When we last saw Onyx Ashanti, he was speaking of a grand vision to remake himself into a music-performing Tron. Now, the elements of that vision are coming together, with a crowd-sourced funding campaign that ends today, Friday. Update: Apparently after seeing this story, IndieGogo extended the funding deadline for five days, with the new deadline Thursday, December 1.

I knew Onyx back when he was playing more conventional wind controllers. Now, that fingering arrangement is freed from the virtual wind instrument, handheld and movable through space. Because of the plans to open source everything he’s making, you might yourself pick up that hand controller – or, if you’re like Onyx, go full-tilt with physical training to make your body do new things and a carbon fire, full-body prosthetic transformation.

Onyx has been at auditions for the main TED (the big one, not TEDx), experimenting with a beatbox configuration, and honing alien-like futuristic human reinvention with the help of artist Christopher Logan, aka Loganic. Loganic makes the art, then prosthetic engineer Uli Maier – with doses of carbon fiber – translates those notions into physical form. And the whole thing is mobile; Onyx draws on his busking background to take this thing wherever he goes.

Initially built as an open/proprietary hybrid, the new system is increasingly open source from the ground up, from customized Linux-based software to Pure Data (Pd) patches to open source designs for the molds. The wearable system can be 3D printed. Plans for the system also were featured in Make Magazine.

It’s actually quite a lot to digest, but Onyx has been posting videos, the most recent and illustrative of which I’ve included here. And because there’s a lot to do physically, from personal training to buying clay to engineering the prosthetics, Onyx is relying on crowd-sourced funding. In place of Kickstarter, which has specific requirements for minimum funding and other restrictions and requires US-based banking, he’s opted for IndieGogo.

If you invest just a few dollars, you at least get music; with successively larger donations, Onyx throws in his software, custom artwork and posters, t-shirts, or starting at US$500, the custom hardware itself for your use.

The IndieGogo campaign ends Thursday, December 1:
IndieGogo: Beatjazz System

– but we’ll be in touch with Onyx on an ongoing basis, so let me know if you have questions for him or want to watch this continue to evolve.

Videos showing the making of the elements of the system:

Above: New visualizations in 3D have vastly expanded the now-Pure-Data-based audio system with heads-up displays worthy of the spacesuit. Below: Some of the beautiful concept artwork produced for the project.

IndieGogo Campaign

Previously: Onyx Wants to Make Himself Into Helmeted, Wearable-Music-Tech Tron, With Your Help

Music made by machines need not turn its back on traditional musical skill – least of all when you literally strap the machines on the back of a master musician. In a fusion of Brazilian tradition and modern wireless, wearable sensor technology, Kyle McDonald shares with us a project that makes drums into an interactive suit.

Kyle has plenty to say, including all the details on how to do this in case it inspires a project of your own, so I’ll let him take it away:

The project is a wireless drum suit that I built with Lucas Werthein for a popular Brazilian musician named Carlinhos Brown.

Brown wanted to try something experimental — which is relevant because it’s probably one of the first alternative interfaces anyone
in this city has ever seen. Salvador might be one of the biggest open air-festivals ever, but it’s full of traditional music and the local
pop music (“axé”). Nothing but the usual guitars and drums, and some Bahian + Brazilian instruments.

The system is based on a multilayer, laser-cut design we developed:

It uses acrylic, metal, rubber, and piezos to create a really solid module that feels nice to the touch. I’ve always been annoyed with the
force required to hit something like an [M-Audio] Trigger Finger or an Akai pad, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that if you build your own, you can really get that bottom end to be super sensitive. They probably just pull it up in commercial devices to avoid triggering from
shaking, or cross talk.

The pads run to the brain via 1/8″ cables. The brain is about the size of an Arduino Mega + 1 9V battery, and also laser-cut acrylic:

The Arduino Mega is then connected to a MIDI shield from Sparkfun, which goes to a CME WIDI wireless MIDI device that was surprisingly more robust than the more expensive Kenton MIDI device we tried.

I had a ton of fun making this, and we’re planning on open-sourcing the design for the pads so other people can build them.

Onyx Ashanti is insane – in the special, essential way that makes certain brilliant musicians. An experienced busker, having crossed from the US to Berlin, he’s a rare virtuoso of wind instruments and electronic improvisation, the kind of musically-free soul who can just let loose live. But his latest project really crosses into some new territory.

