It’s music production. It’s … lasers. If you’re in the LA area, you’ll want to be there. If not, let us know in comments what you most want to see covered / interviewed / videoed for CDM.

DubSpot’s Live 8 Sessions Tour heads to Los Angeles this weekend, for a set of workshops, performances, and demos on Hollywood Boulevard. I’ll be out with the crew, and hosting with DubSpot a special interactive performance lounge Sunday night.

Sunday night will feature generative audiovisual art made on iPhones, and laser-powered, open-source gestural controllers and a laser installation that responds to motion and sound, plus Christopher Willits, Kid Beyond, Irwin, myself, and a lot more.

The weekend workshops: The artist lineup includes legends from a number of genres, including Scientist, Kid Beyond, Daedelus, Justin Boreta (Glitch Mob), Thavius Beck, and Christopher Willits. Other names you may not know have their own resume in sound design and performance (Irwin), producing and education (Steve Nalepa), mastering technique (Daniel Wyatt), and business (Barry Cole). Sunday, monome virtuoso Daedelus and I will talk about controllers, performance, and sampling technique, I hope going well beyond Live to design and playing technique in general. Passes are $110 for one day, or $195 for the weekend. Watch for a similar series in Austin, Texas this month, and other cities TBD, or for everyone else, stay tuned to CDM and DubSpot.

Ableton is a co-presenter, and Live a jumping-off point, but the topics really wind up being about more than any one tool. You’ll find deeper questions about composing, sound design, mastering, business, performance, controllers, and design in these discussions. I hope to work with some of my artist friends and DubSpot to bring more of those conversations to the CDM readers worldwide.

Want a free pass? One free pass awarded by the end of the day Thursday to the first person in comments to … write a really quotable comment about why you need a free pass. (Sorry, it’s the best I can come up with; I have to sleep and leave for the airport shortly.)

Los Angeles Tour [DubSpot]

Sunday night – $5 benefit Interactive Performance Night + CDM 5th Anniversary PARTY CDM turns five this month, and we’ll be kicking off a series of parties in LA, Boston, and New York. For $5 (all proceeds go to the sustainable charity NextAid), catch a night of audiovisual performance and bleeding-edge musical and visual inventions:

• Featured live performances by Kid Beyond, Christopher Willits (Ghostly International), and Irwin
  , with surprises through the night
• Open laser instruments: Open-source, gestural laser music controllers you can build, presented by Meason Wiley (www.cyclespersecond.net)
• 3D mobile music: iPhone-based performance live, synchronized three-dimensional audiovisuals by generative artist Aaron McLeran (Electronic Arts – Spore)

9:00 pm
SUNDAY, November 8
Los Angeles, CA
$5 / free for tour attendees
King King Hollywood | Directions
Facebook page

Full disclosure: The author is currently providing consulting services to DubSpot, and DubSpot’s Live Tour is a CDM advertiser, though there has been no compensation for this story or for my appearance in LA. (In the interest of disclosure, I’m happy to be spending my weekend being involved with the event!) – Peter Kirn

If you’re ready to show your skills creating digital music, we want your work.

UPDATED! New contest entry page, new deadline (10/25):
http://www.renoise.com/competitions/indamixx/
Plus tips, tracks, and more to give you additional inspiration:
More with Less:”Efficient” Renoise Music Tracks and Tips

Renoise, the "bottom-up" music production tool that makes brings modern comforts to the tracker interface, and Indamixx, the turnkey Linux-powered mobile music rig, are working with CDM on a contest to produce a new song. You’ll need Renoise to make your track, but the software now runs natively on Mac, Windows, and Linux, and you can even finish your production on the free demo version if you’d like to give the software a taste before committing to it. (Really – you can even save your file. The demo won’t let you save a wav file, but we’ll judge the xrns, and the only other restrictions are some nags – Renoise is a rare return to the old “shareware” model of development.)

Here on CDM, we’ll also be featuring some tutorials on music production using Renoise, using Linux, and using free and open source software, as well as the commercial offerings. So, this is a chance not only to compete, but to learn some new tools. Rather than just feed off your work, I’m really eager to make this competition a chance for us to work together and share knowledge, to give to you. So I’m pleased to have some of the experts in the Linux audio community and Renoise community helping us do just that.

