The Music Bore – Video 2 from Nicholas Humfrey on Vimeo.

“I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t allow you to listen to Coldplay.”

What would radio be like if playlists were not only robotic, but had robot DJs pulling information from the Interwebs dynamically? That’s the question asked by the winning team at London’s Music Hackday last weekend, which created an epic mashup of data sources to produce a voice-synthesized IRC chatbot that researches and plays music for you.

Music Bore

Music Bore was just one of a number of projects developed in the weekend of musical hacking, some for listening, and at least one (a fantastic and free synth plug-in) for what we really like – production. With some of the world’s top musical coders in attendance, the results were amazing, even if not all projects were entirely finished. (Hey, that’s why they call it hacking.)

You can check out the full list on the wiki, but here are some favorites — and if you were there, do shout out to us as you put more documentation up of the event and projects.

Harmony Box by Dave and Mike is a synth plug-in for Mac (AU/VST) and Windows (VST, thus also Linux) that quickly creates lovely chords. I love the simplicity of the instrument – really lovely work, gents – and I think I may actually use it on a project. They accept donations if you’d like to see this instrument mature. Of course, with everyone else doing Web mash-ups, this didn’t win, but it’s more up our alley. (Web 2.0 – meh, whatever.)

The synth has its own project blog:
http://davenoise.com/blog/

Other winners (in our book, and as recommended by Harmony Box co-creator Dave Gamble):

LonelyHarps by Jamie Hollingworth and David Padbury is a Last.fm-based tool concept that helps you find dates – and choose the right tracks to set the mood – using music for compatibility. And, really, do you really want to date someone who doesn’t have musically compatible tastes? (I’m sure it’s just because they spotted lots of hotties on Last.fm, but…) The only bad news: the app didn’t actually get fully made yet, but we’ll stay tuned, gents. They do have impressive-looking formulas.

Music Zeitgeist by Cristiano Betta visualizes lyrics by decade, such as the 1980s, above. (Yeah, it was all about wanting and karma, the 80s.) Check out the project directly.

Theremag by Jono Cole and Jonty Wareing of Last.fm is actually the app I most want to see, but there’s no documentation yet. It’s a Theremin emulator on the Google Android-based HTC G1, with an unusual sensor — the built-in magnetometer (the one that normally acts as the compass) which was used to pitch-bend Michael Jackson. Once they get documentation up, expect to see it here. (I love that magnet sensor, too. Good fun.)

iPhone Music Visualizer by George J Cook and Matt Biddulph grabs Soundcloud files, analyzes them with Echonest (which recently got an iPhone-friendly Cocoa API), and then plays them back with a visualizer. It looks like a great place to get started if you’re planning on building something similar yourself.

In fact, it’s well worth checking out the wiki not only because some of the projects have (okay, sometimes-sloppy) source code, but point you at the resources you’d need to tackle something like this yourself if you’re a coder. And the event prompted a lot of folks from Last.fm to Echonest and BBC and others to get their APIs together.

It’s a terrific idea, and it sounds like we need another music hackday here. (Press releases, ahem, claimed this was the “first” music hackday, even though we’ve done a global event ourselves, but who cares — let’s do more!)

New York would make a nice base of operations for a similar event because a lot of folks with interesting APIs are here (or in nearby East Coast towns), but I think it’d be great to get more people online and not just in one locale.

What think you, sirs and madames? Tips on how we could make an online event work?

Delia Derbyshire, UK electronic composer extraordinaire and BBC Radiophonic Veteran, inspires depths of love and respect from us electronic muzos male and female that defy description. As Tara Busch from AnalogSuicide puts it, people aren’t just fans: they’re Delians. I think if you could see the image inside the heads of Delia fans at the mere mention of her name or the sound of a single sound effect, it’d probably look something like this slow-motion clip Tara posted to AnalogSuicide last fall:

(Well, the editor at the BBC working on the show obviously felt that way.)

Via: We Love Delia! More Delia Derbyshire Deliciousness! [Analog Suicide]

I think people’s passions run this deep not simply out of a mad Delian crush, but also because of what she represents for the future of electronic music: Delia Derbyshire seemed to embrace sound with a relentless freshness and playfulness, the kind of spirit that could move forward the future of music in the same way she invigorated its past. And she came out of an entire scene of experimentation at the BBC and in the UK that could now spread virally online and in radiophonic workshops of independent musicians’ own creation.

