Mashup/media/music maven Moldover checks in in comments with another tip for surviving the desert of Burning Man (or, you know, your next gig in Yemen):

I’ve been bringing my laptop to the playa for several years now. My solution this year was a modified briefcase. I made a mount for my MIDI controller to sit right on ontop of the open case. This minimized my footprint which was very helpful. The case worked like a charm at night but it would overheat during the day. The quick fix was to put it ontop of a bag of ice. (Not very elegant, but still effective!) Next year I’m going to check out liquid or dry-ice cooling systems…

I like the liquid / dry-ice cooling idea!

Moldover is co-conspirator on the excellent, Ableton-biased near-monthly performance party Warper here in New York (though hopefully part of a new cultural fever spreading the country).

Dealing with the elements is a serious idea. I may have to do some low-tech waterproofing for a party this week in DC, and CDMotion’s Jaymis recently experimented with combining laptops and beer. (Hint: this turns out not to enhance performance.)

Previously:
Burning Man: Musical Mac Laptops in Home-Built Bio-Hazard Boxes
Numark’s $99 Portable Turntable, Torture Tested in the Burning Man Desert

Now, anyone got general Burning Man reports / photos for this year?

Laptops as bio-hazard? Dust problems in the desert? Just stick them in a miniature “clean room” environment. Chris Martinez of effect69 writes us with details:

Burning Man 2006: Hope & Fear the Future

When we were asked to play on the playa, I immediately thought of all of the stories of “That dust gets everywhere� and did I really want all of my precious gear getting destroyed? Would you? No! So I went to work on a plan that would help keep most of the dust and elements off of the gear. “Bio-Hazard� containment boxes a “Clean Room� of sorts. If something could keep particles from reaching the air, then I could keep particles from reaching the gear. As you can see the burners were impressed by our research on brining digital gear to the festival.

The boxes are made of 1/4� acrylic and the holes are made from 5 1/4� PVC with Large black rubber clean up gloves. Obviously, the boxes are in the 1.0 stage and if we go back to BM in 2007 2.0 should be even better. All because we love to create digital music!

Brilliant work, Chris! Now all we need is a carry-on blast chamber for the occasional bad battery on a plane.

CDM’s resident spinner, DJ Eldorado, brings us a review of Numark’s ultra-portable, US$99 turntable, the PT01. But he didn’t just see if it could pass muster in his bedroom: he preferred more extreme conditions. Here’s his full review:

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]