A recently uncovered musical experiment by Delia Derbyshire predicted the sound of modern dance music three decades before it became fashionable.
posted on Jul 18, 2008 - View this thread

The first known recording of a digital computer playing music, recorded by the BBC in 1951. The music played on a Ferantti Mark 1, one of the first commercial general-use computers, and was entered via punchtape and played on a speaker usually used for making clicks and tones to indicate program progress.
posted on Jun 18, 2008 - View this thread

Robert Hodgin does wonderful stuff with visualization [recently discussed in this excellent FPP]. To get you started, here's a Radiohead video that's been making the rounds.
posted on May 26, 2008 - View this thread

Looking for a new musical toy to supplement your current studio setup? You may already have a MIDI-via-WiFi-enabled* sequencer (1, 2)/drum-and-bass groovebox/audio sampler & scratcher/Mod Tracker in your pocket!
*a wired version is also available.
posted on May 22, 2008 - View this thread

The intersect of data visualization and aural phenomena is a fascinating space, from simple chartings of the history of sampling to mapping the entire world of music (or even just electronica). Pop songs become sketches, iTunes libraries become twisted geometric forms, and last.fm listening behaviors form coloured orbs and waves. The collaborative networks of comtemporary rappers, jazz musicians, and classical composers are revealing of specific and meaningful community structures. Explore the algorithmic music of Stephan Wolfram's computational universe, listen to pi or e or the Mona Lisa or the weather or the temperature in New York City, discover the shape of sound, or just, you know, see music. Use the Echo Nest to visualize your own music (example), tag your music collection with colours, or just wade through the plethora of ways to map connections between artists and genres. (several previously)
posted on Apr 9, 2008 - View this thread

When it comes to home theaters, I thought I'd seen it all. But nothing's come close to this. First, I'm going to try to describe the sheer magnitude of Jeremy Kipnis' theater. His Stewart Snowmatte laboratory-grade screen is the biggest I've ever seen in a home, and in the back of the theater, there's a Sony ultra-high-resolution (4,096-by-2,160) SRX-S110 digital projector. I'm looking everywhere, jotting down questions, and Kipnis sounds almost giddy talking about his theater's capabilities. He refers to his baby, the Kipnis Studio Standard (KSS), as "The Greatest Show on Earth." And from the looks of it, he may be right. I should hope so, it cost six million dollars.
posted on Feb 14, 2008 - View this thread

Bitlet allows you to stream audio directly from a torrent.
posted on Feb 9, 2008 - View this thread

The best music of 2007 according to Stereogum, Pitchfork, All Music, NME, PopMatters, The A.V. Club, Rolling Stone, TIME, MTV, the Guardian, eMusic, Amazon, Spin Magazine, Q, Largehearted Boy, and more. Among the most frequently listed are Radiohead, Spoon, Arcade Fire, Of Montreal, Feist, and The National.
posted on Dec 18, 2007 - View this thread

Ninjatune podcasts including Coldcut and Big Dada podcasts, a Ninjacast which delves into the record crates of various ninja artists, and of course a Solid Steel podcast with 60-odd mixes available.
posted on Nov 10, 2007 - View this thread

"Not much chance for survival, if the Neon Bible is right." Presented by Arcade Fire which is a band that hails out of Montreal. Okay. So I'm easily entertained, but you will believe a turkey can roast marshmallows. Requires flash.
posted on Oct 15, 2007 - View this thread

Today's post of tenuously related audio brings you ten historic radio broadcasts, 529 eternal questions in popular music, and one mildly amusing black metal band prank call.
posted on Aug 29, 2007 - View this thread

If you missed Elvis Perkins on Late Night with David Letterman making their national television debut, at least now you can say you knew about these guys before they really hit the big time (check out "Acoustic Slip Away"). I first heard about them on Lex and Terry. Warning, may be NSFW, youtube and audio links. Click at your own risk.
posted on Jun 14, 2007 - View this thread

Ubuntu Studio is a Linux distribution focused on creative audiovisual pursuits.
posted on May 10, 2007 - View this thread

A veritable plethora of online sound toys to tinkle your fancy.
posted on May 5, 2007 - View this thread

Is it a wok?! An UFO?! No, it's The Hang Drum! With its distinct serene sound, Hang, as it's also called ("Hand" in Swiss German), was created in 2000 in Switzerland by Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer after years of research. It's a versatile instrument that can be customized to produce many different musical scales. Want one yourself? Unfortunately, only a few are custom-made each year by Rohner and Schärer. More Hang music? Listen to the Hang radio station. More: videos | music | known artists | a beautiful Hang used by musician Alan Tower
posted on Apr 29, 2007 - View this thread

Splice gives anyone, anywhere the ability to collaborate on music right through a web browser. Users can upload or record sounds, make songs, listen to other user's songs, make remixes, make friends and a whole lot more.
posted on Oct 16, 2006 - View this thread

"MP3 players should carry warnings that users risk damage to their hearing by having the volume too high, a deafness charity says." Also, for prescription glasses: "If you use these glasses to see things that are disturbing, you could become disturbed." Is this not the height of PC, Western stupidity?
posted on Sep 5, 2006 - View this thread

