I made a compilation of contemporary Christian music played backwards:

The Kerberos cartridge with the new MIDI Cynthcart is now available for purchase.

I’m adding MIDI support to Cynthcart for the new Kerberos Commodore 64 MIDI cartridge!!

I made a new Sir Sampleton video showing some of the features of Audiobus, the new system that allows apps to stream audio between each other and work like VSTs. This video shows recording, sequencing, and sampling from other apps. Now that iOS apps can exchange both MIDI and audio in real time, I think we will be seeing a lot of new interesting music production apps by independent developers.

Sir Sampleton 2.0 is out now. Biggest new feature is the sample download option which allows you to download sample sets from our new sample download webpage and send in your own samples for others to use. Also iPad/iPhone 5 full-screen support, some new sound controls, and the new multichannel MIDI mode that puts a different sample on each MIDI channel. Multichannel MIDI brings the app a bit closer to my goal of making the app a hybrid of a simple Casio SK sampler and more advanced samplers like an Emu. Also Virtual MIDI should be ready in a few weeks, allowing you to sequence Sir Sampleton using other sequencer apps like Sunvox and Genome….

I have a new EP out today under the name SOFTOFT TECHECH on cassette and digital. Free track here

I was recently asked to DJ for Paddy Johnson’s Sound of Art event in Toronto, and due to a passport problem, I decided to try DJing remotely via the Internet. I researched a lot of different ways to do this and it wasn’t easy to find all the info I needed, so I’m sharing it here.

My goal was to send both audio and video, but the audio quality was unusable for music with all the video streaming methods I tried. For a performance coming through a loud PA, I think the sound needs to be pretty decent unless it’s really lofi music. This site lists a lot of audio streaming options for performances, but most of the things I tried weren’t right for one reason or another.

Ultimately I ended up using Mixlr for audio and Ustream for video because they are free to use, are easy, and both have built-in ability to record. The problem with this setup is that the video and audio will not be in sync, but for my DJ performance it didn’t matter. Mixlr sounds great and is very stable but there is a delay of several seconds on the stream. Ustream also has ads if you use the free service, but I actually think this makes the performance more funny and interesting, and when you’re streaming the audio separately on Mixlr, the audio will continue playing during the commercials. And if you use Ustream, I recommend downloading Ustream Producer.

The primary problem with the setup was just that I didn’t have any way to see the audience to know how they were responding, which makes it difficult to know which direction to go with your set. If we did it again, I’d want to set up some kind of live camera at the venue, either using Skype or another Ustream feed from the venue.

Below are a couple pics of the show in Toronto. The first image is of the two Magic Carpet projections that we had installed, and the second photo is the third projector that was showing my Ustream video feed from my apartment in New York.

This week I released a new version of my iPhone sampler app sir Sampleton with support for the AKAI Synthstation 25 keyboard dock. The Synthstation 25 is about the size of a Casio SK-1 and can run on batteries, so it’s super portable. The design is not perfect but it’s pretty good and I’ve been using it regularly for my own music now. I plan to roll out a few more updates to Sir Sampleton soon including support for other MIDI devices, more sound settings, multiple sample-banks.

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I just released my second app for iPhone/iPad called Magic Carpet. The app is partly an artwork, but it also doubles as a musical instrument, a hypnosis and meditation tool, a toy, a VJ app, etc. It displays collages of quickly spinning rugs and quilts accompanied by sounds or music generated from a software binaural beat synthesizer and sample player. It can also play music from the device’s music library, and it has a musical instrument mode.

Magic Carpet supports Apple’s composite, component, and VGA cables on the iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4, and iPad. This enables you to run the app on your iPhone and display the output on a TV or video projector, which is cool. The capability of these devices to output video has a lot of potential for interesting apps.

The app is a buck, you can get it by searching for “Magic Carpet” in the App Store.

Demo vids below, and more vids here.

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