He’s making himself into Tron.

No, really – just having some handheld touch control wasn’t enough, so he’s preparing an open source, wearable rig. He’s hardly the first to attempt this sort of thing, but he has two major advantages: first, he’s already developed the musical idioms and chops he needs, rather than leaving that for some indeterminate time after the thing is built. Second, he has on his team not only himself, but people with experience in prosthetics, plus the co-founder of Ableton. And the work isn’t just a crowdsourced pipe dream: it’s already well on its way.

I could try to describe it all, but this is a project only its mad-scientist, mad-musician creator can really do justice. So I’ll let Onyx take it away.

My Name is Onyx Ashanti. I am a Busker, Author, Beatjazz Artist.

Beatjazz is a term and style of music i came up with back in the late 90s, which described my playing of my wind MIDI controller with beats I had pre-programmed into Fruity Loops [now FL Studio]. That was cool for a while, but as time went on and I got older, It became boring. I wasn’t writing new beats as often as i should have. I had an Ableton phase which gave me a different means of using beats as a sort of hybrid, chopped-up DJ/live set kinda thing, but i got bored of that, as well. It wasn’t until a family tragedy that I realized that it was time to walk that tight-rope, in a sense, to do the weird and the crazy stuff that you convince yourself not to, for the various reasons you give yourself. So beatjazz evolved into a beat-centric form of live music based on live looping, software synth-based sound design, and jazz improvisation. That was three and a half years ago.

It wasn’t easy. It took a year just to get proficient enough to play beats live without a metronome using the wind controller. But after that, Beatjazz evolved in ways i couldn’t have imagined — styles of music that I may have heard once in my life, springing out of one of these extended improvised sessions, which sounds oddly like DJ sets in their continuity.

Over time, I have outstripped the capabilities of my [Yamaha] WX5 wind MIDI controller. It was not designed to do multi-elemental improvisation. There are many things to do and keep track of during a live beatjazz performance, so I have, over the last few years used a wide variety of different secondary controllers, such as the M-Audio Trigger Finger and the Korg microKONTROL, but found them all to be to distracting in performance. A wind midi controller is constructed like a horn. It looks like a clarinet, and as such, it’s hard to play and simultaneously tweak a knob on a secondary controller, because your hands need to be on the horn. And I never liked foot pedals, especially in clubs, because they limit my movements to a very small area — and get drinks spilled on them CONSTANTLY.

Last winter, I started experimenting with using TouchOSC, interfacing with [open source multimedia development environment] Pure Data on my computer, as a gestural controller. In that way, I could simply wave or shake my hand and control many parameters at once, which opened up many new stylistic trajectories that are still very exciting — so much so that I can’t do what I consider to be “my music” without an iPhone running TouchOSC strapped to the back of my hand. This is great and very cool, but isn’t optimal because there are so many gestures I have created and only one accelerometer/GUI, so I set out to design a system that was designed specifically for the presentation of beatjazz. The result is the TRON Beatjazz controller system.

I called it TRON because the system is made up of three main components; a helmet (above) and 2 hand units (top). Each unit is wirelessly connected to the computer. The hand units together are “fingered” the same way one would finger a saxophone or a clarinet, known as the “Boehm” fingering method [see video / below], but the hands do not have to be in a stationary “horn” position the way they are with those instruments. Each hand will have switches for keys, a joystick, an accelerometer, and a color synthesis system based on RGB LEDs to tell the audience what element i am playing (for instance, blue for bass and green for drums,etc). Part of the performance of these units is hand motions very similar to that of a raver using glowsticks (image below), which results in light trails reminiscent of the light effects from the movie TRON.

The purpose of this system is to provide a complete live performance system that incorporates lights, sound, and dance in one cohesive new form. The helmet, which looks like an afro, is made of carbon fiber and will house lip and breath sensors, a wireless microphone system, in-ear monitoring with ambient mics (so I can hear things around me without taking the helmet off), a digital compass for directional processing, an accelerometer, and two very powerful PC fans so I don’t have a heat stroke while wearing it. Why have a carbon fiber helmet? Primarily because a friend who is a professional creator of artificial limbs offered to help me make use of the material, and also because it’s durable and very lightweight. Oh, and I almost forgot — BECAUSE ITS f&%(ING CARBON FIBER! It’s the coolest-looking material on Earth! Ahem.