The competition will also be fully Creative Commons-licensed, to make sure you’re free to use our tips and tutorials, and that the track you make is free for others to remix – without abusing your work. (This is not officially CC-affiliated; we’re just making use of their license.)

Aside from the prizes, I’ll be thrilled to have the chance to promote your best work here on CDM, and the winner will become a demo song available via Renoise and on the Indamixx Linux-powered USB flash drive and pre-configured netbooks. (The USB stick means that if you already have a netbook, you can get a stable, pre-configured Linux rig on your existing machine.)

Above: The grand prize, the Indamixx Netbook. I’ve just gotten one in the mail from Indamixx to try, and I’m already hooked on the thing. Based on the MSI Wind, the rig is pre-configured with Linux software, set up in advance for you, with energy XT, Renoise, and ArdourXchange for converting sessions from software like Pro Tools – plus lots of free and open source software, of course. Win the contest, and you get one of your own – and your track will ship as the Renoise demo on this laptop and on the Renoise site.

How to enter:

Here’s how the competition will work:

1. You’ll make your track in Renoise, saving as an .xrns file. (Don’t want to start from scratch? Renoise imports MIDI files and many tracker formats, so you could, for instance, bang out some beats on your PSP using LittleGPTracker, then finish up in Renoise.) You can use any samples you like, but make sure they’re your own recordings or samples you’ve cleared for this purpose, and that you properly attribute them.

2. Make sure your track will play on a netbook – so go easy. For reference, here’s a file used for benchmarking systems. Figure that your track should have a similar task on your CPU.

CPUBenchmark21.xrns (nothing special musically – for testing only!)

3. Post your music somewhere (audio + xrns) – put it on your blog, use drop.io, sign up for CDM’s own in-development blog platform noisepages.com, or whatever you like. If you put the sound somewhere like SoundCloud, of course, you get an instantly-embeddable player.

4. Be sure to apply a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license. I’ll be doing the same with CDM’s tutorials and such. This leaves others free to share your work and to remix it, while ensuring they can only do so if they attribute you properly and if their work is just as free to share. (It does not preclude you from selling it later on, either.) See the details of the license, then sign up.

About the license

License your work 

Choose “yes” for commercial uses – because any commercial use must still share alike, which discourages commercial abuse. Select “yes, as long as others share alike” for modifications. Choose “unported” for jurisdiction. And make use of the other fields to attach metadata to your work.You should get a CC-BY-SA license as a result, which allows maximum flexibility for your work while protecting you from people exploiting your work without also sharing the results.

5. Tell us about it! Point CDM, Indamixx, Renoise, and the contest judges to your track by signing up here:

Contest entry form [Google Docs]

6. Judging will evaluate whether tracks are relatively CPU efficient xrns files, but – most importantly – are original, terrific music. There will be categories judged by producer/remix artist/DJ Ron Stewart of Indamixx and Peter Kirn of CDM, and a user’s choice judged by you via public voting.

Prizes:

An Indamixx Netbook MK II SE, to the Indamixx choice

A registered version of Renoise, to the CDM choice

4 Indamixx USB stick versions, to the user choices

DEADLINE:

October 15

We’ll have updates through the competition.

Stay tuned for more tips and tutorials on Renoise and Linux audio alike, plus a look at the Indamixx Linux-powered netbook rig (I’ve just gotten one for testing – it’s deliciously compact).

Questions? Thoughts? Shout out in comments below.

We have traditionally used the Feedburner service for RSS; I even knew folks who worked there and were CDM readers prior to the Google acquisition. Since the Google acquisition, though, that service seems not to have evolved much, and we’ve grown, too – meaning we’re really happy to let you subscribe directly.

We suggest you point your RSS reader, if you haven’t already, to:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/feed/

If you ever have any issue with CDM or noisepages, do let us know. Thanks for your help.

We talk about tools a lot, but it’s really learning how to make tools expressive in your productions and performances that matters. DubSpot, the music tech production and DJ educational center here in New York, brings its multi-city Ableton Live Sessions tour to its hometown for several days of parties and workshops. If you’re in NYC and on a budget, we have a discount on the paid events and also some free events you can check out. If you’re not in NYC, we’re working on bringing free video coverage to the global CDM community shortly after the event.

