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...

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...

It has never been as easy to stay "in the box" as it is now. There are lots of software virtual instruments out there; some emulate hardware instruments, and others offer completely new sounds. That said, there's something special about performing on a synthesizer or MIDI instrument with its own sound engine that's difficult, if not impossible, to ...

MMA Member Blokas releases a USB to MIDI router with built-in MIDI processing  Midihub has 4 MIDI DIN inputs, 4 MIDI DIN output ports and a USB port for power supply and/or communicating with the PC and its software. Using the dedicated  Midihub Editor lets you customize Midihub's processing as well as s...

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...

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...

ADC- the largest audio developers conference in the world   The Audio Developer Conference (ADC) started 5 years ago and has quickly become the leading conference for audio and MIDI programming professionals to gather and discover the latest trends  ​in music production software development.  This y...

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...

Data Garden, the people behind MIDISprout release new kickstarter campaign Data Garden was started by Joe Patitucci and Alex Tyson in 2011 to  explore the connection between plants, music and technology.  In 2012, Data Garden was invited to produce a piece at The Philadelphia Museum of Art. They launched a Kickstarter ...

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 ...

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 ...

​ 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...

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...

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...