Darren Landrum on Twitter is nice enough to send along two three newly-posted 1997 interviews with Delia on Radio Scotland. First part above; second part below. In YouTube bizarro fashion, they’re accompanied with strange sweeping slide shows, but Delia’s bubbling personality and insight shine through.

But perhaps you want to wear your Delian adoration on your sleeve, literally. Well, Analog Industries created a t-shirt this morning that, by the time Tom Whitwell (once and future Music thing creator) and myself Twittered and forum commenters posted, is now gone. Look out, Urban Outfitters.

Anyone want to try alternative Derbyshire couture? (Delia Derbyshirts?) Let us know; I have some screenprinting connections.

Part two of the interview:

Plus part three:

And for some Delian sonic creations, here’s her 1972 “Wizard’s Laboratory.” Listening to her work via YouTube videos is not ideal, so I must say I’m rather keen for some disc releases we can buy. But, on the other hand, the montage of who’s who in women in electronic music can serve as a reminder that dudes alone did not construct electronic music history – not unless you ignore a cadre of some of electronic music’s greatest pioneers.

And lastly, for all our friends at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, here’s a 50th Anniversary of the workshop, also via a previous Analog Suicide post.

Previously:
Delia Derbyshire Recordings Found, Including Ahead-of-its-Time Dance Track
Archivist Responds: Yes, Virginia, Delia Derbyshire Really Was That Awesome
Music Tech History Day: Inside BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and Delia’s Lampshade
Delia Derbyshire: Reel-to-Reel Beat Matching Virtuosa
Doctor Who Theme: Behind the Scenes, Hear the Themes

Apologies; looking at this post, we have some very odd YouTube thumbnails. But it’s worth it for a listen to some of the sounds.

Ah, the BBC. Their world news sounds like an apocalyptic rave and their inexplicably long-running, trippy strange “children’s” sci-fi show has one of the greatest pieces of synthesized music ever.

I’m running out of ways to say Delia Derbyshire is one of the most brilliant composers ever to use electricity, so let’s just get straight on to the bit where Coldcut show up and hold a big musical party for the Beeb Radiophonic Workshop and do their own kickass remix of Who’s opening titles and sounds. (Making the classic Doctor Who video feedback seem psychedelic? Not really a challenge. And yet these episodes always wound up with wandering around a rock quarry…)

Coldcut were there, the wonderfully-talented Dick Mills and Mark Ayres… sounds delicious. I’m still waiting for the Derbyshire music release, and I think there’s still more that could be done to document the UK’s electronic history — CDM stands at your aid, ye worthy workshop of sound.

BBC Electric Proms 2008: Coldcut
Via Carter Rosenberg’s tumblr and
vdmx co-creator David Lublin’s Twitter

Because it must be done, let us also consider Orbital’s classic remix (thanks, gwenhwyfaer) – provided it doesn’t make you hide behind the sofa:

I’ve had some amazing meetings here in Berlin, with plenty to share with you over the coming weeks and months. I’m now headed to Dublin tomorrow for the amazing-looking DEAF festival. If you’re in or near Dublin, you may want to just clear the next few days for live music lineups, parties, film screenings, gallery events, and generally a dream lineup of electronic music events.

I’ll be part of a series of talks Saturday. I’ll be talking generally about how we can think about music visually, and how those visual metaphors in software impact music, with some new examples built in Processing (among examples of other work). I’m really excited about every one my fellow speakers, as well. Gavin from Future Audio Workshop (creators of Circle) will be talking about sound generally, complementing what I’m covering, and we have a number of terrific figures to chat. The film Totally Wired covers the scene around synth building and the modular renaissance as found at Schneider’s Bureau … well, you can see the lineup for yourself.

For the rest of the world not in Ireland, believe me, I’ll be sure to bring you as much back from this event as possible, even if I’m catching up through the end of 2008.