This really isn’t a pitch for Live, either – part of why I’m excited to be able to hang out for the weekend is that I expect to learn quite a lot from some of the world’s most skilled Live users and producers.

Headlining the event is none other than global techno star Richie Hawtin – the Minus impresario some of our readers love to love and others love to hate. I hope we get to hear more about his unique Plastikman live rig – see the controller at top, with more details from our friends at visualist corps Derivative, whose TouchDesigner live visual tool powers 3D imagery in those sets. Hawtin will join in a conversation with Ambivalent about what the Minus musical process is about. Hawtin and friends will also play a real gem of New York’s club scene, Love on MacDougal Street – it’s a fantastic space that lives up to its name.

On the dub side, Scientist aka Overton Brown, one of the world’s real stars of dub, a King Tubby protégé out of Jamaica, will return us to the roots of electronic dance music and show off his own take on the use of this technology. Scientist and Dub is a Weapon play Le Poisson Rouge and Scientist will close out the Live Sessions with a dub battle versus Badawi.

KJ Sawka – Hell, Yes, Chops

Before we get into the lineup, here’s just an example of how cool the faculty of this event is – KJ Sawka. Sawka is, of course, what we dream of in live laptop music. His musicianship is fantastic unplugged (see a rooftop set video, apparently sponsored by PBR), so the laptop becomes simply an extension of that.

KJ Sawka will have a full Drums workshop on Saturday as part of the paid program. If you’re new to Live, though, he’s doing a free intro on Thursday evening.

Here’s what to see and how to get the exclusive CDM discount.

By the way, if you’re in Los Angeles, that’s the next stop on this tour; stay tuned for details.

Schedule, Free Events, and Discounts

Thursday

7-9p, FREE KJ Sawka Live 8 clinic, 675 Bar
9p Funk Aid for Africa benefit release party, 675 Bar

Friday: Richie Hawtin @ Love

Saturday

11-6: Ableton Live and Production Sessions: The first day focuses on moving a project through the production process, with KJ Sawka talking live recording of drums, DJ Kiva and Jon Margulies on developing and finishing materials, and veteran engineer Daniel Wyatt on mixing and mastering. The day finishes up with a chat with Richie Hawtin and Ambivalent.

6:30-9p FREE CDM Live Lounge party Saturday evening, we meet up at former sex club / former horse stables (really) turned chilled-out Meatpacking District lounge 675 Bar. We’ll have some surprise unusual Live controller rigs and music.

Sunday

11-6: Performing with Live, Live Onstage: The second day of workshops focuses on live performance, with Jon Margulies, DJ Rupture, and myself talking about working with performance-ready live sets, controllers, and Akai’s APC40. (With Jon covering the APC, I’ll focus instead on alternative and unusual controllers.) Barry Cole of Blue Mountain Publishing will go a different direction entirely – how to understand licensing and distribution and actually make money on your tracks.

7-9p: Scientist will talk about miking and live setup with Dub is a Weapon – and will mix them live.

9p: DubSpot Sessions party, Le Poisson Rouge, with live and DJ performances from Scientist, Dub is a Weapon, Badawi, Kiva, Rupture, etc.

CDM DISCOUNT: Enter promo code ‘CDM’ for $25 off the tour, or follow this link:
http://www.dubspot.com/pages/abletontour.jsp?aff_ref=CDM

The weekend is US$225 for both days ($200 after our discount); $125 for one day.

Here’s a wrap of what happened in San Francisco:

And if you’re there, do come say hi! It’s always nice to meet readers.

We’re inundated with event info, and one of my general rules is to avoid lots of event listings. But the lineup for famed audiovisual fest MUTEK looks simply epic.

Highlights, just for a taste:

• Moderat. Apparat and Modeselektor. Like peanut butter and chocolate.
• A\VISIONS looks, as always, like an essential event in audiovisualism. Wolfgang Voigt will present GAS and Herman Kolgen has a new piece.
• For the first time, Club Transmediale gets its own showcase.
• An unusually eclectic lineup adds dub, acoustic-electronic, and cross-genre collaboration.
• Robert Henke (Monolake) and Christopher Bauder finally bring their 64 illuminated helium balloon installation (ATOM) to North America.
• Akufen returns to live performance.
• For techno lovers, Resident Advisor brings in the likes of Mathew Jonson, Dandy Jack, and Carl Craig to keep you up all night Saturday.
• Not just Berlin: People from all around the world are making sounds, and even events like the Decibel Festival get highlighted, so you get a great cross-section of a lot of scenes. (I have to bring this up, because I’ve already seen stories claiming Mutek is basically Berlin in Montreal, and from the lineup I see below, that’s a misrepresentation. We love Berlin, but glad as always to see representation from scenes elsewhere.)

