Instrument building show and tell: Circuit-bender and hardware DIYer Chachi Jones writes to say he’ll be leading a very cool session for maker/musicians: Making Instruments, Making Music, with show-and-tell, Q&A, and jamming.

“Super Happy Fun Blinky Workbench?” Kit maker Lady Ada, aka Limor Fried, will have a play-day with her inexpensive circuit-building kits. Limor is known for her excellent kit clone of the Roland TB-303 synth, but she also has some impulse-buy $20 kits like her MiniPOV lighting kit, which I’m building now. I hope she’ll also have her new sensor-to-MIDI interface there, the MIDISense. Regardless, this is a don’t-miss stop on your tour. Also, unlike me, Limor has lots of fanboys. (Well, I don’t know, maybe I have fanboys or fangirls somewhere.)

Musical Instruments for the Motorcycle Enthusiast: The title alone pretty much says it. An upright bass built out of a motorcycle (pictured hered) and other creations: it’s like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Synthesis. More weird custom interfaces on their site.

Speaker in an Ottoman: Because, really, music and furniture just go together — see CDM’s inexplicable ongoing series.

Wireless Networked Toys: I’m sure there are plenty of musical applications lurking in the tech here.

There’s also a circuit bending workshop, a reappearance by the Improbable Orchestra installation as seen at Burning Man (and covered here on CDM), live looping with found and invented instruments, and lots more. Watch for our full report!

For some of the most bizarre and unusual music-sound installation art, look no further than Burning Man. Burning, indeed: this desert-based event has in the past featured Eric Singer’s Max/MSP-controlled pyrophone, a propane-powered flaming sound organ. (And, incidentally, that installation is making a repeat appearance this year.)

And what better activity when in the middle of the desert than tweaking knobs and producing strange electronic grooves? That’s the idea behind improbable orchestra, an interactive table full o’ knobs for collaborative soundmaking. Build one yourself: check out the copious design notes. Basic specs: the free Pure Data graphical multimedia development environment is running sounds, gutted Pentium PC with custom power supply, custom circuit board connecting the knobs and fiddly bits thorough a Parallax basic stamp board. (Lots more specs on their site, missing only details of the Pd patch.)

“But,” says you, “I hate knobs. Give me lasers, man.” Sure! You obviously want the interactive Aeolian laser harp, which suspends a series of laser beams through which you can walk to trigger sound. It’s the creation of former NYU ITP faculty member Jen Lewin, now based in Colorado and doing interactive sculpture full-time. She has other fantastic projects like interactive butterflies.

Are you going to Burning Man — or have a project of your own you want to tell us about? Drop me a line!

improbable orchestra
Laser harps
Pyrophone [ CDM ]
Art of Burning Man [burningman.com]