In his latest Robair Report entry, Gino Robair ponders the divide between physical and digital instruments:
“I have an original Oberheim SEM (35 years old, serial number 100) that I used for an A/B comparison in the article. I certainly don’t regret the $600 I paid for it (used), as it continues to serve me well. [...]
The winner of the Northern Arts Prize for 2010 is Pavel Büchler, whose recordings of applause were the subject of an entry here back in October 2008 (disquiet.com). Büchler’s works in various media, and his “You Don’t Love Me” is “an installation that uses a reel to reel tape deck, a bottle of whisky and [...]
The top 10 most-read posts of January (out of 42 posts in all) were heavy with Downstream entries — that is, with legal freely downloadable recommended listening: (1) sound art made at an Indian call center (pictured at left) by Mathias Delplanque, (2) Lesley Flanigan’s music for speakers and voice, (3) the sound of mangled [...]
The debate following the announcement this past Wednesday, January 27, of the Apple iPad has been voluminous and pointed. Both sides — and there really are two sides, as in any religious war — have their arguments. On the one hand, the iPad is a lovely device with product benefits in areas that most portable-computer [...]
Been awhile since the most recent Disquiet.com overview of notable stories elsewhere on the web. He’s a quick rundown, to bridge the gap from 2009 to 2010:
● Why Brian Eno’s score to Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones is reportedly not eligible for an Oscar (thewrap.com, via moviescoremagazine.com).
● Thanks to Google Translate, an interview with composer [...]
The MIT Media Lab legend and early music-technology figure Tod Machover contributed a rangy essay at nytimes.com this week. After a brief autobiography, he talks about the relative democratization of music technology, and then about an opera he’s been at work on. In the process, he expresses his own concerns about the pace of progress [...]
Below are “before” and “after” shots of the interfaces of several excellent sound/music apps for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch: apps titled Gliss, DopplerPad, and Bloom. The images of these apps’s various screens evidence what has become a norm, perhaps an accepted one, in casual music-making applications: the application you are learning to use [...]