The brains of the system will reside on the host computer by way of Pure Data [above]. This is for two main reasons. First, as I stated above, I get bored easily. This system will be permanently malleable. Since the controller is just a wireless array of sensors, I can change and adapt them to do many thing I can’t imagine at this time, which leads to the other reason:

This is an open source project. This system would not be possible without open source software and hardware in the form of Pure Data and the many Arduinos that will make up the core components of this system. I am releasing all notes associated with this project once it is completed, as well as detailed notes on the concept and methodology of Beatjazz. By keeping the brains on the computer, by design, the concept should evolve exponentially in multiple directions. People can use these notes and patches as a jump off point for their projects, and it is also a not-so-subtle way of spreading the gospel of open source, of which I am a zealot.

Beatjazz is part of an atomization of sound culture. It is pure, computer-enabled improvisation. I never know what I am going to play onstage, even while I am playing. I combine the vibe in the room with what I am feeling at the moment, limited only by my skills and my sound set, and construct/deconstruct a narrative that provides a singular soundtrack for that moment. It may come out as house or be-bop or latin jazz — that’s the point, I have no idea, and it is very exciting.

I am doing this project now because, for lack of a better way of putting it, it’s just time! I’ve “practiced” for 20 years. This is the stuff i grew up dreaming about. When you reach a point in your life where you have the skills and the determination and the “people resources” to make something actually happen, you have to act! I have direct access to some of the most amazing people with the skills that make this a much more viable project.

Uli Maier is the Prosthetist (video above) that is helping me cast the molds we will use for the helmet and hand units. Chris “Loganic” Logan draws the ideas out in a form that conveys exactly what i see in my head, Tomas Henriques is wind synthesis legend, having already created the Meta-EWI [customization of the Akai wind controller] and the award-winning Double-Slide controller and Native Instruments co-founder Stephan Schmitt is offering to help me design the custom looping system that will form the backbone of the system. (The controller is open source, not the synths and looping system — yet.) I’d be mad not to go for it with all of these stars aligned at one time! These are just a few of the people that make the project real.

This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever been part o, as an artist, but its also, by far, the most expensive, so i am “crowdfunding” it through indiegogo.com, which is another amazing aspect of the modern Internet — the ability to bring people directly into this project that may be really interested in it. I have a created a wide array of “perks”, i.e. cool items in exchange for contributions to this campaign. From an exclusive EP of the twisted beatjazz that I will create with the new system ($5-available in late May), at onyxashanti.bandcamp.com, to a hand-bound copy of my book entitled “The 21st Century Musicians Guide to Busking” ($50, completion by late March). Options go all the way up to various versions of the controller system itself, in wired and wireless varieties, including the $5000 “Ultimate Package” in which you get the same carbon fiber controller i am making for myself (with a different helmet). I will it deliver to you personally, spend two days teaching you how it all works, and then you and I will give a concert for your friends and family! See: www.indiegogo.com/tronbeatjazz.

I have been told that saying that I want to create “the most amazing live music performance system ever” is a bit “bombastic”. But I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t the intended goal and if it didn’t think it were possible.

www.beatjazz.blogspot.com
www.indiegogo.com/tronbeatjazz

We users may sometimes gripe, but music technology gives us an impossibly wide variety for which to be thankful. From free (as in beer, as in freedom) to high-end and spendy, from software plug-in to acoustic instrument to solid-state electronics to toy, you’d run out of time and money long before you ran out of exceptional, music-inspiring choices. I think the passion people feel for music is the cause: economics and logic be damned, we’re all glad to make music part of our life, both as makers and consumers. Tools aren’t everything – it can be hugely helpful to do more with less, to impose restrictions. But that means the tools we do choose can be invaluable.

Now, normally “gift guides” tend to pick items you’d rarely buy as a gift. So, speaking of restrictions, this year I’m imposing a price limit: $200 maximum, meaning the kinds of things you actually would buy as gifts. (There are many worthy items above $200, but I’m assuming anyone spending more than that already has made up their minds.) And, we went to you, the readers, to tip us off on the items that mattered. Pulling those together with some of my own selections, here are a few current tools that have some real musical value, whether you’re giving or receiving.

