LA-based bang Fol Chen (Asthmatic Kitty records) wanted to go beyond the computer as the playback and manipulation device for their music. So they worked with collaborators to invent a solution. In a new video, sounds, and an interview, we can share some of how this came into being.

Built with the monome creators (Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain) and LA research and experimentation center Machine Project, the Tetrafol is a custom, pyramidal sound device. The object warps Fol Chen’s music using gestural manipulation of playback, but can also use your own samples. And with open-source circuit and firmware, the project could be an opportunity to learn or to build your own creation.

Description:

The Tetrafol is a hand-held tangible electronic sound toy. Circuits enclosed by a wooden tetrahedron detect orientation and motion-gestures to modify the playback of a collection of Fol Chen’s micro-compositions, allowing the user to explore sound through physical manipulation.

The battery-powered device has its own internal speaker but can additionally be hooked up to a headphone or amplifier.

The circuit and firmware are based on open-source hardware and is itself published as open-source, allowing anyone interested to learn about its deepest inner-workings.

Here’s a sample of the project, via the Tetrafol-created Fol Chen track “So Good”:
Fol Chen – So Good by WeGetPress

Built by hand in a limited run of 100, the device sells for US$110 direct from Machine Project. We spoke to monome’s Brian Crabtree about the project – and a new, comically-inclined video shows off the project.

Stems from the track “Back on Kent” come preloaded:
Fol Chen, “Back on Kent” by asthmatickitty

CDM: How did this collaboration come about? How did you work together?

brian: kelli and i have a loving and working relationship with machineproject, a phenomenal organization founded by our good friend mark allen. we’re always amazed at the fantastical variety of projects that are born there. a few inspiring works of recent include a cash machine designed for a children’s museum and a workshop on lockpicking. so when mark approached us on behalf of his good friend adam goldman and adam’s band fol chen regarding a possible collaboration we were all ears. the goal was to design and produce some sort of synthesizer-sampler-effect-instrument-toy-object to accompany the release of their new album. that was about a year ago and we’re happy to see it finalized and soon in playful hands.

in the early stages there was much whittling of ideas (too expensive, too complicated, etc). we arrived at some sort of gestural sample player and a demo video was ready to show the proof of concept (we live on opposite coasts so there was much back and forth through internets and mails) the basic build used a waveshield (by adafruit) and an arduino and some very hacky code i modified.

fol chen provided the sound set. kelli and i proposed a series of enclosures– diamonds, stars, ice cream cones, d20. the tetrahedron ended up being the most beautifully minimal, and incidentally the most cost effective. our friend jason voytilla laser cut a prototype from thin birch ply and we sent the “finished” sample to california where it underwent a series of intense focus groups – thanks to the rigorous machineproject laboratories. after more back and forth, and basic design changes here and there we were in agreement. we used our very reliable production chain that we depend on for monome releases… it was nice really helpful to have that all in place and sped up the process considerably.

the tetrafol accompanies the release of some exciting new fol chen tracks, and there will be a release party of sorts in early december at machineproject. should be very interesting, as the current installation is a 30 foot deep window sill of sorts.

What went into the design? The construction of the thing?

the final circuit board is an arduino, [Lady Ada - Limor Fried] waveshield, and accelerometer smashed together and made very small. i really just put existing technologies together– i can’t take a lot of credit here.

the industrial design was more fun. we didn’t want to use plastic so we experimented with felt and wood. coming up with a size, shape, and feel were the main goals- to create something that was pleasant to hold and sturdy enough to be tossed in the air.

What’s the basic notion of the instrument?

it plays sound loops, or “micro-compositions” written by fol chen. when you pick up and tilt the device it modifies playback: in one axis it changes the playback speed, in the other it triggers a variable-speed stutter (playback position jump). sounds are changed by a shaking motion. given the response is immediate, it comes alive very quickly.

i’d also hesitate to endorse it as an Instrument, though it’s very playable. it’s a bit like a responsive buddha box.

Any other documentation?

i posted the firmware/hardware source on github. there is a no “build your own” guide as you’d be much better off just looking at the waveshield documentation (which is very good.)

this was a fun collaborative side project– and it makes me even more curious to see how musicians continue to create tangible objects to accompany their releases.

More information:
folchen.com

Tetrafol @ GitHub (firmware + hardware, under a GPL v3 license)

Scratching, meet recycling. Rather than allow MIDI DJ controllers to consign themselves to landfills, a new open source project promises to retrofit these gadgets with scratch capabilities.