Saturday 25th October at The Digital Hub:

1.00pm – 1.40pm FAW [Future Audio Workshop]
1.40pm – 1.50pm Break
1.50pm – 2.30pm Peter Kirn [Create Digital Music]
2.30pm – 2.50pm Break
2.50pm – 4.10pm Totally Wired Film [Dir. Niamh Ahern]
4.10pm – 5.10pm Andreas Schneider [Schneider’s Bureau]
5.10pm – 5.30pm Break
5.30pm – 6.30pm Dave Vorhaus & Mark Jenkins [White Noise / BBC Radiophonic Workshop]
6.30pm – 7.00pm Break
7.00pm – 8.00pm Diffusion Concert / Soundings
8.00pm – 9.00pm Spatial Music Collective Concert

More details on Saturday’s lineup, at the DEAF Ireland Blog

DEAF live events

Here’s the trailer for “Totally Wired,” which also features a terrific original score:

Trailer for ‘Totally Wired’ from niamhahern on Vimeo.

I can’t say anything this song doesn’t say brilliantly. Comedian Adam Buxton takes on the Radiohead remix contest with his own entry, which cuts through the hype brings a bit of wit to TV incidental music and remixing alike. And, really, how often do you get to say "Radiohead" and "rap" in the same sentence? Take my mechanical rights, please!

See, there, I said something. It wasn’t very good. Just so listen to the song and thank me later, okay?

See also Adam Buxton’s sketch for BBC3’s Rush Hour which cleans up NWA to "Help Da Police." Thanks, Jaymis!

It came as no surprise to me that Delia Derbyshire, composer and BBC Radiophonic Workshop maestra, would have created incredibly forward-thinking music in the 60s. But when one track seemed to predict IDM and modern electronica, the story of Derbyshire’s vintage “dance” track spread over the Interwebs, and even aroused suspicion of fakery.

Delia Derbyshire Recordings Found, Including Ahead-of-its-Time Dance Track

David Butler of the University of Manchester was one of two archivists who started undertaking the work of assembling a library of Derbyshire’s ground-breaking work. He writes in CDM’s comments that this is no BBC special effect: the recordings are very much real. He also clears up some of the confusion about their discovery, and offers more on the tantalizing cut “NOAH’s dance.”

It’s worth reading the whole comment (remember, you can also subscribe to CDM’s comment feed):

Hi everybody – hope you don’t mind me chipping in but I just wanted to reassure you all and Captain Howdy in particular that the rhythm track heard on the PM show is definitely not a hoax, mistake or practical joke!

As gwenhwyfaer said, it wouldn’t be in our interests at all to put out a hoax – it wouldn’t do Delia’s legacy or reputation any favours and would ruin ours.

Captain Howdy is right though to point out that the quality of the recording is cleaner than the majority of the tapes in the archive – but it’s not alone in sounding that bright – there is another track in the archive – a 3 and a half minute pop instrumental called ‘Ron Grainer’s Bread’ that has a similar brightness and also makes use of a drum machine (and synthesizer) for that matter – we’re trying to work out what this piece was actually used for!  We do know that Delia worked on a Ron Grainer musical in the late 1960s so that’s a possibility but there’s still a lot of detective work to be done and cross-referencing with other archives.
We were stunned when we heard the rhythm track that you’ve all heard on the BBC site – I’m still knocked out by it!  The track in question is from a 10.5" reel that runs for just over 15 minutes – the only identification on the reel is a label that says ‘NOAH’s dance – basic rh."

This label was a great help to us – and many of the reels lack labels so we have much to do to confirm the identity of everything in the archive (and some reels may well remain mysteries).

In the case of the ‘Noah’s Dance’ track we have got some leads to follow up on – there was a BBC production that the Radiophonic Workshop contributed to that links in with the reel’s title (this is where we’ll need to cross-reference with the larger archive of the RW, which Mark Ayres has done outstanding work on).

But there’s another source too – as some of you will know – Peter Zinovieff’s EMS company put out a promotional LP in 1971 and one of the tracks listed on said LP is ‘Dance from Noah’, which – without jumping to conclusions – we’re assuming is likely to be the same thing – if anybody has a copy of that LP to hand then please do check and let me know as that’s next on our trail!

There are three reels in the archive which contain elements that form ‘Dance from Noah’ – and the reel mentioned above contains all the makeup elements so that you can hear them in isolation.

This is where the rhythm track really stands out – when you hear the whole piece in its finished form with the synthesized melody line and various effects, the rhythm is far less striking as it’s buried further down in the mix so on first listening it’s easy not to pick up on it.