The Interweb Medley!! What happens when you mix up some of the more well-known Internet memes around? Madness.
posted on Aug 11, 2006 - View this thread

A Piano In A Gallery. David Cunningham (the guy behind The Flying Lizards! Wikipedia because the main at-least-quasi-official site's down, but while you wait 16 days for that, why not read this interview with Deborah Lizard for your FL Fix) and his new project... A Piano In A Gallery. No, he's not actually PLAYING the piano -- the visitors are. It's a sort of similar thing to both Brian Eno's gallery work with ambient tape loops on different time cycles, creating an ever-shifting collage of sound and David Byrne's recent Playing The Building. The room is mic'd, and the sound is run through a piano, and amplified, both bringing background noises to the foreground AND creating feedback-style loops, as those sounds are also run into the mics and so forth. So... if you happen to be in London.... [via WFMU]
posted on Jul 15, 2006 - View this thread

Have you ever seen a synth and said "Man, what this needs is cartoon eyes?" A bit similar to the Buchla Box or theremin in that they don't have a keyboard to control the sounds -- it's probably closest to the Booper, invented by The Weatherman from Negativland (or, well, Circuit Bending), the Thingamagoop is a photosynthesizer... which means it basically uses light sensors to generate sounds. The signal's run through a couple oscillators and, well, it comes out as somethin' that's pretty dang awesome. I'm on the fence on pickin' this one up. On one hand, it's a really neat toy that makes noise... on the other hand, um.... um.... I dunno. It's not made of candy?
posted on Jul 8, 2006 - View this thread

A video broadcast of György Ligeti's Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes (AVI, French), with helpful background on the controversial piece located here. For those who know French, you may also be interested in 1993's György Ligeti: Portrait, A Documentary by Michel Follin, showing Ligeti as "the displaced cosmopolitan", through the metaphor of train ride through the European countryside. These and many other avant-garde films can be found at Ubuweb, including features with William Burroughs, a recent "performance" of Cage's 4'33", and Varése and Le Corbusier's 1958 World Fair collaboration Poême électronique, a 400-speaker soundspace installation predating later, more experimental feedback pieces.
posted on Jul 2, 2006 - View this thread

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is pumping out a pile of podcasts that have covered the importance of offensive comics to Art Spiegelman, 600 bands over 54 shows, Captain America versus the American government, Amy Sedaris and geekdom, the journey of young immigrants, French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut and Harper's publisher John MacArthur discussing Europe and America perspectives since 9/11, the after life, sex with monkeys, what radio producers do, the french word "corps", Bonnie Fuller's "The Joys of Much Too Much: Go For the Big Life — The Great Career, The Perfect Guy, and Everything Else You've Ever Wanted (Even If You're Afraid You Don't Have What It Takes)", Veteran Washington reporter Helen Thomas and some other bits & bobs [Breakdown inside]
posted on Jun 5, 2006 - View this thread

A nice mixed bag of live mp3s.
posted on May 9, 2006 - View this thread

Living with War. Neil Young's new album is being streamed over the internet in its entirety. (via TMW)
posted on Apr 28, 2006 - View this thread

The Hype Machine tracks MP3 blogs so you don't have to.
posted on Feb 24, 2006 - View this thread

Super Mario Brothers sound effects. Boing! Boing! CRUNCH! Ding! Ding! Ding! Whoop! Boing!
posted on Feb 3, 2006 - View this thread

WeFunkRadio.com has 390 full shows available for download featuring the funk, underground hip-hop, and rare grooves that are so hard to find. BitTorrents are available for the two most recent shows and there's always the audio stream and podcasts coming at you fresh from Montréal's CKUT radio.
posted on Sep 16, 2005 - View this thread

silicones [ISO/IEC 10918-1:1994] [silicones silicones [ISO/IEC 11172-3:1993]]
posted on Aug 24, 2005 - View this thread

BBC Radio 2 -- Sold On Song The website for this show on BBC Radio 2 is pretty awesome; it's got a list of pages on various classic songs in their library (also sortable by artist), which includes song clips and (where available) clips from covers of the songs, taken from the same place -- check out the various It Must Be Loves (originally by Madness Labi Siffre) -- my favorite will always be the Madness one, but the Lyn Paul version is actually pretty cool. There's also some weird and awful covers available for the picking. I've just been spending about an hour or two picking through random songs and noting on which ones are as good as the original or ones that just fall so very short. (They've also got lots of other content, like the songwriting guide, but the real fun is in the song pages, reading about these great songs and listening to other people do their own cuts on them. [All links go to text; all sound files are in RealAudio.]
posted on Jul 28, 2005 - View this thread

Gallery 41 A jazz photography collection covering the past quarter-century and over 150 artists. Hear musical excerpts and highlights of recorded conversations as you explore.
posted on Jun 15, 2005 - View this thread

Hip-Hop Legends Digable Planets Reunite! Word, and they're touring.
posted on May 25, 2005 - View this thread