Scratch Decoder is a collaborative, open source effort to add or extend obsolete controllers, CDJs, and turntables with digital vinyl control – before they get tossed. Inspired by a 2009 thesis by Swiss student Ramon Mathis, advised by the folks who first developed the Ms. Pinky vinyl control system for Max/MSP, and rooted in years of work, the system is now publicly documented.

The ingredients:
An Arduino hardware board
The encoder sensor and board on a Numark CDX – which this project actually hacks into
MIDI, and Ms. Pinky’s software library

Upshot: add a computer, and you can translate scratch movements to MIDI messages for use with your DJ software of choice.

The video is in Spanish, so Mudo, who’s on the team, explains:

In the video, Norbert shows, as proof-of-concept, hijacking the encoder signal and connecting it to the digital inputs at Arduino. Then he sets up the software involved (serial-to-MIDI translator and Traktor controller panel) and starts the platter of the Numark CDX (the CDX is a CDJ without the ability to send MIDI from the platter) — all without a timecode CD, of course. It is not perfect right now, but it works at last.

I actually kind of like that it isn’t perfect.

This deserves further explanation for those for whom this isn’t obvious (mainly, most normal people). Typically, digital vinyl works by including a disc (vinyl or CD) encoded with timecode. That way, by looking at the audio playback from the device, as someone moves the record, the audio stream can be decoded in order to tell that, say, they’re scratching the disc.

In this case, a device that lacks that timecode disc and has sensors that refuse to see MIDI can be retrofitted to provide signal to software.

The team in this case is inspired by other experimental turntablists, artists who explore the potential of modifying technology for use in turntable performance technique. The project says it draws from the artistic ideas of these inventors as well as their technological research, looking to the likes of DJ Sniff, Jason Sadural and the Rastieri Project, Aaron Faulstitch, Jesse Kriss, and Scott Wardle.

I’m finishing editing a video interview with DJ Sniff showing of his current rig, but I asked Sniff, aka Takuro Mizuta Lippit, about this project. He points CDM to a range of “hackable gems,” devices for DJing that failed in the consumer market but are now available for creative use in used form.

Examples:

The Tascam TT-M1 is, says Taku “essentially just an optical encoder that rides that spinning platter.” It’s the sensor you can add to something like the CDX – a non-open equivalent of the project above, meant to rescue your CDX from the trash heap.

The Stanton SCS.3M brought to bear a fascinating array of interactive touch strips, a compact, all-touch controller for DJing. It’s a device we covered on CDM when it came out, particularly due to its similarity to [warning: getting obscure] the never-released M-Audio [then Midiman] Surface One controller prototype. The SCS got further than the M-Audio piece in that it was manufactured, but apparently has since been discontinued and didn’t quite take the market by storm. [Fair warning: I don't see confirmation from Stanton that it's discontinued, so its status may simply be, "not the biggest controller ever to hit the market" until we hear otherwise.]

Taku uses that gadget in his work, which you’ll see in the video soon.

In the meantime, to follow these community projects, there are some interesting discussions and sites coming together.

En Español and in English:
Proyecto 1: Scratch Decoder. Convierte tu viejo equipo en un controlador midi para scratch!

Discussion on the DJ TechTools forum of this project:
Which controllers with motorized platter does Traktor support? [a slight misnomer in the subject header - eventually, you wind up with the project here!]

See Ramón Mathis’ dream of an open community for sharing scratch skills, styles, and “tricks” via an interactive e-learning system and community:
http://www.skrat.ch/

In a responsive, real-time sculpture, the simple sonic qualities of a rainstick become electronically enhanced. Rainlith, a “kinetic sound art” work by Rui Gato, makes the rainstick itself robotic, its sounds transformed in space in a way that is itself sculptural. Responding to movement in the space using Microsoft’s Kinect, the apparatus is a geektastic brew of just about every tool you could imagine involved in this sort of construction.

The artist shares full details, reproduced here in both English and Portugese – and Rui, thanks for sending this in:

Rainlith 2 – Kinectic sound art piece.

On Rainlith, the primitive naturally granular sound of a big rainstick gets explored in real-time by cyber-age sound manipulation tools.
It’s an interactive piece in witch the movement of the audience’s body activates an electric motor, making a reflex movement on the structure that embraces the instrument.
The sound of the rainstick is captured and processed in realtime, and sent 24 meters above, filling the empty space of a old industrial cereal container. The reverberated acoustic mix is then received back by the audience in the spot right below the opening of the container.