MUTEK Lineup at MUTEK site (which has also been posting podcasts with the artists)

And, actually, almost everything looks like a highlight. Not only is it Mutek’s one-decade anniversary, it feels like it’s a special moment for electronica and audiovisuals in general, like the forces of goodness are again converging planetwide.

I think even Mutek aside, some good times are ahead – and Montreal could be a great place to celebrate. Speaking of which…

CDM Coming to Montreal – Get In Touch

I was unable to attend MUTEK last year, but this year should happily be different. I know the Warper crew from New York City are planning their own live music party separately, and CDM may be able to put on an event. If you have a venue or are interested in collaboration, let us know. I’m also available to do the workshop thing while in town. Mostly, it’d be helpful to connect with folks in Montreal as I’m in town, since it isn’t my city. If we can get a daytime space, we may be able to do some additional interviews of Mutek artists and Montreal videomusicological citizens.

You can reach me and the CDM gang at our contact page, or email me directly at peter (at) [thenameofthissite.com]

What’s Going On

Heck, let’s break the rules and run the whole press release, as it will have fans of this event salivating:

MAY 27TH TO MAY 31ST: THE DESIGN OF MUTEK’S FIVE DAYS

DAY 1 // WEDNESDAY, MAY 27

A\VISIONS 1: Monument-National Theatre // $25 CDN // 8pm
MUTEK_10 officially gets underway with a showcase that presents two venerated artists whose work seeks to technologically alter the shape and sound of our relationship with nature. Cologne’s Wolfgang Voigt, roundly regarded as one of the greatest sonic experimenters of the 90s, delivers the Canadian premiere of his GAS project, a 90-minute audio-visual dreamscape that invites listeners into the Black Forest of Southern Germany, accompanied only by the haunting manipulations of Mahler and Wagner compositions. Afterward, HERMAN KOLGEN (one half of the multimedia duo Skoltz_Kolgen) will present the world premiere of his new piece "IN/JECT", which takes as its inspiration the prolonged submersion of the human body into a cistern of water and waits for nature’s pressing hands to alter the balance of the brain and, in turn, produce an internal music.

NOCTURNE 1: Society for Arts and Technology // $25 CDN // 10pm
MUTEK’s first-ever CLUB TRANSMEDIALE showcase focuses on the hazy lights of the retro-futuristic French psychotronic scene. The night begins with Montreal’s ORGAN MOOD, before giving way to the ultra-mysterious ZOMBIE ZOMBIE, who arrive for in Montreal for a North American debut. The French duo rev up their otherworldly fusion of psychedelic rock and electronics that raises the ghosts of bands like Suicide and The Residents. Equally mysterious but no less formidable is TURZI ELECTRONIC EXPERIENCE, the solo project of the eccentric Romain Turzi, who fuses krautrock and commune psychedelics while surrounded by a cavalry of vintage synthesizers that brings to mind the heyday of Jean-Michel Jarre. The night wraps up with the D.I.R.T.Y. space disco of Paris’PILOOSKI, who will take Turzi’s synthetic propulsions and embed them with the irresistibly carnal handclaps that drive the duo’s sought-after disco re-edits.

