Comments on: Can Laptops Be Expressive? Jamming on MacBooks at Stanford’s Laptop Orchestra

By: Create Digital Music » Spaces and Roots: Manipulating Sound with Processing + Touch, Tangible Interfaces

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 04:37:14 +0000

[...] ChucK: a strongly-timed, quick-to-code sound and synthesis language. Itâ€™s elegant enough that itâ€™s used for real-time programming â€“ as in, onstage, in laptop ensembles like PLOrk and (its West Coast descendent we just saw here on CDM) SLOrk. [...]

By: Hidden Place Blog » Blog Archive » Una laptop puede ser expresiva?

Hidden Place Blog » Blog Archive » Una laptop puede ser expresiva? — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:55:16 +0000

[...] http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/11/17/can-laptops-be-expressive-jamming-on-macbooks-at-stanfords-... [...]

By: Oh Travioso

Oh Travioso — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:26:15 +0000

I was in Slork, and can almost be seen in that news footage. It’s a very academic process. My music that I make is very commercial, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what we were doing in Slork. One of the biggest things I think, that can’t be conveyed through any videos, is the surrounding sound that’s created by 20 different speaker arrays. That clicking they showed in that news piece sounded great in that space. We also performed in open spaces. It was more about the spatialization of the sounds in a lot of those pieces then the sounds themselves. Also, Baek’s pieces was one of the best next to mine :)

By: Baek Chang

Baek Chang — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:53:02 +0000

There really isn’t any documentation on how to make the speaker arrays. There should be tho. We used these wooden Ikea salad bowls and used hole saws to drill into them. The speakers were drilled/screwed into the bowls. 6 jacks were put into a slender piece of sheet metal. We used 3 stereo t-amps and put those into the bowl and closed up the bottom with another piece of wood and screwed them shut. I think theres a video somewhere that shows us drilling and putting together the speaker arrays.

By: 4lefts

4lefts — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:47:31 +0000

+1. ich wants.

By: zenartist

zenartist — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:20:02 +0000

I am most interested in how to make the speaker arrays.. I found links with pics but no technical data on what/how exactly they are made.. anyone have a link?

By: Baek Chang

Baek Chang — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:27:39 +0000

@ zinoff

It was for some wack network concert with china, we had to impress the camera and look “professional”. I think slork has great potential, if it wasn’t so focused on getting media attention. But I guess that is what up and coming things need to do to get funding and continue to do what they do.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:27:09 +0000

@zinoff: one of the age-old questions of all musicians. ;)

By: zinoff

zinoff — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:25:18 +0000

man, why do they all dress in black?

By: christopher

christopher — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:44:14 +0000

i also agree with the appraisal of the news piece. my first thought was that it’s a pity a piece about music is so uninteresting musically.

and often when i watch pieces about new electronic music its drones and random sounds. where’s the william tell overture of electronic music? rhythm seems to be one of the things missing in many of these pieces.

that said however, i really enjoyed the vid Baek Chang pointed to. it showed how enjoyable the process seemed to be, and as others have pointed out, that this is primarily a learning/teaching process, not just a musical endeavor. i love the fact that people are getting a chance to explore new territory like this. that’s awesome.