Everything at http://shop.electrotap.com can be had with a 5% discount through December 31. Just enter the following discount code when checking-out:

CHRISTMAS2009

Enjoy!

We have some news: Electrotap is now an authorized re-seller for Cycling ’74. This means we are now able to offer a couple of things:

1. We are now selling Max/MSP and Max/MSP/Jitter at a reduced price.
2. We have bundles of Tap.Tools with Max/MSP/Jitter. The bundled price for Max/MSP/Jitter gives you, in essence, Tap.Tools for free.

If there are bundles of Electrotap and Cycling ’74 products you would like to see, please let us know!

If you place an order from Electrotap @ http://shop.electrotap.com/ , you now have the option of paying using Google Checkout. This is in addition to Paypal or directly paying Electrotap. We hope this additional option will help some of our awesome patrons!

A couple days ago Cycling ’74 released Max 5.0.7. This version of Max is a “must download”. The most noticeable thing is that the launch time is significantly improved over previous versions of Max!

http://cycling74.com/downloads/max5

Since it’s inception Electrotap has been a mishmash of ideas and roles and purposes. For one thing it hardware design and development company working on the Teabox and sensor applications. In addition to that Electrotap became a manufacturer producing sensors and doing finally assembly on the Teaboxes. Then we absorbed Silicon Prairie Intermedia, which meant absorbing the software development for Tap.Tools and Hipno. And finally we are an online store selling all of this. Oh, and we have done consulting too – but you might not have known it since that was competing with everything else we do.

So we’re spinning off a chunk of this activity into a new company: 74 Objects LLC. 74 Objects is a software design house. That’s it. Primarily this is developing software for clients who need some custom software, but it also means developing any new software products that serve the music/arts community.

What does this mean for Electrotap? It means that Electrotap can be more focused on fulfilling it’s core vision without the distraction caused by chasing various software and consulting leads. When we started Electrotap, one of our goals was to make it a bit like a co-op where we would market and sell the work of other niche companies and artist-entrepreneurs. Despite our success with the Hemispheres, I think that producing our own products has been an impediment to others trusting us to give their products equal footing with our own in-house products; this is one step toward alleviating that concern. Finally, it helps to release Electrotap to embrace it’s existence as an online store, and to pursue selling products that we otherwise might not have pursued.

While still in it’s infancy, there is now a 74Objects Blog. While the Electrotap Blog is a lot more about ‘what’, the 74Objects Blog will be a lot more about ‘how’ and ‘why’. It won’t be the place for a lot of product updates or announcements, but it will be a place where more philosophical discussions happen. And it has open comments so that those discussions can involve readers more easily. We hope you enjoy it!

Cycling ’74 has released Max 5.0.6 and it is now available for download @ http://www.cycling74.com/downloads/max5 .

This release has an insane number of improvements and bug fixes. Anyone using Max should definitely update…

Cycling74 has announced that registration is open for Expo74 @ http://expo74.net/. This is the first user’s conference hosted by Cycling74 around Max.

As a bonus: if you have missed seeing the group photo of Cycling74 wearing ugly sweaters that was featured at http://cycling74.com over Christmas, then you can see some individual shots sporting those sweaters at http://expo74.net/whattoexpect/presenters.html .

Should be fun!