But on the makeup tape, after the isolated melody line – and one or two false starts – there’s nearly nine minutes of the rhythm alone, with one interruption about halfway through – and hearing that track sustained for 9 minutes is when it really hits home.

Captain Howdy is right again to point out that this track sounds so different to Delia’s known output or that of her contemporaries at the time – but it’s also worth remembering that – not least following their collaboration as Unit Delta Plus – she did have access to Zinovieff’s fledgling synthesizer the VCS3 and other electronic textures – and much of what we know of her output is limited to a relatively small body of work – but she was active in all kinds of contexts throughout the 1960s and there are several pieces in the archive that expand our understanding of what is characteristically ‘Delian’.

This is where the PM piece unitentionally created some confusion – I thought they did a great job to fit everything they did into 5 minutes but inevitably some clarity was lost – and much of what I said was cut (I don’t blame them!) where I tried to explain a bit more about the archive and the extracts heard in the piece – quite a bit of what I said was edited and placed slightly out of context – so when I was discussing Delia’s amazing rhythmic precision and beat matching pre-synthesizers or multi-tracking software, we’re actually listening on the PM item to a piece that does use synthesizers!  These things happen I guess – I was really pleased that PM acknowledged Ron Grainer’s vital contribution to the Doctor Who theme but elsewhere a lot of the other coverage I’ve seen described Delia as ‘Dr Who composer’ which isn’t quite the full story as we know!  I know it’s word counts and sound bites so it would be naive not to expect these things to come in.

There are two things to clarify about the rhythm track up on the BBC site – the first relates to Delia’s voice saying ‘forget about this, this is for interest only’ – that bit of speech is from a different reel in the archive (one of the several reels relating to her music for the Tutankhamun’s Egypt series).

When the BBC asked for something from the archive to include in the PM item I put together three brief extracts in consultation with Mark Ayres.  I wanted to give them a range of elements to incorporate as they saw fit and a flavour of the different kind of things the archive contained – it was important to include something demonstrating Delia ‘at work’, so I offered them the extract from one of the Blue Veils makeup reels; then some of her freelance work for theatre (there’s quite a bit of this aspect of her work in the archive – and just to clarify, the archive generously [there's an understatement if ever there was one] donated to Manchester by Mark Ayres, in agreement with the Derbyshire estate, contains principally Delia’s freelance work – most of the pieces for BBC productions were assimilated into the larger archive of the Radiophonic Workshop) and then lastly the ‘Dance from Noah’ piece.

At this stage I had no idea what else they were going to include in the PM item and didn’t until I heard the piece on iplayer on Friday!  I knew they’d spoken to Paul Hartnoll (they interviewed me on Wednesday the day before the piece went out and already had the Hartnoll interview in the can by then) but didn’t know what else was going in there i.e. all those other Delia tracks and Delia talking about the DW theme tune.
It seemed important to me that Delia’s voice also be heard so when I put together the extracts for the BBC I added on the bit of her saying ‘forget about this’, which I thought was reflective of the way she might often self-deprecatingly play down her music or giggle with delight – there are moments on the archive reels where you can hear her doing this (especially on the Egypt masters where she introduces each cue) – but also relate to how her music was often unacknowledged in terms of her receiving a credit and she often was ‘forgotten’ off credit lists.  It wasn’t intended to imply that she was referring directly to the ‘Dance from Noah’ track!!  Again, this is due to elements being used out of context.

The second aspect that needs to be clarified about the rhtyhm track on the BBC website relates to the long high-pitched ‘ambient’ notes slowly fading out of the clip as the rhythm track fades in – these are from a different reel in the archive and are the vestigial remains of a 45 minute in-house presentation at the University about the archive after the initial digitisation had been completed (mainly to reassure the University about what we’d been working on and how their initial funding to help get the archive up and running had been spent!) – for this presentation several extended pieces from the archive were played in succession with slow segues between them, as one piece faded out another faded in – and it’s the remnants of that which you hear at the beginning of the PM extract.

