The era of artists regularly releasing stems for remixing seems imminent. In the meantime, we see occasional examples of artists who get it. Radiohead have a new feature on their tune Nude, promoted with Apple. Purchase stems of a song (that’s by stem, so you pay US$0.99 * 5 stems + 1 full song if you want everything), and you get audio via iTunes Plus. Purchase the full set, and you can also download a GarageBand / Logic Pro-compatible project with all loop, tempo, and key information embedded, as pictured at top. (Unless I’m mistaken, that’s also the ideal way to get uncompressed audio for use in other tools.)

If you happen to prefer another tool for remixing (say, one that rhymes with Mabledon Dive and is often seen running on computers from Apple), these are just DRM-free audio files, so the choice is yours. Upload the finished results to the Web, and the band will review submissions and open them to votes. There are already a number of remixes up at the moment.

NUDE RE/MIX on iTunes

Radiohead Remix Site

Hmmm, nude remixing? Brings new meaning to “bedroom producer.” Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Radiohead does specify that you can’t use these for commercial purposes; it’s too bad they didn’t choose to apply a Creative Commons non-commercial license, which would formalize essentially what they’re saying. But this is otherwise done quite nicely, nonetheless, and I hope we see more of this.

Like remixable music? Nine Inch Nails has a whole remix site, and indie label Magnatune lets you remix all their artists’ work via a Creative Commons license (though they typically don’t offer stems). Online music outlet Dance Tracks Digital goes beyond stems with full Ableton Live-ready projects, suitable for DJs. That’s just for starters; if you have other favorite remix resources, let us know.

Announcing the winners of the 2007 Circuit-Bending Challenge!

Note: All the entries were excellent, and we have a little prize lined up for all of you, not just these top picks. *See below for details

It was very hard to choose three winners from all of the entries- the variety and quality of submissions was amazing. So, we tried to select those that most embodied the spirit of the contest- creativity, within a set time limit, and using only those materials that can be scraped together quickly.

And that didn’t narrow it down much. It was a tough call to be sure, and it makes me think that we’ll be seeing increased stiff competition next year. So, while these three will receive a special prize, we’ve got something lined up for everyone who participated.

Without further delay (ahem), here are the top 3 entries in no particular order:

George Lazenbleep’s Mini Furby:

El Colin’s Bent Guitar:

And Squelchbox’s “The 15 Puzzle”:

Since I forgot to do this at the beginning of the contest-
everyone who entered, please use the createdigitalmusic contact form and send us a message containing the following information:

• Your name
• Your display name
• The piece you submitted to the contest
• Your address and contact info (email is fine)

I will be in touch to make sure you receive your prizes in the mail.

Thanks again to everyone for participating, thanks to our generous prize-donating benefactors, and let’s do this again next year!

I’m pleased to announce the first-ever CDM Giveaway. We’ve got over US$4,000 of hardware and software tools for music creation, and we’d like to give you the chance to win them. To do that, we’re holding a good, old-fashioned prize drawing — I’ve been warming up my true random number generator — so that all you have to do is enter for a chance to win. To better your odds, each prize will get a different winner.

CDM Giveaway Info Page; official rules (no purchase necessary).

Here’s what we’ve got:

Akai MPC500 mobile music workstation
Ableton Live 6 music production software
Alesis ControlPad drum pad controller
Glyph GT 050Q 250GB eSATA/USB/FW400/FW800 hard drive
Moog Music Moogerfooger FreqBox VCO effects box
Native Instruments Absynth 4 soft synth
Native Instruments Elektrik Piano soft synth
Numark Total Control DJ control surface
PreSonus FaderPort

…plus boxes of Ableton beanies and AudioMIDI.com Synth Legends DVDs. You can check everything out on the giveaway page.

And get some link love, too: Eligible residents of the United States can enter to win any one of these prizes. Unfortunately, for legal reasons we can’t extend the whole sweepstakes to international readers. To make up for it, we’ll be watching international entries for the best blogs, project pages, and music websites to feature on CDM, and we’ll send out Ableton beanies and/or DVDs to our favorite entries. (American readers, we’ll be watching your pages, too, so be sure to include your URLs when you enter.)

We’ve been putting this together for a while now and it’s been a lot of work, so I’m excited to be able to roll it out. We’ve hand-picked some of our favorite gear and software makers to partner with, or we wouldn’t be doing this.

Full details on the giveaway page. Enter now, because at the stroke of midnight following Monday, June 11, the contest is over. And I really want to get these boxes of gear and swag shipped. It’ll be a lot more fun out of the brown cardboard boxes, I’m sure.

Update: If you’re not from the US – please do fill out the form, if you include nothing other than your URL (so we can check out your site) and your country. (Nothing else is required.)

We’re really sorry we weren’t able to go global on this one for legal reasons (I try to explain why in comments). But that’s all the more reason to find out where you’re from. Server stats provide a very incomplete picture of what country people are from, and we would like to know. And if you include contact info, I might at least be able to get some of you some swag.

Phillip over at Make Magazine has two goodies for us today. First up, lots of DIY synth circuit diagrams:

DIY Synthesizer Pages [Make:zine]

On the same note, be sure to check out musicsynthesizer.com, with enough resources to read through for the rest of 2006.

But if you need more motivation to begin a DIY musical instrument project — other than, you know, reading through webpages — this should get your attention. A charity event (Funde Razor) for Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play could feature your homemade Guitar Hero controller, embedded in a real guitar. I’m sure one of our readers has the skills to pull this off. There’s the possibility of funding to help your construction efforts, plus some treat from the Make store:

Guitar Hero/ Funde Razor [Make:zine]

If any of you take this on, let us know!