clocks. However, these changes were far from random. While researching an article for Sweetwater's inSync web publication, I analyzed the tempo changes for several hits from the past that didn't use a click track and noticed a common element of most ...

If you think of a keyboard as playing only notes, four or five octaves may be sufficient. However, many virtual instruments (e.g., FXpansion Geist, Native Instruments Kontakt, EastWest's Play engine, etc.) use MIDI keys not only to play specific notes but also to trigger articulations or variations on a basic sound. If your main USB MIDI controller...

Melodics is modern learning for modern instruments Melodics is modern learning for modern instruments, supporting MIDI Keyboards, Pad Controllers, and electronic drum kits. It's structured learning for solid progress. Melodics takes the "but where do I start?" out of learning music. Start with a genre you love, or a technique you want to ...

Sometimes you don't need an external, dedicated MIDI controller—the one on your favorite synth may be all you need, and the synth even has built-in sounds. The keyboard usually feeds data to the synth's MIDI out, but also to its internal sounds (called "local control.") But if your sequencer echoes its interface's MIDI in to the interface's MIDI ou...

Ólafur Arnalds didn't start out playing keyboards. He started out as a drummer in hard rock bands. He is not alone. Yoshiki from the legendary Japanese hard rock band X Japan comes to mind. Many people forget that the piano is classified as a percussion instrument along with marimbas and vibraphones.  He has ...

Some MIDI instruments, particularly those from Arturia, include an external input for processing audio signals through the synthesizer's filter, VCA, and effects modules. That's cool enough, but of course, what's even cooler is that is that you can then use MIDI to trigger filter and VCA envelopes, turn filter resonance up high and use a keyboard t...

Most people of think of arpeggiation solely in melodic terms, but arpeggiation has additional uses. General MIDI instruments include drum kits where the top notes are percussion sounds, and many virtual instruments include percussion presets. Setting up an arpeggiator in a random mode to trigger various percussive sounds can create a really cool ef...

What does the weather sound like?   David Bowen is an artist who uses data.  He has used data to point an installation of 50 twigs in unison towards the largest piece of space junk currently overhead. He used data to allow the flight of flies to control, aim and shot a revolver. He is not a musician, y et he used ...

  re.corder gives you three different ways to play.  Play acoustically, with or without the application running. It's a regular recorder.  Play digitally (you can mute it with the supplied mute-plug) silently and use the sounds of the app's library, alone or play with up to three other friends! This will allow you to to pra...

Elk releases open source version of award winning Audio Operating System and Development Kit for Raspberry Pi.   We've covered ELK innovations on the site before. Check out these articles on Steinberg and the  Elk Powered Retrologue desktop synth and the collaboration between Fishman, Arturia and MIND Music Labs and th...

As kids, we grew up knowing that our father had done something remarkable, but it was rarely talked about in the house. Dad didn't talk about work much… at home he just wanted to be Dad. So, it was through thousands of testimonials that were sent to my family during his illness and passing that I came to learn for the first time, at 37 years old, t...

​ Aaron Andrew Hunt from H-Pi Instruments  in Germany), Tim Alex Jacobs (mitxela · UK)  and Jordan Dimitrov Petkov (Largonet Ltd., MIDI Boutique · Bulgaria have teamed up to create the world's smallest polyphonic MIDI instrument.  It's really incredibly powerful.  FEATURES ​   Tuning Unlimited pitch...

There are lots of websites that offer information on DAWs and music production.  Audio Assemble takes a unique approach by offering articles, videos, reviews, interviews and information on schools that offer degrees in music and music production.  The database they have put together about music schools is impressive and they also hav...

Reclouder- personal hybrid recorder  MMA member CME based in Singapore was at Music China in October, 2019 and their new concept called Reclouder received an award as "Most Innovative Newcomer". Reclouder is a unique idea and actually more than just another hardware product. It's actually a totally unique approach to solvin...

LIVE PERFORMING IS NOW MORE FUN AND EASY CROSS PLATFORM LIVE PERFORMANCE APPLICATION Wondering how to connect and control your hardware and software instruments in one place? Want to remotely control your Yamaha synthesizers and quickly recall presets on stage? How about attaching a lead sheet or music score with your own notes to a set of sounds? ...

5 Tricks to getting a great MIDI bass track  1. How to get rid of a hangover  Most bass lines are single notes, and because bassists lift fingers, mute strings, and pick, there's going to be a space between notes. Go through your MIDI sequence note by note and make sure that no note extends over another note's attack (Fig. 1). If two note...

The KMI K-Board Pro 4   The KMI K-Board Pro 4 started off as Kickstarter campaign in 2016 and quickly got to its funding goal of $50.000. What sets the Pro 4 apart from other controllers is KMI's patented Smart Sensor Fabric technology which is a unique and proprietary conductive material that changes resistance as it ...

Creative Console is a MIDI controller and much, much more  Creative Console integrates with all your typical DAW software Logic Pro X Cubase Ableton Live FL Studio Reaper But it also features native integration with the most popular ​graphics programs including:  Adobe Lumetri Premiere Pro After Effects. Lightroom Classic, ...

Tristan is an acoustic musician and a coder so he combined his skills in this musical performance.   What worked and what didn't  Tristan tried a number of different types of motors for his robot including Car Door Locks,  Stepper Motors and  Solenoids, but they were all too noisy for the acoustic application he w...