If you are unable to read CDMotion, you’re not alone. createdigitalmotion.com’s domain was not properly renewed by our previous registrar, 1&1, because of a foul-up with closing out an account with them for hosting. (Early in CDM’s history, the site – small at the time – was hosted by 1&1.) I’ve verified with 1&1 that this domain isn’t getting sold to anyone or anything like that — it’s in the ICANN’s redemption period, so I’m working on getting it back. It’s an embarrassing situation, and my apologies to readers. All the rest of CDM’s domains are happy and healthy in one place; the transfer of this one had simply been botched (by me). We’ll certainly correct the issue and keep you posted.

Question for Internet geeks out there — I am a bit disturbed that while 1&1 says it’s in redemption, they say it’ll take up to five business days to get it back, AND they appear to have parked a search page there. I thought that the domain simply shouldn’t resolve. Got any tips on expediting or what this shady business is with Sedo Parking and DomCollect? Let us know. Maybe, as with other things we’ve learned over the years publishing online, we can at least guide others. -PK

Have you been paying attention to Renoise, the modernized tracker? You might want to start. The cat is out of the bag on Renoise 2.5’s new beta (available immediately to registered users), and it looks like it may be a dramatic leap forward. Even better, 2.6 promises to allow a level of customization, scripting, and integration we haven’t seen in any music tool, anywhere.

Two memes have gripped the underground electronic music over recent years. One has been the tracker, and its atomic, ground-up musical process, embodied in new and old software and in the love of handheld game systems like the Game Boy. The other has been the grid as a way of reconceiving and playing musical patterns, from Ableton Live to the monome.

Now imagine if these two memes collided.

And, oh yeah, imagine if you suddenly got the modulate-anything, script-anything, customize-anything, control-anything-with-anything, use OSC and MIDI and keyboards everywhere you’ve been asking for. A beta that’s about to drop should begin to answer whether Renoise will be the first app to pull it all off, with major new features coming early in the year and powerful scripting and customization later in 2010.

The tricky thing about introducing a new feature is that you almost immediately hear from users about other features that would go well with that feature. (There’s a children’s story that goes this way.) The folks at Cakewalk have done what I think is a pretty amazing job of working through a big feature list, and throwing in additional goodies users get without even asking. They’ve also listened to users and been thorough in fixing issues – some quite particular – in 8.5. The result is that SONAR 8.5.2 brings a mature version of some significantly-changed features, and an unusually significant amount of stuff for a “point” release. If 8.5 was beginning to feel like 9.0, 8.5.2 definitely does.

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It’s long been the case that if you wanted to run Pro Tools, you needed hardware from Digidesign. That’s why it was a surprise when Mackie announced new audio interface-mixer hardware that they said they had made work with Pro Tools M-Powered, which previously worked only with M-Audio gear. Digidesign parent Avid had made statements that they would champion “openness,” but it wasn’t clear at the time if that would extent to allowing third-party gear to work with Avid’s software crown jewels.

We get our answer today from LOUD. There is a catch – you’ll have to pay extra for the connection – but it does seem that the two will work together.

LOUD Technologies Inc. (parent company of Mackie®) today announced it has signed an agreement with Avid® that licenses the use of Mackie’s new Onyx™-i Series Firewire Recording Mixers with Avid Pro Tools® M-Powered™ 8 software.

To enable use with Pro Tools M-Powered 8, users will need to purchase the Mackie Universal Driver upgrade ($49.99 USD) at www.mackie.com. Once the driver is downloaded and installed, the Onyx 820i, 1220i, 1620i and 1640i mixers can be used with Avid Pro Tools M-Powered 8 software.

Of course, I imagine all of this prompts a collective eye roll from some of Avid’s competitors, since DAWs from MOTU, Cakewalk, Apple, Ableton, Steinberg, and others are all designed to work with a wide range of hardware – no fee-based driver upgrade needed. But for lovers of Pro Tools, this does mean a new choice, and it’s definitely a departure from tradition. If Pro Tools is your favorite DAW, this seems like very good news, as it’s an extremely versatile-looking interface-mixer that fills a gap M-Audio themselves hadn’t filled. Anyone with the new Onyx-i hardware want to let us know if you’re likely to bite?

http://www.mackie.com/onyxiseries

It’s something we take for granted now, but not so long ago, the only way to scratch and cue records was with analog vinyl. Now, of course, simulating those behaviors using digital records on turntables connected to computers is commonplace. But that hasn’t stopped the question of who owns the technology from spawning legal disputes. Most recently, a suit brought by patent claimants N2IT against M-Audio was dismissed. You can read the history from the time N2IT, a two-person company, launched their first commercial digital DJing (for BeOS, no less) back in the late 90s.

In patents, “first” is everything. And while N2IT had the first commercial product, it seems that broadly speaking the concept of how to make digital DJing work was not exclusively theirs. Chris Bauer writes CDM to share documentation of his own working prototype in 1998, before N2IT shipped their product. Nor is he alone. N2IT hasn’t yet brought suit against digital DJ maker Serato, and Serato’s Steve West publicly demonstrated research at the University of Aukland which leads back to 1996, well ahead of N2IT’s own demos.