Category: tools & gear

  • Infinite Jukebox

    One of my currently favourite toys is Infinite Jukebox by the people at the Echo Nest. The Echo Nest is a spin-off from research done at MIT Media Lab. They analyse music and music contextual data and make programs and intelligent services based on that.

    The Infinite Jukebox is a simple, but brilliant example of this. You can upload an mp3, their tool analyses the song, finds the beats and notes the similarities on those beats, which are essentially ‘skip points’. Once you press play, the song will play and seamlessly skip back and forth through the song on those skip points, creating an infinite length version of your favourite song. In case you hadn’t heard Gangnam Style enough yet.

    More on the workings of the Infinite Jukebox on Paul Lamare’s blog. Note: it does require Google Chrome or Safari to work.

  • Your First Theremin

    As a theremin owner and user (well, if you considering making those alien noises all day and giggling about it as being a ‘user’), I can recommend this tutorial which is absolutely true! No really, would I lie?

  • Rooie Waas

    I’m the proud owner of a Weird Sound Generator, produced by Sascha Neudeck. The musicians from Rooie Waas own one too, plus a Cacophonator II also by Neudeck. In their latest video Rooie Waas gives a great impression what you can do with those horribly beautiful pieces of machinery:

    On the 14th (Amsterdam) and 20th (Rotterdam) of September 2012, you can see Rooie Waas and the machinery in action at their album release double party.

  • Google’s Moog doodle

    Swwweeeeet! Check out the classic Moog Google coded and put up on their front page for Bob Moog‘s birthday! Wish he was still around to see that.

    If you’re late for the party, you can find the synth on Google’s Doodle page.

  • Otomata

    Batuhan Bozkurt makes things involving computational (sound) art. One of his many projects is Otomata, a simple webapp that makes pretty sequenced music. If you try it out, you might get something like this:

    (Source:  Retecool)

  • Slow it down … by 800%

    If you ever wanted to get into making atmospheric, ambient mood music that will blow even the most pretentious Coldplay out of the water, there’s a really simple trick to do that. The last few days on  SoundCloud, users having been posting songs that were time-stretched by 800% and the result is a beautiful soundscape you can listen to for hours. The interesting bit  though is that the songs they used for it are by Justin Bieber and Frank Sinatra. Listen to them and be amazed:

    J. BIEBZ – U SMILE 800% SLOWER by Shamantis

    Frank Sinatra – It Was A Very Good Year TIMESTRETCHED by unsignedhypenl

    Update: Make your own!

    ANd obviously there’s a rickroll version too:

    Update2:

    Slipknot turns into drone music:
    Wait and bleeeeeeeeeeed (800% pitchshift, Slipknot) by The Nevis DJ

  • Aviary Roc

    I have mentioned Aviary and their tool Myna before, but a few days ago they launched a new online tool: Roc

    Where as Myna is an Audio Editor and a simple composer, Roc is intended as a ‘music creator’. The idea is that you make loops with real sounding instruments and then import those into Myna to make songs. This is easier said than done. Even though the interface of Roc is quite simple, so is the result.

    There is a nice selection of instruments to play with, but obviously a bit limited selection. For people who need to quickly make a few loops to play with in Myna, it’s fine. Any semi-professional musician will cringe at the fact that if you insert too many notes, things start sounding choppy and unnatural. Not to mention the instruments selected are rather traditional and fit for making world music, rather than ‘Roc’ (look I made a pun on the name of the tool).

    Like Myna, nice to play with for the enthusiast with just a browser and no money, but nothing groundbreaking or shocking for a musician.

  • The Swinger

    Tristan Jehan created an interesting bit of python code during Music Hack Day SF. It turns any song into a swing version. Example:
    Sweet Child O’ Mine (Swing Version) by plamere

    Read and listen to many more ‘swing remixes’  @ Music Machinery.

  • Audiotool

    Audiotool

    For those who want to get a bit more of a feel what it’s like to play with a studio set up, Audiotool.com provides a quick webbased music studio. In the 1.0 version there’s two basic drum machines, three synths, thirteen effect boxes and some gear needed to mix it all together. You set them up in the exact same way you would with it’s real world counterparts, except now you get to do it with just your browser for free.

    The problem is that Audiotool balances between what the starter might still have to learn about real hardware (how do you link all these things together) and what the pro demands (needs more gear). As such it might bridge a gap for quite a few new people  who are willing to learn and a great toy to play with for pro’s on a lazy weekend.The wait is for a new release with more gear.

  • iNudge


    iNudge is a simple, but brilliant sequencing toy to play with, with just your browser. You can select a number of pre-programmed synth sounds, sketch a few patterns and get a simple but pretty, looped tune.

    It’s learning curve is virtually non-existant, but even more experienced musicians might enjoying tinkering with it. Ideal to kill the weekend with.