There’s plenty that didn’t make the cut in this lineup, including some products we talk about a lot. Think of this as a tightly-curated list, one on which I tried to leave things out. We even get some great picks under twenty bucks, and a few surprises. Have a look…

Software

Reaper

Cockos
reaper.fm
US$60 ($150 commercial); $40 limited-time deal gets upgrades through 4.99 if you purchase this month
Recommended by: John Townsend

Also consider: “light” versions of tools like Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, SONAR, Cubase, etc., if someone on your list has a specific preference

With Windows, Mac, and (WINE) Linux compatibility, no DRM, a clean interface, and a supportive community, Reaper is a general-purpose music production tool you can feel confident giving or receiving. You can even use it to author Rock Band Network content, meaning you can give it to a musician who has everything and they’ll still appreciate it. And the pricing here isn’t a cut-down limited version; it’s the whole enchilada. It’s a gift that’ll keep on giving: buy version 3, get versions 4 (teased last week) through 5.99 free.

Renoise

Eduard Müller (Taktik)
renoise.com
US$77.51
Recommended anonymously

Geeky but approachable, retro-fun but modern and housebroken, extensible — all the stuff we value here on CDM. With support for Mac, Windows, and (native) Linux, Renoise is a good gift to give or receive for someone wanting a different approach to music.

The Mouth

Native Instruments
native-instruments.com
US$79
Recommended by Flick

Mic input and vocals get their due in Tim Exile’s superb Reaktor-based instrument. Whether you use it as a vocoder, a melody generator, a unique effect on percussion, or to perform far-out vocals live, it’s a terrific example of where musical design can go. As contributor Flick puts it, “I could go on, but Mr. Exile does it better than I could.”

Korg Legacy Collection Instruments

Korg
korguser.net/shop/software/
US$49.99 each

So, you’re not winning that eBay bidding war, and there’s no more room for more gear, anyway. Korg’s Legacy Collection Instruments are faithfully-reproduced versions of legendary synths like the Polysix and Mono/Poly. And while the MS-20 has inspired iPad and DS apps, it’s tough to beat the convenience of dropping one of these as a plug-in. At $50, pick out one and install it – any one of them could be a favorite synth. (There are even digital options like the M1 and Wavestation.) In an era of enormous bundles, it’s nice to have instruments you can really spend some time with.

Tattoo

Audio Damage
audiodamage.com
US$79

A darned-near perfect drum instrument, Tattoo has an elegant, clear interface, smart sync modes, X0X-style synthesis or MIDI out to any instrument you want, and integrated sequencing. It’s got deep routing options, but unlike a lot of all-in-one drum machines, it’s not overwhelming – making an ideal gift. And, of course, it runs in any host.

pure:dyne

http://puredyne.org/download.html
EUR23-26 (including shipping, worldwide), or use your own key
Recommended by Kim Cascone

Loaded with free and open source tools, this is about as much software as you can pack into this price or amount of memory. It’s “a USB stick you can boot from that contains all the software anyone would need to make electronic music,” says Kim. If you’re curious about experimenting with free tools, from Processing to Pd to Ardour, this is an easy way to do it without any hassle, on any machine, even if you’re a Linux newcomer. You can get it preloaded onto a USB key, or go out and get some funky USB stick (Mimobot, anyone?) and load it yourself.

Electronics and Gear

monotron

Korg
US$59
korg.com/monotron
Recommended by Andy Foltz

“It’s like a toy, and it’s like a synth. With cool filters,” says Andy. The monotron is an elegant, tiny synth with ribbon input and simplified controls. But it’s not dull: the classic analog Korg filter and spectacular sound make it a pocketable instrument. There’s a modder community out there, but in a way, the fact that it’s so minimal is the appeal. It might even inspire a whole EP.

Nebulophone

Bleep Labs
bleeplabs.com/nebulophone
$55 ($80 built)

The Nebulophone is a great beginner kit / stocking stuffer, a bit like having an Arduino-powered DIY stylophone (complete with stylus control). Nice features like a light-controlled filter, arpeggiator, and multiple waveforms make it good fun to play. There’s also easy-to-read, modifiable Arduino code for those who want it. You can even sync this by infrared. If you don’t mind the lack of a case, that might help the Nebulophone trump the (also excellent) Korg Monotron. And it’s weirder – in a good way.