Na peça Rainlith o som primitivo, naturalmente granular, de um pau de chuva é explorado por ferramentas modernas de sound design, em tempo real.
É uma peça interactiva em que o movimento do corpo do público activa um motor eléctrico, provocando um movimento reflexo na estrutura que sustenta o instrumento.
O som captado em tempo real é processado e enviado 24 metros acima, enchendo o espaço de um silo de cereais industrial. A mistura acústica reverberada é absorvida pelo visitante no local imediatamente abaixo da abertura do silo.

hardware:

microsoft kinect
arduino duemilanove
H-bridge (hand made)
24v 6A DC motor
CPU
zoom H4N
FM emitter / receiver
ion ipa3 portable speaker

software:

MAX/MSP
Max for Live
OSCeleton
OpenNI
Nite
toxiclibs

agradecimentos especiais:

Nicola Henriques
Susana Luiz
Luís Pereira
Paulo Carocinho
André Sier
Daniel Coimbra
Ruben Santos

By the way, if you’re intrigued by the potential of Kinect, be sure to read sister site Create Digital Motion for more. Just today, we have news of a new version of EyesWeb that could be relevant to musical use:
EyesWeb, Powerful Computer Vision Software for Windows, Adds Kinect Support, Fixes, More

Yesterday, we saw a bit of the idea of making mobile gadgets more sociable with each other. The idea is, through network/wireless and cabled connectivity, you extend possibilities for expression, control, and collaboration with yourself and others. It’s the same thing that makes a recording studio useful: tools work together to let people work together to create music. It’s absolutely not a new idea; the engineering question is just making it work well on new platforms.

On iOS, we’re already seeing some of this: apart from MIDI connectivity, developer like KORG have even tried using wireless features intended largely for multiplayer gaming to connect multiple beatboxes and synths over a network.

Continuing a look at the Android side of things, Andrea Belloni sends an open source project that gets a sequencer working over a network with a computer and Arduino-based hardware project. It’s really a proof of concept – let’s call it a hack of concept – so they say specifically they weren’t concerned with making it pretty. It’s at an earlier stage of the process, but it’s nice to see that. The basic idea is to control the hardware sequencer, built on Arduino, with a Processing sketch running on the phone, all over a WiFi network. Take the same basic idea and streamline the hardware a bit (the Arduino and shield get a bit clunky), and this could actually be practical.

Android Arduino Sequencer [Italian + English]

But I think as an illustration of what I was saying in words yesterday, it’s worth covering this just so I have an excuse to use this picture:

Yep, that’s the idea. Add in some other operating systems to that graph, too, if you like!

Adding hardware to tablets, as it has with decades of computing technology, can open up new worlds for software and music. It can animate a conventional piano, or provide new physical interfaces for touching music. But let’s not wait for it to happen; let’s get hacking.

Following on today’s line of thinking about hardware-augmented touch, I’d like to look a bit at the recently-transformed landscape on Android. iOS users can connect to external hardware via the Core MIDI protocol or, via official channels, through the Apple Dock Connector. That’s not a perfect situation, however. Hardware developers have to be approved through the Made for iPod program in order to make accessories, there’s no standard class support apart from MIDI, and while Bluetooth can connect you to other iPads, you can’t connect arbitrarily with hardware via Bluetooth. (At least, that’s what I’ve found speaking with iOS developers, though some Bluetooth gamepads appear to work, possibly because they simply act as keyboards). WiFi wireless connection is also a possibility, one I expect will continue to be exploited.

But Android does have some interesting options here – a reminder of why getting familiar with more than one platform can be enlightening. A lot of those possibilities could open up new ideas in music hardware, ideas that could work not only on Android but in some cases (as with standard USB support) with desktop and tablet Mac, Windows, and Linux machines, too.

Case in point: check out a Motorola XOOM controlling a piano above, for a kind of hacker’s Disklavier. (Apologies to Yamaha.) Yes, it’s a great deal messier than existing USB MIDI devices (more on that in a moment), but it’s a visual reminder of why we do this in the first place – and it doesn’t have to be quite this hacky on Android, either.

Simplified, your options are:

Android Open Accessory

Currently the best wired common denominator, the Open Accessory program allows you to use a third-party accessory as the USB host, even on devices that lack USB host support. You just need a device with Android 3.1, 2.3.4, or greater. In a much-ballyhooed feature, there are prototyping possibilities with the open Arduino platform. Google’s own hardware is obscenely pricey, though, at around $400. Instead, DIYers will want to use a standard Arduino. Two early examples:
Android ADK with a standard Arduino Uno and USB Host Shield
Google’s open accessory development kit on standard Arduino hardware

These prototypes could, in turn, be converted into simple kits or even standard off-the-shelf accessories, without asking anyone’s permission.

See a video at top for one of the Arduino Uno examples in action.