This is a great tool to mix mp3s with, especially if you don't have $400-600 for final scratch pro. It was designed specifically for DJing live and works like a virtual turntable. Besides being free, it's far better than most of the other toy-ish mixing programs available. Having two soundcards makes things easier, but it can even run on a system with one soundcard (although you still need a real mixer). We've come a long way since this.
posted on Feb 13, 2005 - View this thread

File under surreal tapes. Despite being essentially a links/tips page about music/film/art, Panache is most known for its downloadable mixtapes in realaudio. There are over seven eclectic hours worth of new, old, wellknown and obscure music ranging from brazilian sambafunk, dreamy japanese 70s exotica, modern electronic wizardry to dialogue from films and novelty records etc. Some of the tapes have a rather dreamlike quality - which I believe - is the siteowner's intention.
posted on Nov 28, 2004 - View this thread

Something ear-y for Halloween: Oddio Overplay gives you Ghouls With Attitude 2-CD compilation by Otisfodder, plus (from Martinibomb and Coconut Monkeyrocket), the Munster Beat mp3 (click below the image to listen).
posted on Oct 31, 2004 - View this thread

Wing sings the songs you love, in a way that will make you hate them. Listen to excerpts here. Music to suffer by, in the grand tradition of Leona Anderson. (via Primal Purge)
posted on Apr 9, 2004 - View this thread

SBaGen is software (Windows, Mac and Linux) that generates binaural beats - interactions between sound waves that mess with your brain, to induce sleep, relaxation, activity, and allegedly even hallucinogenic states. SBaGen relies on text-file presets (although it comes with dozens of files to experiment with) but if you want a "quick start", there's also the Windows-based Brain Wave Generator.
posted on Mar 20, 2004 - View this thread

How to convert LPs to CDs. Many audiophiles will mock the software they suggest using as well as the hardware pictured, but this is aimed for the everyday people that don't have a laser turntable or ProTools. All in all, a decent introductory guide.
posted on Jan 21, 2004 - View this thread

"The Band uses unique instrumentation: the music is performed using obsolete computer equipment for instruments. Currently they are using a 1977 Atari 2600 game console, a 1986 portable 286 PC, a 1983 Commodore 64 computer, and a 1985 Epson dot matrix printer."
posted on Oct 28, 2003 - View this thread

Videohelper.com sells music and sound effects to film/video producers. Here's their FAQ. It's the most fun FAQ I've ever read when I wasn't even trying to have fun. Though they are a serious business, their entire site is in this style. I want to work there!
posted on Oct 23, 2003 - View this thread

Dr Richard Lord has shown in a controlled experiment that the extreme bass sound known as infrasound produces a range of bizarre effects in people including anxiety, extreme sorrow and chills -- supporting popular suggestions of a link between infrasound and strange sensations.
Here's the Reuters Story, He's done some other cool stuff as well at the National Physical Laboratory.
I can't help but think of The Brown Note, am I so imature?
posted on Sep 7, 2003 - View this thread

< earshot >
Live improvisation with digital audio. Play, loop and compose with multiple sound file formats, including: wav, aif, aiff, aifc, mov, au, mid, mp3, swa, mpg, mpeg, snd... Found while Googlifying for links to the currently tanked Johnny Spencer's 'vanity site' directed towards fans of Black popular music c1940's to 1970's. I have not a clue as to the what or why of it but thought the teeming geeky horde might. Provided for your consumer testing.
posted on Jun 27, 2003 - View this thread

Learn and compare your MP3 listening habits (via Waxy)
posted on Feb 9, 2003 - View this thread

Gourd Speakers. While listening to my new favorite album, Verve//Remixed, I noticed that the CD jacket features these silly yet remarkably futuristic looking gourd speakers. At $1200 a pair, cuteness has its price, but these are quite possibly the world's most adorable examples of vegetable hi-fi equipment.
posted on Jun 6, 2002 - View this thread

Ahhhhhh Synaesthesia.... Industrial Strength Colour-Note Organ - Pictures to Sound. Make yourself some sci-fi soundtracks. Worth the download, although I expect you'll be the judge of that....
posted on Apr 16, 2002 - View this thread

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet!!!!! A bit of a repeat, but absolutely justified
posted on Jan 18, 2002 - View this thread

Dictionaraoke brings you well enunciated music. The fun of karaoke meets the word power of the dictionary. [Via kottke.org]
posted on Aug 4, 2001 - View this thread

Could this be the straw that breaks the Camels back.
posted on May 8, 2001 - View this thread

It seems Metallica has some high class company. The Cleveland Orchestra has halted distribution of their concerts to about 250 U.S. radio stations because of concerns about streaming audio. The orchestra's contract with its musicians covers radio broadcasting rights of live performances, but not Internet streaming, said Gary Hanson, the orchestra's associate executive director. Does this strike anyone else as strange?
posted on Mar 6, 2001 - View this thread

I was flooded with retro-memories of Commodore 64 music at c64audio.com. I distinctly remember playing boulderdash and hearing this for hours.
posted on Oct 28, 2000 - View this thread

I've been thinking of making my own digital delay for several years, but I've been waiting for CPU prices to drop. Damned if Cirrus logic went and solved that with one chip.
posted on Apr 18, 2000 - View this thread