It’s the music of the spheres. Or at least, the music of the various, floating geometric shapes, bouncing around a virtual galaxy with gravity simulation. Kepler’s Orrery is a (newly) open-sourced generative music maker, based on a gravity simulation algorithm. As bodies collide, they make sound; it’s a bit like what would happen if you crossed a music box with a snow globe. Different worlds represent different songs. You can reach in and grab some of the objects, so it’s possible to “perform” with the project.

The application runs directly in a web browser (assuming your Java is up to date), and since it’s open source, digging around in the code could inspire your own Java-based musical environment.

Kepler’s Orrery Project Page, with notes, source code, and a live applet
Creator Simran Gleason Talks About the Project on java.net in a podcast (MP3)

And yes, there are some similarities here to the generative music of Brian Eno (soon to be heard in the upcoming Will Wright game Spore) and sound artist/composer Toshio Iwai’s ElectroPlankton game. Perhaps we have a whole genre of musical creation in the works here.

Related:

• Flash-Powered, Animated Musical Painting: Visual Acoustics
• NuSofting’s Collide and Play plug-in uses a similar, physics-inspired interface
• Videos and more featuring Nintendo ElectroPlankton and Tenori-On creator Toshio Iwai
• Why ElectroPlankton is wonderful — but falls short of being the music tool it could have been
• Brian Eno, with Will Wright on Spore and Generative Systems, Sound, and Paintings

The Musini began its life as an award-winning toy. The product description is hilarious:

A perfect gift for rambunctious toddlers, the Musini music box provides a constructive way for children to channel their physical and creative energy. While kids step, jump, turn, and tap, the Musini’s patented MusicSensor detects their every move and translates it into a totally unique musical response, teaching cause and effect. A Style Dial encourages children to explore the five different musical styles, ranging from jazz to classical, and musical variation buttons offer four different interpretations of each musical style.

(Some of us rambunctious toddlers here on CDM require decidedly more expensive toys into which we channel our physical and creative energy.)

Of course, the results are interesting, but not as interesting as they could be, so circuit benders have set about modifying the toys. A couple of weeks ago, we saw chronovalve’s ambient musini bend, alongside a very lovely, post-apocalyptic-looking keyboard. Jonathan Williams write in to share his own circuit-bent musinis. His designs may have inspired other benders’ musini hacks; even if not, he’s gone through several generations and added some powerful features:

Mike aka Chronovalve writes CDM to share two new projects: a circuit-bent keyboard called Debris and the Musini, a children’s toy turned into a surprisingly sophisticated ambient music generator.

Here’s the surprise: just because these are circuit-bent / DIY projects doesn’t have to mean they sound like glitchy chaos. One of the conversations I had with Reed Ghazala, the “father of bending”, was about his disappointment that benders weren’t exploring broader timbral and musical horizons, at least for his taste. Mike definitely gets some interesting sounds out of these. For instance, the keyboard can absolutely rock the glitch:

Debris Glitch

But it can also enter traditional synth lead territory, with some subtle twists:

Debris 1

The Musini enters an entirely different musical dimension with some wild sonic landscapes, all from an aleatoric children’s toy:

Musini Metamorph

More pics and sounds:

Musini
Debris

If you’re finding massive soundware libraries to be a little overwhelming — on your hard drive, your brain, and your wallet — you’ll like the idea of the new expansion packs from Tone Research. The first two are 13MB downloads priced at US$4.99 each. They work with Live 5 and get bonus features from Live 6. I’m still waiting on my copies, so I can’t yet comment on sound quality yet, but I’ll report back once I’ve thrown these into some songs.

Tone Research Expansion Packs for Ableton Live

Here’s what the creator has to say:

Frost: Frozen Ambiance
Frost features 50 beautiful ambient device groups for your Simpler. Lots of deep, evolving pads and atmospheres sprinkled with other assorted gems to add seriously lush drama to any track, all with an icy vibe. Frost is sourced from some great hardware synths and recorded direct to 24 bit audio. Each and every patch is crafted and designed specifically for Live 5, and just wait till you here these sounds stacked up in the upcoming Live 6 “Racks”! Seriously Amazing.

Fatso: Artery Clogging Bass
Fatso features 50 big bass device groups for your Simpler. Recorded at 24 bit direct from a handful of analog classics, these patches are heavy, hard and high in FAT. We’ve preserved the sounds of the original hardware filters throughout much of the collection to seal in the analog juices. These basses simply scream, so watch your speakers.

In other news: mmmmm, french fries. Is it my lunch break? (And yes, we’re allowed to call them french fries, not freedom fries again, even here in America. I just dub them “that which is delicious.”)