One box, many sounds, all toy-like and strange. Such is the vision of the Glam Machine. Norman Fairbanks, the man who brought us the all-Tenori-On album, has been teasing this creation, housed in a lovely wooden box with a giant VU meter on it, for a few days. Now we finally get to find out what it is — and apparently it was all inspired by Norman doing an interview here for CDM.

Imagine a semi-modular box with glitchy sampler and the repurposed, Frankenbending sounds of electronic toy guts:

The instrument will consists of three main sections: two modified toys and a lo-fi sampler. The first toy is a complex modern educational toy that can be altered to produce amazing organic soundscapes, sweeping orchestral sounds and strange percussive loops. It also has a stereo output, which is rather nice. The second toy, in contrast to the mellow tones of the first, produces harsher sounding staccato blips, crunches and bleeps. This section can also make several different animal sounds. The sampler can record up to 20 seconds of audio, either as one long sound or four shorter ones. This is useful as the unpredictable nature of circuit bending can sometimes make it difficult to recall a particular sound. Last but not least: there is also a loop function.

Norman did the brief, but the hardware-constructing mad scientist is an East London-based fellow named Dave Cranmer, aka nervous squirrel. (See the interview he did with Future Music mag, and the many creative projects he’s working on on his site.)

Here’s a look at the insides, plus a video of another Nervous Squirrel Creation in action:

Current TV has done a video featurette on a Handmade Music event held by CDM, Etsy.com, and Make in the fall. We’re finally getting back to these this summer, but this gives you an idea of the kinds of projects people are up to in the NYC area — hope some of you in the rest of the world can enjoy it.

Via The Storque, Etsy.com’s excellent online magazine. (See their previous coverage of these events.)
We could really use your help raising the visibility of DIY music tech — if you’re a Current member, or can register quickly, you can give the video a thumbs-up and give it a shot of being on the Current TV network. The way it works is, Current takes popular online videos and sticks them on the actual tube. And if you want your own fame and fortune and are near NYC, be sure to check out our call for projects.

Vote for DIY here:
Handmade Music Makers @ Current

If you’re on the East Coast of the USA and want to share some of your musical (and visual) projects with us, we have a number of opportunities.

Submit now! [Was briefly broken; now working!]

• Internet Week — Evening with MAKE Magazine: Thursday June 5, 6:30-9:30pm. We’ve already programmed part of this, but there should be a couple of spots left for unique DIY music/visual hardware and software projects. Part of a week-long celebration of the Internet in NYC.


• Hackers on Planet Earth Conference: Friday, July 18. This legendary assemblage of hackers at NY’s Pennsylvania Hotel is one of the world’s great geekfests. Tech author Steven Levy is keynoting. We’re throwing a big music and live visuals party, combining forces with some of the local 8-bit community.
• Handmade Music with Etsy + Make: We’re re-inaugurating our regular series with Make Magazine and Etsy.com. Dates TBD but we hope to bring this back as a regular event in Brooklyn.
• Mystery Event in Boston! If you’re in the Boston area, stay tuned. (Providence, New Haven, you’ll want to make the trip.)

Here’s what we’re looking for: DIY music software, hardware projects, 8-bit, custom gaming and gaming interfaces for music, live visuals, hacked solutions, visualizations and sonifications of Internet data (would seem especially appropriate during Internet week), interactive projects, physical computing, oddities, custom cases, weird stuff … the usual.

For HOPE, I’m particularly interested in keeping with the hacking theme, including open source projects, Linux audio, and unusual projects built with computers. With all the cool stuff happening in DIY electronics and hardware, software often falls by the wayside. And with all of these, I’d love to see more audiovisual projects.

Deadline: Right Now

Sign up here if you’re interested in doing these. I thought about setting a deadline, but honestly, with Make it’s first-come, first-serve, and with everything else, I’d rather know sooner than later, so if you’ve got something in-process, don’t be shy!

A Google Docs live form is embedded in this story below right on createdigitalmusic.com; if you’re reading via RSS, you’ll need to click through to the site to view it properly.

Alternatively, use the direct link

Feel free to forward the call!