DAY 2 // THURSDAY, MAY 28

A\VISIONS 2: Monument-National Theatre // $25 CDN // 8pm
A showcase dedicated to the control and composition of human collaboration, in which generations of musical masters meet on stage to experiment through an eclectic mix of jazz, metal, krautrock, turntablisms, and of course electronics. Starting off the evening, an American group still unknown to these parts, THE FUN YEARS, one of the discoveries MUTEK has the pleasure of introducing to Montreal. Former CAN drummer JAKI LIEBEZEIT returns to MUTEK with frequent collaborator BURNT FRIEDMAN to perform an exclusive North American show that warps together over five decade’s of experience into one singular presentation. Afterward, the corrosive pairing of two of Quebec’s most uncompromised figures takes the stage. With his mutant turntable in tow, MARTIN TÉTREAULT plays the mad composer who fiercely controls the spastic and irrepressible drumming of his monstrous subject, Voivod’sMICHEL LANGEVIN.
NOCTURNE 2: Metropolis // $30 CDN // 10pm // presented by 33mag
The many factions of dub converge onto one large stage to showcase just how far Jamaica’s roots reggae templates have evolved toward new genres in the hands of some of today’s hottest names. None other than Skull Disco co-founder APPLEBLIM comes to Montreal for his Canadian debut and a DJ set that showcases the many points of fusion between UK dubstep and Berlin techno. A seamless blend of echoes, bass, and delays leads us to the heavily anticipated collaboration between Canadian dub-don DEADBEATand Berlin’s master vocalist of all things dub, PAUL ST. HILAIRE. Next up, MODESELEKTOR and APPARAT join forces for the Canadian premiere of MODERAT, a stunning live audio-visual production accompanied by the striking video work of PFADFINDEREI. And finally, the night winds to a tailspin with the breakneck dubstep assault of the Digital Mystiks’ MALA, in town for a Canadian debut DJ set.
Meanwhile, the SAVOY ROOM fills with the ambient soundscapes of EZEKIEL HONIG, CLINKER, I8U, NOVI_SAD, and AUN.

DAY 3 // FRIDAY, MAY 29

ATOM 1: Théâtre Maisonneuve // $15 CDN // 7pm
MUTEK is especially proud to be bringing ROBERT HENKE & CHRISTOPHER BAUDER’s monumental ATOM installation to Montreal for three showings, a North American exclusive. This project is among the most ambitious undertakings of Henke’s long and distinguished career, in which he has already seen many high points as MONOLAKE and as one of the inventors of Ableton Live. ATOM features a series of compositions played on a matrix of 64 illuminated helium balloons that will be presented at the prestigious Théâtre Maisonneuve at Place des Arts. ATOM will be staged three times throughout the festival, once Friday evening, and then two more times on Saturday.
A\VISIONS 3: Monument-National Theatre // $25 CDN // 8pm
Building on the first two A\VISIONS showcases, this Friday evening set delivers a line-up of artists whose main impulse is to capture currents of electricity and compose them into rhythm. The detached, austere electric neuro-funk of Sheffield’s highly regarded SND gets the ball rolling, following up on their last MUTEK performance in 2002. Following suit is the first of two appearances by Berlin’s Tobias Freund, who here appears alongside Max Loderbauer as the magnificent, enigmatic NSI, a duo whose adventurous spirit and vast musical knowledge allows them to experiment with electricity from perspectives that incorporate a broad swathe of influences, from industrial to European jazz and everything in between. Finally, Montreal electricity-tamers ARTIFICIEL take the stage for the world premiere of their new piece entitled "Power", which creates its own lightning and pulls from those bright, fiery lights the brittle, halcyon sounds of power at its purest.
NOCTURNE 3: Metropolis // $30 CDN // 10pm // presented by MusiquePlus
Friday night begins with a showcase that emphasizes the sheer internationalism of rhythmic attraction and all its regional manifestations. Chile’s ORIGINAL HAMSTER meets Brazil’s NEGO MOÇAMBIQUE on stage to inaugurate this soirée of global funkiness, with the former’s Latinized techno brushing up against the latter’s infectious baile funk. Montreal’s favourite son, GHISLAIN POIRIER, who is ever-interested in evolving the hip-hop template, introduces his new soca soundsystem, while Berlin-basedJAHCOOZI, a group that pulls M.I.A. into Modeselektor, pump up the bass even further. Finally, Mexico’s BOSTICH+ FUSSIBLE, members of NORTEC COLLECTIVE, lead a five-piece norteño band that threatens to be one of the most festive live spectacles at this year’s festival.
Meanwhile in the Savoy Room, Canadian techno veteran MIKE SHANNON heads up a 10th anniversary bash for his Cynosure label, a label that has taken part in many MUTEK events over the years. To celebrate the two anniversaries together, Shannon brings alongERNESTO FERREYRA, MATT THIBIDEAU, and ADAM MARSHALL.