Also, for the actual code, look at:
UsbAccessory

More on DIY implementations that don’t require $400 hardware kits (more like … $40, tops):
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/usb/adk.html

Microchip also promises an open PIC24 library with a driver for ADK

That said, because Google’s implementation is specific to Android, those accessories aren’t useful anywhere else. That’s why it’s worth considering USB host mode.

USB Host Mode

Tablets are the Android devices about which I’m most excited at the moment, because as with the iPad, the tablet devices wind up being more flexible and capable than their phone handset cousins.

One key feature: Honeycomb tablets support actual USB host mode. That means you can connect standard USB HID devices like joysticks. It also means you should be able to make a MIDI interface that isn’t kludged together from a bunch of proto boards and $400 Google Android kits and that works with Android but not your computer, as above.

In fact, the existence of this option made me a bit puzzled when I read Phil Torrone’s* editorial in Make. (See postlog, though, on why listening to Phil is still a good idea.) Phil focuses there on Arduino, and doesn’t mention standard USB host.

Why Google Choosing Arduino Matters and is This the End of “Made for iPod” (TM)?

Now, Phil’s correct that the Arduino is currently the easiest platform for hacking with this stuff. But I actually think even that could change. There are already a number of AVR-based platforms for doing USB host implementations. Like Arduino, you can develop for them with free, open tools and a wide community. Unlike a standard Arduino I/O board, though, it’s easy to create something smaller, cheaper, and more flexible – and to plug your creation into any device that supports standard USB hardware. Now, actually implementing some of these things is nowhere near as simple as Arduino at the moment, but that to me is a testing and documentation problem more than anything else. I’m bullish on the possibilities here; it’s part of the reason we chose a standard AVR platform for our MeeBlip synth and not Arduino. I’ve started messing with its firmware, finally; more on that soon – it’ll also be relevant to playing with DIY hardware for Android.

The Arduino stuff is absolutely cool, don’t get me wrong. I just think you could substitute “open hardware” more generally in that article for “Arduino,” specifically. (The article’s nonetheless well worth a read for some stimulating ideas.)

Executive summary: I betcha we can come up with a really simple DIY MIDI interface, via both wireless and wired connections, for Android that doesn’t touch the Arduino side of things and will work with your computer, too.

See:
android.hardware.usb in the Android documentation

IOIO – a Chat with the Developer

Following CDM’s coverage of the Google announcement of the ADK in the first place, a number of commenters pondered the inexpensive, DIY IOIO board marketed by Sparkfun (pictured).

Developer Ytai Ben-Tsvi shares some thoughts about how IOIO relates to the ADK:

First, you can see some of my (and others’) thoughts on this thread:
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/ioio-users/3JDn6XZJ9aE/discussion

Aside from what’s written there, I have immediate plans for implementing IOIO on top of ADK. This means that when IOIO is connected to an Android device, it will first try to establish and ADK (accessory-mode) connection with it and if that fails, will seamlessly attempt to fallback to ADB. ADB will still be used for firmware upgrades, as I believe this is the most secure way of making sure the user is involved in the decision to update the firmware (via enforcement of a single signed application that IOIO agrees to talk to).

In the (hopefully near) future, a similar behavior will be achieved by connecting a Bluetooth dongle to IOIO instead of an Android device, enabling a remote connection between Android (or even the Android emulator!) and IOIO, on expense of reduced bandwidth and increased latency.

Some points to emphasize:

• IOIO is targeted at the hobbyist/educational community. I believe ADK is primarily targeted at serious hardware developers. As a result, in terms of support, design considerations, feature prioritization, ease of use etc., IOIO is more likely to stay loyal to the hobbyist community in the future.
• At the time of writing, IOIO seems to be the cheapest solution for communicating with an Android.
• IOIO currently provides a high-level Java API which hides underneath it a rich protocol for controlling many of the board’s features from Java. “Mainstream” users will never have to touch embedded programming when working with IOIO. My hope is that this API will eventually become a standard, and that people will implement it on top of other boards as well. If that happens, application developers will be able to easily port their applications to different hardwares.

IOIO is available now for US$49.95. Honestly, if you’ve got a phone that it works with, it’s a fantastic choice.

IOIO @ Sparkfun

Bottom line:

At first it seemed like there is conflict here, but now it appears to me like there really isn’t! IOIO is an end-to-end solution for physical computing (a-la Arduino) from your Android device, ADK is a protocol for enabling you to connect peripherals to an Android device, and this is Google’s motivation in this game. The boards that came with ADK are just reference implementations, and to me they seem in no competition with IOIO at present. So IOIO and ADK will probably be good friend in the future, when ADK provides the underlying connectivity and IOIO provides the high-level platform for the hobbyists.

Updated: There’s already good news.

