If you’re in the New York area, tomorrow night we have another noise-making get-together at the lovely 3rd Ward. The event is free, and we have free Colt 45.
Amanda Ervin is the featured guest this month; see one of her circuits above. Her designs are intended to be something that other folks can make, so they could be an excellent starting point for the project you’re dreaming of. (And once you get sequenced events down, of course, you can assign them to whatever sounds or visuals you like.)
I’ve given up on live streaming from the event because we can’t get a reliable connection, but we will have documentation for CDM on the projects afterward.
Above: our friends at 2playerproductions shot this beautiful video that gets at the heart of what circuit bending and DIY electronics are about. It’s a look at some of the work of casperelectronics / Peter Edwards. And yes, Barbie is involved.
Who are the people in your DIY music neighborhood?
Well, quite a few of the DIYers here on Planet Earth are converging this week in New York. Lover of circuit bending, creative electronics, and DIY music hardware are gathering for the massive Bent Festival in Manhattan, complete with performances, workshops, and a book launch. And we’ve got a special edition planned of Handmade Music featuring several artists from Bent, too, in our monthly free event. For the rest of the planet, I hope to share some of these goodies well beyond the borders of the five boroughs.
To give you a taste of the kind of work we’re doing, check out the videos here of Chiptune Marching Band, getting kids making noisy circuits for the first time and the fantastic electronic workings of Peter Edwards’ brain, plus NPR radio coverage of Ranjit Bhatnagar’s hand-crafted “Instrument a Day.”
Nightly performances by Dr. Bleep, VBLANK, Christopher McDonald, Computer at Sea, Rhythmmemory, Playboy’s Bend, Die Schrauber, Peter Edwards/casperelectronics, E-Squared, Family TV, Devgon Ash, Ken Rei, Dr. Rek, Pixel Form, Boring Machine, Burnkit 2600, Anti Social Musik Order, plus Handmade Music veterans Lesley Flanigan, Loud Objects, Tristan Perich, and Don Miller / No Carrier … plus free beer every night at 7p.
Workshops on making your own Noise Box or miniRungler (sounds like Dr. Seuss), working with sensors and networks and big installations of lights that switch on and off, microcontroller programming, circuit bending, circuit design, and other Brainy Topics for beginners. There’s even a family-friendly workshop on making your chiptune marching band instruments.
And from your cheery neighbors here at CDM and our friends –
Handmade Music returns with a special Bent Edition – free, Thursday, 4/16, 3rd Ward in Brooklyn:
“modular synth meets circuit-bent Barbie dolls. noise, drone, dance party with Peter Edwards of casperelectronics.”
A surprise mystery instrument(s) from Handmade Music superstar Ranjit Bhatnagar, who promises it’ll be “something weird.”
Me, with the DIY Radio Shack contact mic and some custom software, showing you how to have fun with cheap impulse-buy contact mics and make music with water
Hopefully surprise cameos from Bent Festival’s Jamie Allen and Jo Kazuhiro talking about the circuitry, the music, and the magic of the Chiptune Marching Band
Free beer courtesy Pabst Blue Ribbon, while it lasts
Presented by createdigitalmusic.com with our friends at music trend-setters XLR8R.com, DIY bible makezine.com, and self-made marketplace Etsy.com
Hosted by artists’ facility and happening location 3rd Ward
7:30pm, Thursday, April 16 – FREE! 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
For more on handmade music and Ranjit’s brilliant, self-motivated hand-crafted Instrument a Day project, NPR did a fantastic piece on All Things Considered:
Wonderful things happen when you invite lovers of noise together in a room. Musicians and non-musicians, electronics geeks and first-timers, folks pick up a soldering iron — often for the first time — and cause utter mayhem. So we again had a fantastic time at Handmade Music last month. I’ve just gotten the photos in, so decided to share.
We’re looking for folks to bring stuff to Handmade Music on 4/16 – see the bottom of the article and give us a shout if you have software or hardware creations to share. They don’t even have to work, entirely – this is the place to find people to help give advice, so we like even partly-functioning inventions.
Even if you live far, far from Brooklyn (like back in Old Amsterdam), the featured March projects are within reach:
Loud Objects Noise Toy was the star of the evening. Lesley Flanigan and Tristan Perich of Loud Objects — superstar composers and sound artists themselves — were onhand as patient teachers and guides in the ways of Noise.
glitchDS on PC and Mac: The DS homebrew creator Bret Truchan delighted with not only his mobile gaming creations, but a netbook running a new PC cellular automaton MIDI sequencer, ported to Processing. More on that soon. (See the image captured by Make Magazine’s Collin Cunningham.)
Pulsantes I got Jaime Munarriz’ strange Processing + Pd pulsating rhythmic toys working on a PC – thanks, Jaime, for the virtual contribution!
jReality Peter Brinkmann demonstrated the sonic capabilities of audiovisual virtual reality framework jReality. Intense stuff – you don’t even need to use Cartesian coordinates. Elliptical, baby!
Networked Objects: Eric Beug brought by his DIY wireless synth modules and an iPhone for control. This progress is under development, so I hope it makes a repeat visit.
By the way, in case you wondered what happens when a bunch of people play all their newly-built Noise Toys at once? It sounds something like … this (and sorry, my digicam mic was entirely incapable of capturing the resulting sonic chaos):
A reminder – tonight in Brooklyn, it’s Handmade Music again, with the wonderful sounds of the Electric Junkyard Gamelan. After a couple of years of doing Handmade Music, this is actually the first featured performance by a whole-ly acoustic (if amplified) ensemble, which I think is too bad. I believe digital and electronic instruments are fundamentally different than acoustic instruments from a design perspective, and the confusion between the two can actually hamper creative thinking. But at the same time, once you realize that, there are all kinds of things you can learn from the design of instruments that make physical sound – and massive potential in mixing acoustic and electronic techniques. That, and this music sounds great.
My favorite track on YouTube has only a slide show in the background, so you’ll have to use your imagination.
For you New Yorker metro area folks:
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
Non-NYers, I’m open to suggestions as far as trying to set up a video stream. Mogulus just added a verification process, though I can get up to 50 people there without it.
Plushy soft replicas of beloved synths have become something of a meme. Via our friend atariboy of Plasq fame, here’s the latest addition to the cuddly vintage instrument category on Etsy. Think about what this means, if you will: it’s a synthesizer you can curl up with while you sleep. Now that’s love. (I know at least a few of you have a relationship with synths that rivals or replaces, erm, significant others…)
Now, the last time I covered soft synths (cough), I got significant hate mail in comments, proving there are really some people who don’t enjoy joy. But let’s get serious: the issue here is, you really do want these things to make some noise. Maybe it won’t be a fully-accurate Korg MS-20 emulation, but it could at least make some blips and bleeps. Squeezing circuitry into something soft and fuzzy is not an easy chore, but soft circuits are becoming more manageable — it’s even possible to use conductive thread to do basic wiring. A simple resistive, noise-making circuit is possible.
Consider the gauntlet thrown. Any plushy makers want to collaborate?
On Etsy: Pulsewidth shop, currently with a Minimoog, a Roland Juno-106, Korg MS-20, and a couple of SH-101s.
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