"DIY project" may conjure up images of something hacked-together and rustic, but then you see projects like this one from William "Logo." Cheap-looking, mass-produced controllers, begone — behold the luxury US$400 and some construction talent can produce!

Logo shares the project on EM411:

After being dissatisfied with a dozen or so controllers, and due to the lack of quality affordable DJ mixer style ones on the market, I bit the bullet and went the DIY route. Overall it cost around $400 to make (it would of been about $300 if I didn’t make several ordering mistakes and splurge on super nice faders). It was by far the largest electronics project I’ve taken on and have the scars to prove it (aka I wanted to throw it out the window several times). Painful but worth it. I’ve never felt anything so damn hefty. It consists of 16 knobs, 5 faders, 16 arcade buttons, and 32 MIDI controlled LED buttons.
I plan on using it primarily for "crazy" 4 channel chopped up DJ sets in Live and simple sets in Traktor. I’m also in the midst of making some simple step sequencers for it in Max to take advantage of the fancy led buttons.

And, of course, having a controller no one else does? Priceless.

This project makes use of the popular MIDIBox project, but we’re also expecting solutions soon based on Livid’s MIDI DIY control board. Which you choose comes down to the configuration you want, but we’ll have more details on the MIDI DIY soon.

More photos (including electronics pr0n shots of the innards), including those above, at William’s set on Flickr:

MIDIBox

Previously, also featuring increasingly-popular arcade buttons:

All-Arcade Ableton Live Controller, DIY Hardware by The Prevolt

Andrew Turley writes to share his microfiche-to-MIDI music maker, which he shared at the Maker Faire. The idea: take the humble library microfiche, and translate light and dark values into MIDI, fed to a Casio keyboard. Sound like a random idea? Well, it would be — except Andrew happens to be in a band called Microfiche. (Check them out on MySpace.) None other than IEEE Spectrum — yes, from the IEEE standards body that brings us stuff like FireWire (aka IEEE 1394) — got hands-on with his project; IEEE Spectrum’s Josh Romero named it one of his favorite musical projects at the faire.

Maker Faire Highlights: Making Music the Hard Way [IEEE Spectrum]

Andrew has more impressions of the Faire on his blog Pillowsopher:

I’ve been there for the last two days presenting some of my projects, such as:

• Unicorn Vs. Dolphin
• my stomp pad
• $2 multitouch instrument (based on the water-in-a-bag design by Erling Ellingsen)
• Rock Band Keynote
• the Microfiche Machine (light to MIDI converter for the band Microfiche)
• the LED VU Meter

Cool, but I’d love to do this with microfilm — especially with the film cranked up to full speed. Wheeeee— click, click … crap. Film came off the spool. (What, am I the only person who’s done old-fashioned library research?)

More Maker Faire Videos

Make: Blog’s resident musicologist Collin Cunningham has a video with more of the music projects at Maker Faire:
Musical interfaces @ Maker Faire from Collin Cunningham on Vimeo.

Anyone else with fun Maker Faire reports, do send them our way. Sorry I couldn’t make it this year — but I’ll take this opportunity to finally edit all this footage I have from Yuri’s Night Bay Area, for more Greater San Francisco DIY Musical Goodness!

There are various ways to bridge the gap between vinyl records and computers, as we saw last week. You can cut records with digital timecode. You can build controller hardware that simulates the resistance of a motor, or mechanically control digital media using the turntable platter. And then there are the brute force methods, like strapping mice to turntables.

Squarely in the brute-force camp, our friend Ean Golden at DJ Tech Tools has added 7" records to the wheels on Vestax’s VCI-100 USB controller. If you want to do the same violence to your VCI-100 (I love how abused Ean’s VCI is looking, especially with those custom arcade buttons), Ean has a tutorial:

Add Records to your VCI-100 Jog Wheels [djtechtools.com]

The VCI still doesn’t feel like a turntable; I think it’s best thought of as something new and digital. And you do lose access to some of the controls. But I love that it’s customized in this way. Maybe I’ll add hubcaps to mine.

