Actually, audio loops are great. I’ve been loving them since the days I used to splice them together out of analog tape. But listening to electronic music podcasts, mod files, and my own pre-MIDI Ableton Live compositions, I finally realized what was missing.

Last night I saw a demo of a handheld music player with an intriguing twist: Not only could it download songs wirelessly, it could also beam them to other players—while compensating the artist.

The December 2005 issue of Electronic Musician features my how-to article, “The Art of Podcasting.” The issue won’t go online until January, but you can see a bunch of my source material now, plus an example podcast, at the EM site.

It’s my 50th O’Reilly blog (!), so I thought I’d cover something old but cool. At the Virtual Drum Machines site, you can play dozens of wacky-sounding yet strangely inspiring drum machine emulations.

Our behind-the-scenes tour of Korg’s $8,000, Linux-powered synthesizer skipped one impressive feature: the brilliant KARMA algorithmic music generator. Fortunately, you can now experience it through a boatload of online music videos.

Touring Disneyland last week for the first time in about 16 years, I was struck by the sound of the place—both what was there and what was missing.

Anton Chuvakin just linked to this “nerd version of an Agatha Christie novel” in his security blog, but this detective tale about Sony's dangerously sloppy CD-protection software has profound implications for music.

The little USB plug protectors packaged with my new Mac were so over-engineered that it seemed like a shame to throw them away. Then I thought of this hack.

Peering inside the intriguingly named Zzz Annoying Groove widget, I discovered an inspiring musical idea...

First we had digital emulations of analog audio gear. Then we had digital emulations of digital gear. And now...a bizarre new breakthrough in fidelity.