Since he wrote the comments above, Ytai got everything working with IOIO and ADK:
IOIO over OpenAccessory (ADK) Available [Ytai's "Microcontrollers, Electronics & Robotics" Blog]

He makes a strong argument for why IOIO may be your best solution. In fact, for my money, IOIO plus USB host development is just about perfect.

Bluetooth

Enough about all these wires: you do lose some of the beauty of these mobile devices when you attach a lot of spaghetti to them. Enter Bluetooth. It’s reasonably cheap, light on power consumption and well-suited to embedded hardware (key differences with wifi). It’s also gotten steadily more robust. For wireless MIDI and wireless control, it really can work.

On Android, it’s possible to interface directly with hardware over Bluetooth. That opens up the chance to do, for instance, MIDI over Bluetooth without a wire in sight. For lots of thoughts on this, the best reading is Peter Brinkmann’s blog. (Peter is also the primary author of libpd.)

I hope we’ll get to talk more about this soon. Ahem.

http://nettoyeur.noisepages.com/

I’ll admit: I’m actually kind of a sucker for wires. So I’m glad to have Peter around to encourage me not to create giant, ugly tangles of crap.

Postlog – Phil Torrone and Mobile

I just want to add one background note on Phil Torrone.

Phil deserves loads of credit for seeing this stuff coming long before it was popularized. Here’s what he had to say in 2002:

A simple hiking stick was way too low-tech for Macromedia Flash expert Phillip Torrone.
So Torrone equipped his stick with GPS and Flash applications that let him identify trails and track information on local flora and fauna — and leave messages for other hikers.
He’ll show off the hiking stick and more of his quirky creations, such as a digital belt buckle made from an old Palm V, when he discusses wireless fashion at a Flash conference here Friday.
His inventions are sure to delight his geeky audience of developers and designers at FlashForward. But his audience will start taking notes when he brings out mass-market, Flash-enabled devices such as a Microsoft Pocket PC Phone Edition and an O2 XDA, two Pocket PCs that are also phones.
Flash developers believe mobile devices like these are the wave of the future, Torrone said. “Last year, wireless phones outsold PCs for the first time,” he said.

Lots of Flash, Even More Sizzle [Wired, July 2002]

In music, we have the opportunity to test these same ideas not only for a quick geeky hack, but as a real means of self-expression, in deeply emotional, intimate ways.

And just remember, for anyone caught up on platform debates, at some point even words like “iPad” or “Galaxy Tab” will seem as distant as “Palm” and “Pocket PC.” But the ideas behind actual work for those platforms will remain. (Oh, and… I guess we still have Flash, huh?)

Now … who wants to do some hacking this summer for music? (And science!)

The gaming industry has made their bet, and it’s that touchscreens go better with tactile controls. Might digital musicians reach the same conclusion?

A funny thing has happened on the way to the touch era. The vision of a device like the iPad is minimalist to the extreme: an uninterrupted, impossibly-slim metal slate, as impenetrable as some sort of found alien scifi object. The notion is that by reducing physical controls, the software itself comes to the fore. It’s beautiful conceptually … and then you find yourself tapping and stroking a piece of undifferentiated glass. For navigating interfaces – and even, I’d argue, exploring sound design and composition – it works brilliantly. But for live digital performance (what to game lovers is called “gaming”), for anything that wants tactile feedback, it can be imprecise or unsatisfying, or both.

Watching this shake out as a design problem is fascinating, especially coming from the perspective of music. Digital musicians were exploring alternative interfaces since before it was cool. Given the ability to make any sound we can possibly imagine, the question of how you design an interface around sound is compositional, philosophical, essential.

Whatever winds up working in the marketplace, there are some fascinating ideas for combining touch with tactile. Since both are good at certain tasks, why not do both?

We’ve seen several examples among musicians and researchers exploring how to augment the touchscreen with physical input:

Mike Kneupfel’s research at NYU’s ITP program, in the video at top, investigates adding additional inputs. See: Extending the Touchscreen.

We saw that kind of extensibility in an iPad dock concept by Livid Instruments.

While it lacks additional tangible controls, I/O extensibility is featured in a still-as-yet-unreleased “pro” dock by Alesis, and most recently in a DIY dock by circuit bending pioneer Reed Ghazala.

Now, game vendors are moving in the same direction – even with prototypes that look quite a lot like the research project above. (Sometimes, arriving at the obvious conclusion is necessary for a great design.)

Sony’s PlayStation Vita, successor to the PSP mobile game platform, augments touch input with tactile controls in much the same way as Michael Knuepfel’s work does. Notably, it also proposes how these inputs can coexist in a form factor that’s larger than a phone, but smaller than a tablet – scaled roughly to a comfortable holding distance between your two hands. (Microsoft and Apple each unveiled standard split keyboards on Windows 8 and iOS 5, respectively. The era of thumb ergonomics is now fully underway.)