Scratching with a mouse just doesn’t feel right. One solution, as in FinalScratch and other products, is to print timecode onto the vinyl. But then there’s the direct approach: strap that mouse right onto your turntable and hit the club!

That’s just what the DIY-oriented community of users of terminatorX have done. terminatorX is a fully open-source scratch synth on Linux, with support for files like OGG, MP3, and WAV, and even (recently) Linux’s open stereo plug-in format, LADSPA. terminatorX lacks fancy features like support for timecode-printed vinyl, so users take a more literal approach to melding mouse and turntable.

Practical? Well, not especially. But fun? Heck, yeah. (Added benefit: a couple of these are far lighter and smaller than a real turntable.)

Necessity is definitely the mother of invention:

• Some of the projects use a series of belts to connect rotation mechanically to the mouse apparatus
• Toqer worked with a DIY optical sensor apparatus; several of these use optical sensors on the mice to keep from touching the records (thus making these even kinder to records than an actual cartridge would be)
• A number of projects feature full-blown motors and entirely-concealed mice
• Adam King built an entire DIY turntable with a mouse connected inside the unit (pictured, top)
• My personal favorite, Fernando S. Fabreti took the brute-force approach and put a mouse directly on the tone arm. (below) Insane. Brilliant.

More projects, photos, and links to specs and how-to instructions (I imagine you could do damage with ideas like this using other software, or even applications other than turntables):

terminatorX Turntable Gallery

This should also leave you more than typically safe from stepping on any N2IT/FinalScratch patents. Thank Douglas Englebart for this one.

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.

Digital turntablism is nothing new. But Ammobox, debuted at the first-ever CDM Futuristic Music Design Challenge, is unique in a number of ways. What creator Nathan Ramella has done differently:

1. He’s demystified digital vinyl timecode. With no previous DSP programming experience, Nathan created his own custom tool for reading vinyl timecode — and explains how he did it.

2. He’s changed the rules of scratching — it’s now polyphonic scratching. As Nathan puts it, "You get a polyphonic sampler that can layer multiple samples at the same time and scratch them all simultaneously." Yep: no more does digital vinyl simply replicate what records do normally. Here, it actually works as a digital instrument, manipulating layers of samples as you go. Check it out running in Ableton Live as a demo at top, though other hosts could work, as well, if you prefer.

3. He’s giving everything away. You’ll need some vinyl, and because the sonic wonders are all built in Reaktor, you’ll need a copy of NI’s modular mad science lab. But the ensemble itself is released under the GPL v2, which could make it a great way to learn more of the mysteries of Reaktor.

Official Ammobox Page

Download the library, free [ Direct Link ], or head to the rabbit hole that is NI’s User Library

Clarification: I should add that part of what makes Ammobox cool is actually that Nathan’s doing the timecode decoding the "wrong" way. Normally, a timecode system like Ms. Pinky or Traktor Scratch reads speed, direction, and absolute position. Position is the hard part, and the part that’s dependent on sophisticated error correction. What’s clever here is not that AmmoBox is likely to replace those systems (that’s not the point), but that by breaking the rules of how you’re supposed to do digital vinyl, Nathan’s created something different and expressive.

Nathan describes the system in greater detail:

Despite the name, the Bent Festival this year promises to be about not only circuit bending, but DIY sound in general. (Circuit shaping? Circuit straightening? General circuitration?) Our friend and CDM regular Mike Una has put together fantastic art installations for Minneapolis. Workshops in NYC and LA dig into the mysteries of sensors and tubes, the potential of video bending, and giant, battery-powered noise to drown out the rest of the world. And there are gobs and gobs of performers.

Like the North American air currents, Bent begins in the West, moves across the Heartland, and into New York City. (Okay, actually, when I first reported on this year’s Bent, the dates were different, so pay attention!)

LA - April 17 - 19

New York - April 24 - 26

Minneapolis - May 1 - 3

And lest you think Bent isn’t as Bent this year, there’s still a Furby Orchestra to cap it all off.

Bent Festival site has the whole scoop, plus Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, and whatever else you crazy kids use today. (Hey! Where’s the AOL keyword?)

If you make it to any of the festivals and document — or if you’re playing/presenting — do share.