This course introduces IDM students to contemporary techniques and issues in audio, sound and musical research. The class covers digital and analog signal processing, synthesis, musical informatics and interaction design as it applies to contemporary music production, post-production and live performance. The course will focus on work in Max/MSP for a variety of contexts (including web audio and embedded systems), as well as the use of the analog synthesizers in the IDM audio lab and the multi-channel audio and media presentation system in the 370 Jay Street media commons. Students are expected to achieve competence in a number of technologies and to create brief studies based on them.