Who are the people in your DIY music neighborhood?

Well, quite a few of the DIYers here on Planet Earth are converging this week in New York. Lover of circuit bending, creative electronics, and DIY music hardware are gathering for the massive Bent Festival in Manhattan, complete with performances, workshops, and a book launch. And we’ve got a special edition planned of Handmade Music featuring several artists from Bent, too, in our monthly free event. For the rest of the planet, I hope to share some of these goodies well beyond the borders of the five boroughs.

To give you a taste of the kind of work we’re doing, check out the videos here of Chiptune Marching Band, getting kids making noisy circuits for the first time and the fantastic electronic workings of Peter Edwards’ brain, plus NPR radio coverage of Ranjit Bhatnagar’s hand-crafted “Instrument a Day.”

Here are the highlights of the events.

Bent Festival, April 16-18, The Tank in Manhattan

bentfestival.org

• Nightly performances by Dr. Bleep, VBLANK, Christopher McDonald, Computer at Sea, Rhythmmemory, Playboy’s Bend, Die Schrauber, Peter Edwards/casperelectronics, E-Squared, Family TV, Devgon Ash, Ken Rei, Dr. Rek, Pixel Form, Boring Machine, Burnkit 2600, Anti Social Musik Order, plus Handmade Music veterans Lesley Flanigan, Loud Objects, Tristan Perich, and Don Miller / No Carrier … plus free beer every night at 7p.
• Nic Collins launching a new edition of his book Handmade Electronic Music – The Art of Hardware Hacking. (Can’t wait to read that.)
• Workshops on making your own Noise Box or miniRungler (sounds like Dr. Seuss), working with sensors and networks and big installations of lights that switch on and off, microcontroller programming, circuit bending, circuit design, and other Brainy Topics for beginners. There’s even a family-friendly workshop on making your chiptune marching band instruments.

Chiptune Marching Band from jamie allen on Vimeo.

And from your cheery neighbors here at CDM and our friends –

Handmade Music returns with a special Bent Edition – free, Thursday, 4/16, 3rd Ward in Brooklyn:

• “modular synth meets circuit-bent Barbie dolls. noise, drone, dance party with Peter Edwards of casperelectronics.”
• A surprise mystery instrument(s) from Handmade Music superstar Ranjit Bhatnagar, who promises it’ll be “something weird.”
• Me, with the DIY Radio Shack contact mic and some custom software, showing you how to have fun with cheap impulse-buy contact mics and make music with water
• Hopefully surprise cameos from Bent Festival’s Jamie Allen and Jo Kazuhiro talking about the circuitry, the music, and the magic of the Chiptune Marching Band
• Free beer courtesy Pabst Blue Ribbon, while it lasts

Presented by createdigitalmusic.com with our friends at music trend-setters XLR8R.com, DIY bible makezine.com, and self-made marketplace Etsy.com

Hosted by artists’ facility and happening location 3rd Ward

7:30pm, Thursday, April 16 – FREE!
3rd Ward is located at 195 Morgan Ave., at the corner of Stagg St., in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
(near the Grand St L train)
Directions
RSVP: handmade@3rdward.com

Facebook event page

See also lots more at:

casperelectronics

For more on handmade music and Ranjit’s brilliant, self-motivated hand-crafted Instrument a Day project, NPR did a fantastic piece on All Things Considered:

An Instrument A Day, Crafted By Hand [audio, interviews, and sound examples of some wild and wonderful instruments]

Wonderful things happen when you invite lovers of noise together in a room. Musicians and non-musicians, electronics geeks and first-timers, folks pick up a soldering iron — often for the first time — and cause utter mayhem. So we again had a fantastic time at Handmade Music last month. I’ve just gotten the photos in, so decided to share.

We’re looking for folks to bring stuff to Handmade Music on 4/16 – see the bottom of the article and give us a shout if you have software or hardware creations to share. They don’t even have to work, entirely – this is the place to find people to help give advice, so we like even partly-functioning inventions.

Even if you live far, far from Brooklyn (like back in Old Amsterdam), the featured March projects are within reach:

• Loud Objects Noise Toy was the star of the evening. Lesley Flanigan and Tristan Perich of Loud Objects — superstar composers and sound artists themselves — were onhand as patient teachers and guides in the ways of Noise.
• glitchDS on PC and Mac: The DS homebrew creator Bret Truchan delighted with not only his mobile gaming creations, but a netbook running a new PC cellular automaton MIDI sequencer, ported to Processing. More on that soon. (See the image captured by Make Magazine’s Collin Cunningham.)
• Pulsantes I got Jaime Munarriz’ strange Processing + Pd pulsating rhythmic toys working on a PC – thanks, Jaime, for the virtual contribution!
• jReality Peter Brinkmann demonstrated the sonic capabilities of audiovisual virtual reality framework jReality. Intense stuff – you don’t even need to use Cartesian coordinates. Elliptical, baby!
• Networked Objects: Eric Beug brought by his DIY wireless synth modules and an iPhone for control. This progress is under development, so I hope it makes a repeat visit.