Nintendo’s Wii U controller combines a lot of sensing capabilities into one device. Like Sony’s effort, the centerpiece is the combination of the interactive touch display with analog controls. But true to its Wii heritage, Nintendo is packing other sensing technology, too. While its evolution has been more piecemeal, the same is true of the Xbox 360 in the Kinect era. The Kinect camera is really a bundle of mic and stereoscopic camera sensing with software intelligence for motion analysis and even speech analysis via a variety of methods. While Kinect is touchless, the conventional gamepad still plays a role.

What’s the relevance of all of this evolution to music? Digital music’s demands parallel gaming, requiring precision, accessibility, scalability from beginners to hardcore experts, and real-time interaction. Also, music research has often been at the forefront of experimentation with a variety of means of translating sensory data to expression. And since musical practice itself is roughly as old in human evolution as language, if not older, it’s a key way of glimpsing how ubiquitous interfaces can become meaningful.

Let me put that another way: the stuff game companies are doing now looks a heck of a lot like what computer musicians have been doing for years.

While much of the acclaim for platforms like the iPad has been for their transparency and unadorned interfaces – and while I believe those are valuable concepts – bundles of capabilities for interacting with the world can become powerful. That means efforts like Apple’s addition of USB MIDI connectivity to the iPad, or Google’s nascent work to standardize USB host mode and open hardware development (based on Arduino), take on new meaning. Add to this additional connectivity via Bluetooth and wifi, and it may be that we only really see what these platforms do when, like the PC, they start geting sociable with a range of other gear.

This could also mean that communities like the music community have a chance to prove that the “post-PC era” is a little different than it’s been described in the mainstream press – and maybe a little less a radical departure. The “post PC era,” we’re told, is less about being a hub for a lot of hardware. But as people look for tactile feedback, some of the coolest applications of these platforms may not be in the mainstream use as “consumption” devices, but at the fringe.

I’ve just come from the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in New York. You’re not missing much; there were a handful of people snapping up the tablets. (I think the 10.1, and a few other Honeycomb-based tablets, do have a bright future, though their growth may be a bit slow at first as developers get their hands on them and give people a reason to buy them.)

What was most compelling to people at the launch, though, was a planned appearance by pop star Ne-Yo (at least according to some staffers to whom I spoke).

But the connection was, at best, tenuous. It may be when devices like these tablets are made more viable for musicians onstage that that connection starts to make sense. And that may mean that Apple and Google/Android vendors alike need to start to think more aggressively about the larger ecosystem and hardware applications. Remember all those futuristic promises from Apple about hardware accessories? Right now, the most significant hardware is the Square payment add-on, and it uses a hack to make it work through the audio jack. Both Apple and Google can do more work to open up hardware development.

It’s all well and good for the tablet to be a “post PC” device, to be different from PCs, to be better. But they may simultaneously need some of the openness to other gadgets that made the PC age so revolutionary.

In the never-ending quest to find just the right combination of faders and knobs for piloting your music, here’s a thought: add expansion capabilities. An upgrade to the Block, a grid grid and knob control surface by boutique Texan maker Livid, does just that. And for good measure, they’ve got a short-run iPad dock alternate, too, for those of you who want touch control and apps but want hardware control, too. That raises another set of ideas gaining traction this week: why not add tangible controls to these multi-touch tablets and such?

Room to Grow

At the heart of Livid’s controllers is something they call the Brain – the basis of a modular control surface. DIYers can build controllers from the ground up as part of their Builder system, or you can buy a controller like the Block that works out of the box. What Livid has done on the Block is effectively to give you both. You can use the controller out of the box, but you can use the 1/4″ jacks to connect sensors or foot pedals, and a pin header connection that adds eight more sensors. It means you can do a smaller DIY project for just the stuff you need, but without having to do all the hard stuff necessary to get the knobs and light-up pads the Block already has. More details in the Livid blog post, or see the demo video below.

Block Expansion Jacks

So that’s taking a tangible controller and adding to it. But what about the tablet and multi-touch control surface craze? Musicians are subverting the very feature of these tablet computers that supposedly makes them popular. DIYers are liberating control from those shiny, black, hermetically-sealed consumer goods, a bit like cracking into some alien artefact. We’ve already seen hardware from one commercial maker – Akai – that sits an iOS device in a keyboard dock (the SynthStation line). New options go still further:

Beyond the Tablet

Livid is doing a very limited run of the Block that includes a place to sit your iPad. (I’m actually a bit sorry that they make the space form-fitting, rather than have just an open shelf – in case you later swap tablets to something that’s a different size, for instance. But it’s a limited-run, and I guess if I want that, I’ll have to just commission Livid.)