Once those notes fade out on the extract heard on the PM item, you have the rhythm track on its own before it too fades out (as said earlier, there’s around 9 minutes of this on the makeup tape).
The reason for the fades in and out were purely to protect the integrity of the archive.  We were limited – for copyright reasons – as to what and how much we could offer to the BBC – we still need to identify all the pieces in the archive, including in what context they were broadcast/used and whether there are any outstanding copyright issues, so the extracts offered had to be fragments, makeup elements or freelance work.

Please rest assured, we’re not going to hoard these sounds away!!  We are bound though by an agreement with Mark and Delia’s estate that no commercial exploitation of the archive is done without discussing it with them and receiving their full approval (CD releases will almost certainly be produced by Mark in keeping with the releases of Radiophonic Workshop material that he has produced and overseen) and we cannot break that trust – the fades on the extracts released to the BBC were put in to make sampling difficult – which I know will sound harsh to many people (and is hypocritical of me given the amount of stuff I’ve sampled over the years!).

Long term I should stress again, we’re not going to lock these tapes away – we’re applying for funding to commission new pieces of music inspired by Delia, her life and work and so one of our plans is to be able to invite composers to come and work with the archive, so that it continues to live on and generate new music – but at this early stage we had to be careful and I hope people understand the reasons for that – in time though the archive will be open for people to come and listen to and read its contents.
So many apologies for the lengthy spiel, but I hope that explains things and reassures you all – there’s no hoax at work!  The rhythm track on its own, isolated from the rest of the piece, is quite remarkable and is a genuine part of Delia’s archive – as I say, the tape that it’s on has all the other elements of the final piece as well as several false starts on it – but when we heard that rhythm sequence we were amazed and I really wish I could release the unedited 9 minutes of it so that you can all listen to the whole thing and fully quell any concerns (I don’t blame Captain Howdy for being suspicious at all).

Please do email me if you have any further questions – I know just how important Delia’s music is to so many people and what an inspiration she continues to be – the response since the BBC piece last week has been overwhelming and I have a *lot* of emails to write in the next few days to people before I can go away on holiday next week – so replies might take a while but they should arrive eventually!
One or two people in the thread mentioned that the story of how the archive came to Manchester remained a mystery – it’s not been a mystery on our part – again, any mystery is a result of tight word counts in the media coverage.  There’s a brief piece about how we got the archive here:

http://www.centreforscreenstudies.manchester.ac.uk/delia.htm

The absolute priority had to be to make digital transfers of the reels – and this took a lot of time as it had to be worked around other teaching, admin and research duties.  We were helped massively by Louis Niebur – a US academic specialising in British electronic music – who spent the summer with us on the archive.  Given the age of the tapes and the condition they’d been stored in (they were passed on to Mark in cardboard boxes, one of which was a box of Kellog’s All Bran I seem to remember!), the vast majority played remarkably well – but a number were problematic with the splices coming apart as they were played on the Studer and requiring careful reconstruction.  One tape in particular was in such a fragile condition that we have still not done anything with it yet.  Another major problem was determining the correct playback speed on the Studer – several tapes spliced between 7.5 ips and 15 ips – so it was often not a case of a straightforward playback as we had to adjust the playback speed accordingly – but in some cases we couldn’t be 100% certain what that speed should be (often a helpful clue was a human voice introducing the next cue on a tape).

The vast majority of this was completed and the files bounced by the end of September 2007 – then the academic term started up again!  Over the next months I found it difficult to give the archive the extended time it needed alongside all my teaching and admin duties (plus finishing a contracted book!) – and it wasn’t until the academic year was over that I was able to give the archive some quality attention again – all of which coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Radiophonic Workshop so the timing seemed right at last to make a formal announcement -hope that explains the time lapse gwenhwyfaer!

The archive ultimately should be available to anybody with a genuine interest in Delia’s work – it’s not just to be coveted by academics – Delia made music for everybody to listen to – one of the many beautiful qualities about her work is its combination of the experimental and the popular, drifting into and filling our homes (whether invited or not!) and, in the case of *that* theme, being the sound of so many peoples’ Saturdays for the best part of two decades – and so once the archive is fully catalogued and identified (or as fully identified as it can be!) it will be opened up.