MeeBlip: The hackable digital synth – SOUND DEMO by cdm

MeeBlip

Reflex Audio and Create Digital Music
meeblip.noisepages.com
$129

I have to put the MeeBlip here, because it’s a project I believe in and have worked on: it’s an open source synth you can modify, hack, and play. We’ll be doing a lot more with this in January and throughout 2011. The quick-build version doesn’t require any soldering or knowledge of code; just plug it in and play. Unfortunately, while the kits should still ship in time if you order now, the quick build we can’t ship before Christmas 2010 (unless you live in Canada, in which case you might well get it in time); estimating shipping by December 17 based on current backorders. (MeeBlip is made in Canada.) Current backorders will ship first, if you’ve already ordered one. But if you’re willing to give yourself a New Years’ Gift / Orthodox Christmas Gift / celebrate my birthday in January, you’re good.

DA5 Amplifier

VOX
voxamps.com/da5/
US$139 street

It’s tiny, easy to lift, and powered by batteries. But the DA5 is also loud and sounds much better than a $140 amp should. It’s the perfect answer to all those times when you wish you had an amp and didn’t. Heck, laptop users could even get two and go stereo. It even comes with some surprisingly-usable effects and plenty of I/O. For would-be buskers or mobile musicians, couple this with an instrument with battery power (yes, even your laptop), and you can make noise anywhere.

Tascam DR, Zoom H Series Mobiles

tascam.com
samsontech.com (Zoom)
Street US$100 and up

All under $200, both Tascam and Zoom have exceptional mobile recorders that have plenty to recommend them. Starting at US$100, you can get a Tascam DR-03 with pitch control and looping to help you transcribe and practice, or a Zoom H1 with broadcast WAV compatibility. Spend a few dollars more for extra features and improved quality. Quick buying advice: for $100, grab the Tascam if you care more about pitch control, the Zoom if you need a tripod stand. For $200, you add a bit more bulk to offerings from each company; choose the Zoom if you want something that doubles as a USB mic. There’s a tie here because they’re all great options and great gifts.

By the way, I like the idea of recording with an iPhone or iPod touch, but there are some serious counts against those options. Mic accessories aren’t guaranteed to be compatible one generation to another, you have your battery to worry about (since it may also be your phone), quality options are more limited, and the price of a mic attachment often rivals the cost of a mobile recorder. And the mobile recorder has removable memory.

Ucreate Music

Mattel (really)
myucreate.com
Street US$20
Suggested by Nate

Would you believe you might want a $20 toy in your studio? Nate explains: “The Ucreate Music is a little effect box/sampler designed for kids in mind, but it has some really killer features and effects that are useful in all genres of music. It has a built-in mic for recording some samples (albeit the sample length is not very long, and only at 8 bit quality), it allows for connection of an external mic or any other sound gear (via a 1/4 inch stereo jack). It has 8 different effects that are controllable by a cool, lit up ball shaped XY controller. These effects are killer, and the real time manipulation it gives you is awesome. It has lowpass filters, delay, flanger, phaser a pitch looper and my favorite a looper with loop time, repeat and forwards or reverse controlled by the xy thingy! You can glitch, stutter and get all your favorite BT-style effects with this little box. It is really affordable (I bought 2 for separate stereo processing) and easily hackable, great for any CDM reader.”

Pedals

Pedals get a special category, because whatever instrument you play, they can be a terrific deal and a perfect gift (when most useful hardware sets you back far more than $200). You can use them as effects with your computer, netbook, iPad, synth, guitar, bass, electric violin – anything. There are loads of fantastic options here, but here are a couple of favorites.

BOSS Pedals

BOSS
bossus.com
Varies; various with street of $200 or less

Even with ridiculously-powerful computer software and phones that can do DSP, sometimes you need to be able to stomp on your tools. (And you probably don’t want to stomp on your iPhone.) Enter BOSS with a number of invaluable tools. The $100 street ST-2 Metal Stack models a Marshall Amp stack. The TU-3 keeps you in tune. And for $150 street, the PS-6 Harmonist adds 3-part harmony and Super Bend. But I might shop around for a deal on the RE-20 Space Echo, which has had street prices as little as US$200 lately. I’ve seen them coupled to laptops, Game Boys, and guitars alike. It’s not quite the same as having a real Space Echo, to be sure, but it does give you the basic utility and design in a compact box that’s absurdly affordable.