As seen on Synthtopia, the design is now available. You get a class-compliant, driver-free controller that’s USB powered, features MIDI in and out jacks, 64 programmable, light-up pads, and the aforementioned expansion jacks. It’s a pretty full-featured product for US$460.

Block Station Hardware

It’s just a prototype, and may never be available, but Livid also mocked up how their Code (a big array of knobs) would work with the iPad. I love the Moog-style angling of the shelf and the smaller footprint of this design. And it does appear that it’s a design that could accommodate different tablets, in case you have an iPad and an Android tablet. (Well, that’s true of a bunch of people who went to Google’s developer conference this week, if sadly I wasn’t one of them.)

From Touch to Tangible

Tablets, by merging display, computing, and touch control, make software easier to control. What they can’t do is provide the function tangible controls do. That is, they do what the mouse and display and keyboard do better in some instances, but they can’t replace knobs and faders.

A research project by Mike Kneupfel for New York University’s ITP digital media program investigates these issues.

Touchscreens like those found on smartphones and tablets have enabled a new generation of versatile user interfaces. My thesis project, Extending the Touchscreen, aims to further this versatility by using conductive materials to construct a series of physical, mechanical, and electrical devices that touch, interact and communicate directly through the touchscreen interface. My goal in constructing these external devices is to make touchscreen interactions more tactile, physical and potentially more expressive and fun.

As seen in the videos, he takes two approaches. One works directly with the sensing capabilities of the touchscreen itself, augmenting it with different hardware that would come in contact with the screen. The other makes use of the hardware connection.

For all the Apple fetishism, I think that Google may be able to pull away some folks tinkering with this with their new, far more open approach to hardware development. But what’s nice about Michael’s project here is that Google’s announcement this week that they were vastly expanding hardware I/O capabilities validates his research, and suggests lots more potential that can work even in a consumer, not just a tinkerer, context.

Lots of crazy stuff on his blog; see also the thesis page and coverage in Creative Applications.

Side note: it seems some of the add-on hardware you plop on a touchscreen doesn’t work all that well; see Victor Agreda, Jr.’s disappointed review of those stick-on joysticks. (CDM readers had tipped me off about those before.) But the other approaches here do show potential.

And whether a tangible controller or touchscreen tablet, having control that has room to grow has some serious appeal.

Ribbons are so in this year. Thanks to Trent Reznor picking up the Dewanatron Swarmatron, they’re even winning Oscar Awards (after a fashion).

Coagula aka Giuseppe Di Cillo has been in touch with me for some time about his evolving DIY ribbon controller. Now he’s pulling out all the stops: his full version includes a professional-looking case, extensive touch sensors, and even a display and menu system. It’s not quite the gorgeous, analog-savvy Eowave Persephone, but it’s a beautiful DIY project and a terrific learning opportunity, as well. He’s shared a complete tutorial, specifications, and tips, all under a Creative Commons license. (It’s not quite open source hardware – I’d like to see the “non-commercial” restriction dropped – but it is tremendously generous and complete.)

The Grobian ensemble from Reaktor is behind the sound. (I’ve lost track of how you acquire Grobian, if a more sophisticated Reaktor user can remind me.)

I was curious about the accuracy and responsiveness of this particular sensing system, especially since I’ve had some issues with similar touch sensors. Giuseppe responds: “I find the sensors very good, but when you touch the position sensor the sensor need few milliseconds to settle. To fix this I put a 5 milliseconds delay on the code. The video is a little out of sync but I assure you that in reality is much more responding.”

Go, wonder, absorb knowledge:
Coagula MIDI Ribbon Controller 2.0

Music made by machines need not turn its back on traditional musical skill – least of all when you literally strap the machines on the back of a master musician. In a fusion of Brazilian tradition and modern wireless, wearable sensor technology, Kyle McDonald shares with us a project that makes drums into an interactive suit.

Kyle has plenty to say, including all the details on how to do this in case it inspires a project of your own, so I’ll let him take it away:

The project is a wireless drum suit that I built with Lucas Werthein for a popular Brazilian musician named Carlinhos Brown.

Brown wanted to try something experimental — which is relevant because it’s probably one of the first alternative interfaces anyone
in this city has ever seen. Salvador might be one of the biggest open air-festivals ever, but it’s full of traditional music and the local
pop music (“axé”). Nothing but the usual guitars and drums, and some Bahian + Brazilian instruments.