DAY 4 // SATURDAY, MAY 30

MUTEK//PIKNIC 1: Parc Jean- Drapeau // $10 CDN // 2pm
Saturday afternoon promises to be a showcase for those softer, subtler textures of electronic music: dub-techno, deep house, funk, and disco. The day starts off at a relaxed pace, ideal for lying back in the sun, with the Canadian premiere of Berlin’s THOMAS FEHLMANN, who presents his hypnotic brand of dub-techno to early-afternoon revelers. New York’s BRENDON MOELLER is up next, delivering a premiere of his upcoming Third Ear album called "Jazz Junk Safari". Manchester’s TRUS’ME follows suit with a set of rarefied Northern soul feeding the foundation of deep house that has made him an international favourite. The day in the park wraps up with THE MOLE on the decks, spinning a set of disco-fuelled techno.
ATOM 2 & 3: Théâtre Maisonneuve // $15 CDN // 5pm & 7pm
ROBERT HENKE & CHRISTOPHER BAUDER’s monumental ATOM installation continues its residency at the prestigious Théâtre Maisonneuve at Place des Arts with two showings on Saturday, once in the early afternoon and again in the early evening.

A\VISIONS 4: SAT // $25 CDN // 8pm
A very special Raster-Noton showcase, featuring the label’s most durable attractions in their most bristling and conceptual post-industrial guises. The evening begins with the North American premiere of RYOJI IKEDA and CARSTEN NICOLAI’s reunion asCYCLO., the pairing that wowed audiences last in the early 2000’s and has been silent ever since. Uwe Schmidt, the German expatriate currently living in Chile, reprises his role as ATOM^TM. Next, Carsten Nicolai returns to the stage solo to present his much-heralded ALVA NOTO compositions. Finally, Olaf Bender brings the mighty BYETONE to life with the rock-driven Teutonic beats that have made his recent records so collectible.
NOCTURNE 4: Metropolis // $35 CDN // 10pm // Resident Advisor Night
The festival’s marquee all-night event, and for this 10th anniversary we’re pulling out all the stops! MUTEK and RESIDENT ADVISOR join forces to present a line-up featuring some of the most revered names inn electronic music today. Local jazz and funk sample-mavenMOONSTARR gets things underway in the main room, followed by the inimitable antics of French cabaret-house trio dOP. Next up sees the tantalizing pairing of two of techno’s most sought-after names — MATHEW JONSON and DANDY JACK — coming together for a heart-pounding live performance. Berlin’s Tobias Freund return for his second MUTEK_10 appearance, this time in his tobias. moniker and ready to keep the late-night crowds moving. Finally, Detroit techno pioneer CARL CRAIG takes the stage for a 3-hour DJ set that will take audiences well into the morning.
Meanwhile in the Savoy Room, MUTEK pays tribute to Seattle’s Decibel Festival with a showcase of that city’s finest electronic offerings. The breezy ambience of THE SIGHT BELOW gets the evening underway, followed by the dark tones of LUSINE’s contemplative techno. PEZZNER and JEREMY ELLIS pick up the pace and follow through till dawn.

DAY 5 // SUNDAY, MAY 31ST

MUTEK//PIKNIC 2: Parc Jean-Drapeau // $10 CDN // 2pm
The final day starts off in the park with a very special reunion between MUTEK and two of its most beloved contributors over the years. This afternoon picnic features a rare North American appearance by RICARDO VILLALOBOS, who will be tagteaming on the decks for a marathon DJ set with none other than Perlon founder and manager ZIP.

NOCTURNE 5: SAT // $20 CDN // 10pm // presented by Bande à part
The return of the festival finale! For this tenth edition, MUTEK could think of no better way to cap off its decade of growth and innovation than to salute the Canadian artists who have provided the backbone of this festival all this time. Two longtime Montreal collaborators,MATEO & PHEEK, get the finale underway, followed by fellow Montrealer STEPHEN BEAUPRÉ. Next up, the highly anticipated return of AKUFEN, in his first live showcase of completely new material since 2004. The festival draws to a close with the impossibly talented live improvisation of MODERN DEEP LEFT QUARTET. Given the sheer number of other Canadians already in town and the free-for-all celebratory nature of the event, we can only imagine that a few surprise appearances may pop up through the night and join in this final jamboree.

