Film composer Mark Isham has written zillions of elegant soundtracks. Now he's posted some rare cues (including one of my favorites) in a slick online player. The technology has some interesting twists — and you can use it for free.

My favorite electronic instrument this year is the Korg Kaossilator, a pocket-size synth with built-in loop recorder. I bought one after spending some quality time with it during a magazine review. But what really loosened my credit card was a secret hack I discovered during fact-check.

When half your population can't read, the spoken word becomes crucial. The Literacy Bridge project is designing a portable voice recorder that third-world populations can use to share news, history, and educational texts. In addition to recording and playing back audio, the Talking Book Device (hardware specs PDF) has buttons for basic interactivity — think quizzes and branching. Furthermore,...

Did you know you can enjoy six-channel sound from iTunes? All you need is a decoder, six amplified speakers, and this squirrely software trick.

Late 1980s, deep in the basement of the Oberlin Conservatory: Strolling past the broken-down harp cases, a surprise visitor enters my electronic music class.

Sounds like . . . Sennheiser. While updating my business card the other day, I started to think it would be cool to have an audio logo as well as a graphic one. You've certainly heard these "earcons" — the THX Deep Note, the Duracell coppertop clank, the Intel Inside chimes. . . . With just a few notes and...

With close to a thousand forest fires fouling the air, it was time for some indoor creativity. Making a digicam spy movie revealed some cool QuickTime tricks and ridiculous workarounds.

Here's something I've missed since OS 9: a wee program that checks if your other programs are up to date. The App Update widget compares your programs against the listings at Apple, Version Tracker, and MacUpdate, and then offers download links to the programs that are outdated. It generated a few "false positives," but also reminded me of a...

What are you doing with your portable recorder? Former O'Reilly producer Justin Watt and partner Stephanie Soleil capture whispery ambiences and upload them to the White Noise Lounge. They complement each brief aural trip with an artsy black-and-white photo. The project started as a joke, but like everything Justin touches, it's elegant and thought-provoking.

A while back, Derrick Story wondered how valuable Roxio Toast still was, given the disc-burning features built in to Mac OS X. Well, Toast hasn't grown moldy; Roxio added a bunch of features right after Derrick's post came out. I've covered two obscure but very cool audio ones: the ability to make high-resolution and surround-sound DVDs. Here's another tasty Toast...