The system is based on a multilayer, laser-cut design we developed:

It uses acrylic, metal, rubber, and piezos to create a really solid module that feels nice to the touch. I’ve always been annoyed with the
force required to hit something like an [M-Audio] Trigger Finger or an Akai pad, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that if you build your own, you can really get that bottom end to be super sensitive. They probably just pull it up in commercial devices to avoid triggering from
shaking, or cross talk.

The pads run to the brain via 1/8″ cables. The brain is about the size of an Arduino Mega + 1 9V battery, and also laser-cut acrylic:

The Arduino Mega is then connected to a MIDI shield from Sparkfun, which goes to a CME WIDI wireless MIDI device that was surprisingly more robust than the more expensive Kenton MIDI device we tried.

I had a ton of fun making this, and we’re planning on open-sourcing the design for the pads so other people can build them.

In our monster MeeBlip round-up the other day, I mentioned the stunning enclosure Michael Roebbeling made for his DIY synth kit. But that’s not all Michael has built. He’s also created a lovely, simple step sequencer with Arduino. It’s a beautiful combination of all open-source hardware, MeeBlip and Arduino. Surprisingly, it’s his first try at all of this:

After my first successful experience in electronics, building the MeeBlip, I was hooked. So I decided to buy an Arduino and dive a bit deeper. My first project was a rudimentary sequencer to work together with my MeeBlip. It took me 3 days to figure out the schematiks and code the program.

With projects like Arduino taking out some of the headaches of getting started, this is further proof that understanding computation allows you to do anything, from hardware to software, on any platform.

Michael’s project represents a simple, afternoon project, but the Arduino can also become the basis of more sophisticated gear – and some more complex groove-making. I’ll look at some of those options here, like Steve Cooley’s beatseqr, here making some grooves with an iPad running Korg’s iMS-20 soft synth and Reason running on the MacBook Pro.

There are plenty of Arduino step sequencer projects – it’s a nice project to try – but what I especially like is that Michael’s design is really minimal, meaning it could be a good starting point for your own project. He provides full code and (via a terrific prototyping tool called Fritzing), easy-to-read, colorful schematics.

If you’ve never done this before, some basic knowledge of how to read the parts, an Arduino, and some copy-and-paste skill is all you need to get going. I’m going to set aside some time to build one myself.

SimplenZAR [Blog post documentation at Carvin' Calamari]

But while we’re on the topic – and since having step sequencers around is a terrific tool for making musical patterns with all your music gear – let’s take a quick look at what else is out there.

littlescale is a must-read for musical Arduino makings, so a good first stop. He’s got his full list of projects, including a microtonal step sequencer, seen below.

http://arduino.milkcrate.com.au/

Johan Larsby has a terrific project, complete with screen, with loads of details and source. You can build the whole thing for under $50 in parts, and his page is also a useful set of references to working with MIDI, physical controls, and the display.

Arduino Step Sequencer… ASS. Fine. Funny enough. But you lose out on bonus points for not making it a recursive acronym.

Mr Speaker goes through the process of how to construct MIDI step sequencers on Arduino in a blog post, as well.

That’s not a complete list, but now onto some fancier projects…

Steve Cooley’s beatseqr, created with Derek Scott, evolves from simple hardware “sketch” into full-blown, feature-packed sequencer, but it’s still got an Arduino (Mega) at its heart. Accordingly, Steve talks through the behind-the-scenes tech details on the Arduino forum.

And, oh yeah, it goes great with Reason. (That in turn means this and an older laptop could be a nice little groove station set up in a studio, to keep your machines out of the closet of retirement.)

Beatseqr v3 — arduino mega based step sequencer [Arduino Forum]

Official site: http://www.beatseqr.com/

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the awesome MiniCommand by Ruin & Wesen. It doesn’t in fact have an Arduino board inside, but it does use the Arduino development environment for a custom MIDI firmware framework called MIDI-CTRL. Say wha? Basically, you can use Arduino-style syntax to reprogram this little box to perform whatever MIDI magic you wish. It’s utterly insane, and perhaps a little overlooked because it’s generally associated with the Machinedrum. I’m not going to say any more now, as I know Wesen is getting some time off to work on it, and I hope to talk more about this project over the coming months.

http://ruinwesen.com/products

Result: Euclid pattern generators. (I’m working on some code that does something similar, with visualization; stay tuned while I … um, finish it, in fact.)

So there you go. If it seems overwhelming, just remember, take it one step at a time – and start with the first step. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

As I said, the place to begin is doing something like what Michael did – and you can hook up his project in a few minutes.

If you give this a try, let us know! Sounds like a fun weekend project.