INDIVIDUAL TICKETS & PASSPORTS NOW ON SALE

MUTEK PASSPORTS, WEEKEND PASSPORTS, DAY PASSES, INDIVIDUAL TICKETS and other packages are now on sale throughwww.mutek.org. This year’s passes grant attendees the flexibility to catch more showcases and live acts than ever before, in a number of different packages:
MUTEK PASSPORT – $215 CDN + taxes & service charges
WEEKEND PASSPORT – $135 CDN + taxes & service charges
WEEKEND "LIGHT" PASSPORT – $100 CDN + taxes & service charges
A\VISIONS PASS – $75 CDN + taxes & service charges
METROPOLIS TRIO – $70 CDN + taxes & service charges
DAY PASSES & INDIVIDUAL TICKETS also available at www.mutek.org

Workshops and panels remain TBD. We’ll keep you posted here on CDM.

This is entirely experimental, but I’ll be broadcasting live from Handmade Music tonight in Brooklyn. Drop by and have a look at what’s going on. 7:30pm Eastern (that’s GMT -4) is when the event begins. We may be able to switch on earlier than that, but I’ll at least try to have something up by then. Note that we may not be able to have someone live on chat through the evening, so you could get a fishtank experience, but I’ll try to get folks to come say hi through the evening.

And of course, if you’re in the New York area, you can just drop by yourselves and have free beer.

Here’s a cruel joke for you: the first day of Frankfurt’s Musikmesse trade show? The date on which all the music tech press releases for the show have dated their embargo? April First.

Now, to me, the whole point of April Fool’s is surprise, or at least humor. April Fool’s has become so obligatory that everything from faux press releases to blog posts are dedicated to the topic whether they were inspired or not. So, you know what? No April Fool’s Day here. Anything covered on this site tomorrow will be – to the best of my knowledge, anyway – real. (Or as near reality as we ever get.)

Ironically, news in our world is so unsurprising, any interesting news is immediately suspected of being fake. Teenage Engineering’s Operator-1 is so cool looking that, aside from concerns it may not ship, some of you have gone so far to worry the whole thing is an elaborate April Fool’s prank. (One clue that that’s nonsense: it was announced on March 30. It even missed the Ides of March.)

But there you go: case in point. Reality actually can be cool. So we’ll stay away from the pranks this year, and any foolery will be of the technological kind. Enjoy.

I’m also connecting with our friends at Boing Boing and Boing Boing Offworld, and we’ll have some joint coverage this week and next. They’re crazy enough to be doing a live video stream, so if it’s during the day West Coast time you can see what they’re up to:

Once a month, CDM goes from its virtual state to a sort of augmented reality existence in Brooklyn. (In Williamsburg, no less, which has itself been augmenting itself into neighborhoods formerly known as Bushwick.) Tonight is one of those times.

If you’re in Brooklyn, you should come enter our physical dimensions so you can:

• make your own NoiseToy with Loud Objects’ Tristan Perich, and take it home for the low, low price of ten clams. (Dollars, though I think clams are actually worth more at the moment. I’ll eat the clams.)
• witness strange, wonderful things happen in the areas of audiovisual virtual reality and free, new sequencers for Mac and PC
• watch me make a fantastic musical Processing sketch work, shipped over the Interwires from Spain!
• hang out with us and discuss our other projects that don’t work (because, really, that’s part of the process

TONIGHT = 7:30 pm (drop by late if you must) = Brooklyn, here

If you are separated from Brooklyn by time and space, fret not. I’m working on a site that will start to document these projects, and we’re extending our geographical dimensions so that these events start happening in other cities / countries / continents (perhaps among the all-Firefox crowd in Antarctica, where I gather they use Linux as they actually are penguins).

Also, a lot of these hardware and software projects are available for your consumption — sometimes free (as in beer and freedom), so we can all share the love.

For instance, learn about / acquire a Noise Toy on the Noise Toy site!
http://www.loudobjects.com/kit/

But it’s my belief that the future of CDM really depends on the interplay between physical and virtual reality in all sorts of dimensions. That is, so long as in the process I don’t become unstuck from time. I’ve watched Lost / Doctor Who, and that often ends badly.

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]

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