By the way, in case you wondered what happens when a bunch of people play all their newly-built Noise Toys at once? It sounds something like … this (and sorry, my digicam mic was entirely incapable of capturing the resulting sonic chaos):

Our Handmade Music series continues this month on Thursday evening, 3/19, 7:30p at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn. Projects are open as always. Bring hardware. Bring circuit-bent stuff. Bring code and patches. Bring works you want to perform. Bring works that don’t work yet. Just, if you can, give us a shout to know what to expect. We have a PA, a mixer, a projector, and some space. It’s a party / science fair-style atmosphere, a chance to have a few beers and celebrate sound and noise with fellow geeks and the musicurious.

I’m particularly interested this month to see if anyone has Java or Processing-based works you want to share, as Sun’s CommunityOne East is in town, meaning lots o’ Java programmers. (Generally, they’re doing serious, work stuff like … um … servers and things. But that doesn’t mean you can’t show off your own, more unusual creations.)

More details of the lineup soon.

Call for Works, Direct Link [Google Docs]
Embedded form below:

A reminder – tonight in Brooklyn, it’s Handmade Music again, with the wonderful sounds of the Electric Junkyard Gamelan. After a couple of years of doing Handmade Music, this is actually the first featured performance by a whole-ly acoustic (if amplified) ensemble, which I think is too bad. I believe digital and electronic instruments are fundamentally different than acoustic instruments from a design perspective, and the confusion between the two can actually hamper creative thinking. But at the same time, once you realize that, there are all kinds of things you can learn from the design of instruments that make physical sound – and massive potential in mixing acoustic and electronic techniques. That, and this music sounds great.

My favorite track on YouTube has only a slide show in the background, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

For you New Yorker metro area folks:
Presented by createdigitalmusic.com with our friends at music trend-setters XLR8R.com, DIY bible makezine.com, self-made marketplace Etsy.com, and artists’ facility 3rd Ward

7:30pm, Thursday, February 19
3rd Ward is located at 195 Morgan Ave., at the corner of Stagg St., in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
(near the Grand St L train)
Directions

Facebook event page / RSVP
Join the CDM Facebook Page

Non-NYers, I’m open to suggestions as far as trying to set up a video stream. Mogulus just added a verification process, though I can get up to 50 people there without it.

It’s time again for Handmade Music, the party – musical performance – science fair geek-out for musicians and the musi-curious. We’ve got an amazing lineup this month if you happen to be in the New York area. We’ll have some usual raucus racket noise-making time, but also a full live performance from a DIY gamelan ensemble. (I’ll see if I can set up a live stream, too.) And if you have a hardware or software project you’d like to show off, check out our call for works. Remember – it doesn’t have to be done / entirely working; this is a chance to get some feedback from fellow makers. We’re all learning.

Event Details

Presented by createdigitalmusic.com with our friends at music trend-setters XLR8R.com, DIY bible makezine.com, self-made marketplace Etsy.com, and artists’ facility 3rd Ward

7:30pm, Thursday, February 19
3rd Ward is located at 195 Morgan Ave., at the corner of Stagg St., in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
(near the Grand St L train)
Directions
RSVP: handmade@3rdward.com

Sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon, with free beer while it lasts!

This Month

Handmade Music 2/19 features special guest Electric Junkyard Gamelan. Composer/founder Terry Dame and ensemble members will demonstrate the self-created instruments, and will provide a unique live performance.
Terry Dame’s Electric Junkyard Gamelan

Also in February, a free hands-on: learn the basics of musical electronics without any previous experience, and without even picking up a soldering iron. Using the PAiA ribbon controller kit, a kit you can assemble on a business card with a graphite pencil as your only tool, you’ll make a simple sound-making circuit that you can apply to many other projects. Come early while the PAiA kits still last.

Learn musical electronics without soldering
Provided through the generosity and ingenuity of PAiA Electronics

Newcomers to music and electronics alike welcome, as always (and you, too, can make a ribbon controller kit).

Call for Works

Got a project you want to show off? We’d love to have you bring it round for the show-and-tell / racket-making portion of the evening.

Call for Works [direct link, Google Docs]