Our stream experiment worked – thanks for enduring it! So, we did get a very basic stream going and were able to successfully broadcast over 3rd Ward’s network. I imagine it was generally not so interesting if you tuned in (we had some equipment and camera placement issues). However, it functioned a proof of concept, and in future we can actually make it much more interesting, with videos of projects queued, more interaction, and camera + audio that actually brings you the event. So thanks for those of you who helped (who also clued us into making chat work on IRC as well as ustream), and looking forward to our first proper livecast!

This is entirely experimental, but I’ll be broadcasting live from Handmade Music tonight in Brooklyn. Drop by and have a look at what’s going on. 7:30pm Eastern (that’s GMT -4) is when the event begins. We may be able to switch on earlier than that, but I’ll at least try to have something up by then. Note that we may not be able to have someone live on chat through the evening, so you could get a fishtank experience, but I’ll try to get folks to come say hi through the evening.

And of course, if you’re in the New York area, you can just drop by yourselves and have free beer.

Here’s a cruel joke for you: the first day of Frankfurt’s Musikmesse trade show? The date on which all the music tech press releases for the show have dated their embargo? April First.

Now, to me, the whole point of April Fool’s is surprise, or at least humor. April Fool’s has become so obligatory that everything from faux press releases to blog posts are dedicated to the topic whether they were inspired or not. So, you know what? No April Fool’s Day here. Anything covered on this site tomorrow will be – to the best of my knowledge, anyway – real. (Or as near reality as we ever get.)

Ironically, news in our world is so unsurprising, any interesting news is immediately suspected of being fake. Teenage Engineering’s Operator-1 is so cool looking that, aside from concerns it may not ship, some of you have gone so far to worry the whole thing is an elaborate April Fool’s prank. (One clue that that’s nonsense: it was announced on March 30. It even missed the Ides of March.)

But there you go: case in point. Reality actually can be cool. So we’ll stay away from the pranks this year, and any foolery will be of the technological kind. Enjoy.

I’ve just finished my first full day of the Game Developer Conference. While this is not Create Digital Games, there are some real highlights here, from ideas in music and visual production and experimental interface design to the work to promote and codify interactive music at the Interactive Audio SIG. Between GDC and the usual cast of characters in San Francisco, there’s a remarkable roster of folks. Text is in drafts, so stay tuned. The fundamental contradiction of all writing is that of being and recording your being. But to me, beneath headlines about development products or new games, these things are never-repeated assemblages of interesting people – and they’re usually the ones with the stories. If you happen to be around, give a holler.

I’m also connecting with our friends at Boing Boing and Boing Boing Offworld, and we’ll have some joint coverage this week and next. They’re crazy enough to be doing a live video stream, so if it’s during the day West Coast time you can see what they’re up to:

I do promise that CDM will have up-to-the-second coverage of the stuff you care about (that is, when we’re not getting scooped by early print runs of Electronic Musician or the Akai website), but for those of you who are reloading our page every few moments, here’s an alternative:

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I’ll post tidbits the moment I know them, and you’ll be the first to know when new stuff goes live here, I promise (including revisions/updates to stories).

At 3:30 pm (CUT/GMT -5 Eastern Time), we’ll carry Ableton and Cycling ‘74 news.
At 4:00 pm, we’ll have Native Instruments news.
Friday, we’ll have an exclusive from MOTU (not what you’ve heard about.)

But I do also expect some of the most interesting coverage to come the week after NAMM, as some of the questions (particularly regarding the Cycling announcement) are more technical and go beyond what’s been publicly released. We also have hands-on time planned both with the new Native Instruments and Akai hardware.

Now I feel like an ad on a cable network. Ahem. (Imagine James Earl Jones’ voice.) “For the latest news, stay tuned. This … is CDM.” What, you kids are too young to remember CNN in the 90s?

When should you tune in tomorrow to get the news? Thanks to the fact that some folks do send CDM press releases under embargo, some big announcements should happen at:

• Thursday, 1:00pm Eastern Time: This is the opening of the NAMM show, so it’s when many embargoes are lifted. Any really big stories that deserve it will get immediately published then.
• Thursday, 3:30pm Eastern Time: I have some specific stories that are held for this specific time that will definitely be published then.
• Over the weekend and later: Because I want to actually cover less but do it in more detail, expect other news and analysis over the coming days.
• The rest of 2009: Some announcements simply don’t make NAMM. We expect some news to come out of this year’s Messe conference in Germany. I expect in the near future trade shows in China will start breaking news. And most importantly, a lot of news doesn’t happen at trade shows. I’m personally excited by the stuff we’ll be seeing at things like our Handmade Music event coming from DIYers.

Some NAMM news is already leaking out today, and on top of that I’m watching as sites are posting press releases that are clearly under embargo. Now, that might seem a good way to get a jump on the news, except it’s not.