Apologies again for the ramble and hope the above has clarified things a bit more.
All best wishes,
David

I hope we’ll keep in touch, David, on the development of the archive! Stay tuned to CDM for more, dear readers…

Among the treasures found in the archive is a short track of what could easily pass for an IDM cut released last year – except it was produced by Derbyshire in the late 60s, using far more primitive equipment, at a time when nothing sounded like that. When Paul Hartnoll of Orbital tells the BBC “This could be coming out next week on Warp Records,” he’s not exaagerating. Sci fi fanboyhood aside, I still think the endurance of the Doctor Who theme is partly because nothing sounds like it even today.

And there’s more – Hamlet sound design, original compositions, her signature bell tones. Even saying it’s forward looking isn’t really adequate. Other Derbyshire sounds, with their wailing electronic instruments and wooshes of synthesized noise, sound as though they were unearthed from some ancient era of electronica. Blue Veils and Golden Sands, a documentary about the Sahara, could pass for the music the aliens played on their spaceship hi-fis when they visited Earth and told people how to build the pyramids. (I’m kidding, but you get the point.)

I’m working on finding out what the plans are for the full archive as they evolve.

Lost tapes of the Dr Who composer [BBC News, via Radio 4’s Nigel Wrench]

Thanks to Ben Rogerson from MusicRadar for pointing to this first and sending it my way, and to Jim Warrier for the tip.

The UK electronic music scene lost its pioneer Tristram Cary this week, so it’s the perfect time to look back again at the marvels of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Low-budget but long-running Doctor Who is unlikely to be remembered for breaking new ground in, say, fancy props, sets, or visual effects (though they did plenty with what they had). But when it comes to sound and music, the BBC’s DIY approach to sound, ranging from Who to "serious" classical music (even my composition teacher Thea Musgrave worked there) remains significant today.

The BBC is again offering a look inside the storied workshop, now at its 50th birthday. (As their designs stand the test of five decades, I think perhaps electronic sound isn’t just about novelty after all.)

And one of their best finds? A lampshade.

Four sound effects that made TV history [ BBC News Magazine; happily this video works worldwide]

Thanks to Andy Tekkaz for the tip.

Yes, the green lampshade pictured above was Delia Derbyshire’s favorite toy to sample, a reminder that sometimes the non-electrified object is an electronic composer’s best friend. Other gems: the room for the largest synth the BBC ever owned, ominously titled "The Delaware" like some kind of WWII aircraft carrier, which wouldn’t fit through the door. Or room #12, in which the Doctor Who theme was born. Or what must be the world’s oddest home-built mixer, encased in plexiglass. Or, below, the suitcase synth the Workshop custom-built. (Note the prominence of EMS VCS3 synths, designed by Tristram Cary.) Updated: Okay, I was confused as well by the terminology "custom-built" in regards to the synth (evidently a Synthi-A), but then again, given the relationship between EMS and BBC, it’s possible the Radiophonic Workshop was the initial customer. Anyone have any idea?

Host and Radiophonic vet Dick Mills also settles any lingering controversy about how you make a Dalek voice: it’s what (I think) is a VCS3, a ring modulator tuned to 30 Hz, and a little bass attenuation (Dick corrects his colleague on that). If that doesn’t sound like a Dalek, you’re probably not shouting enough.

The hilarious send-up of educational films that was Look Around You: Music was only the beginning. BBC comedy show Look Around You has its own fantastic website filled with still more goodies. And it gives us a much clearer idea of the future of music technology than, say, a teaser from Moog.

Readers have been sending in “Life in the Year 2000″ entries, which include the five-string bass guitar, sex changes using Bach violin concertos, and my personal favorite, Halson Hoek’s invention that improves your keyboard chops by sending electrical shocks through metal gauntlets. At this point, that might be the only thing that can save my piano playing.

Best of all, Look Around You gives us what must be the mascot of Create Digital Music: enigmatic “musechnologist” Synthesizer Patel. He’s shown here with the watery keys of the Liquinth, perhaps inspired by a post here on the water-powered Mocean? There’s more from the new music episode, including a playable Mini-Trelm synth which has sadly been “stolen”. The TV network that gave us the Radiophonic Workshop deeply feels the trade we all ply:

“Synthesizer spends hours at these machines, carefully programming crochets, demi-clefs and arpeggionnes to achieve that special blend of sounds.”

Enjoy!

Look Around You: Music [QuickTime video, DevilyDucky.com]