Electro-Harmonix Pedals

Electro-Harmonix
ehx.com
Varies; many under $200 (or $100)

Electro-Harmonix makes loads of great-sounding pedals that are a staple of soundmakers the world around. Invariably, when I ask someone about their signal chain, one of these boxes is included, almost by default. This also grants a wish from more than one American-based reader who asked for US-made electronics. Yes, they exist; Electro-Harmonix even makes their stuff inside the five boroughs of New York City. (Wherever you live in the world, supporting local goods is important. That’s not anti-trade or protectionist – even if you’re a free trader, you have to agree, the global marketplace only works when we all make stuff.)

Keyboards and Controllers

Novation Launchpad

Novation
novationmusic.com
$149 street
Suggested by Cândido Almeida

I can’t ignore this hardware, not after reader Cândido Almeida puts it this way: “Well, it’s everything you need in one small square with a lot of botons, especially if you use Ableton.
I have wet dreams with it…” And yes, there’s some especially nice stuff you can do with the Launchpad and Renoise, one of our software picks. (Credit due to the monome that inspired this grid craze – having set the budget for this piece, here’s hoping you were lucky with recent runs of kits and grayscale 128s. And hey, I’ve seen Launchpads and monomes coexist at monome community meetups.)

Midi-Fighter

DJ Tech Tools
techtools.myshopify.com
US$125

Who says music can’t be button mashing? The 4×4 Midi-Fighter matrix is a perfect first DIY controller project – it’s easy to assemble, easy to customize, and gives you satisfying-feeling arcade buttons. There are great pre-mappings if you DJ with tools like Traktor, or you could easily adapt them to Ableton, Renoise, Maschine, and other tools.

Akai LPK-25

Akai Pro
akaipro.com/lpk25
$70 street

Ultra-compact keyboards on the go or in tight spaces are fantastic, and the LPK-25 from Akai might just have the edge. Derek Morton writes: “I know I am bit of an eccentric gear-oholic. I tend to favor instruments or software that is a bit different, innovative or just helpful in some way. This little cheap USB midi keyboard controller is not the perfect controller by any means. It lacks pitch and mod wheels and the keys are quite tiny which makes it difficult to perform anything complex. THE BIG HOWEVER is… this little guy has a super fun built-in arpeggiator and latch. Bring up a drum machine instrument or samples and the fun begins here! I don’t know any MIDI Key controllers that have this feature. You can spend upwards of a half of a grand on ultra-programmable controllers that have knobs, dials, faders and LCD readouts without a basic arpeggiator.”

Alternatively, consider the Korg nanoSERIES microKEY — as reader Greg puts it, “So I can do some sequencing at Starbucks.” Just try not to spill your Gingerbread Spice Latte on it, okay?

Now, it doesn’t have a MIDI DIN port, which brings us to…

Rock Band 3 Wireless Keyboard

Harmonix / Mad Catz
rockband.com/games/rb3
US$130 street with Rock Band 3 game, $80 for just the keyboard

A keytar for a game may not seem a serious music tool, but make no mistake about it. The Rock Band 3 keyboard works with hardware using standard MIDI DIN output, has a great-feeling keybed for the price, and finally gives you a “keytar” that’s light, ultra-compact, portable, and battery-powered. As a mini keytar, it’s unparalleled. (No word yet on using its wireless Bluetooth features, as works with the Xbox.) Bonus: get the game for fun, and discover something you can actually practice with. That means a serious tool that a musician might game with casually, or a serious game accessory that might convince your friend/family member to explore music production.

Acoustic

Whirly Tube sound hose

stevespanglerscience.com
US$6.95
Suggested by Dan D.

“Gosh, I would love to sample these and make nice, airy pad with it,” says Dan. I’ve got a similar noisemaker (though not under this name); it’s good fun. Can’t beat the $7 price, either.

GL1 Guitalele

Yamaha
uk.yamaha.com
Street EUR60-70
Recommended by Ronban

What happens when you combine a guitar and a ukulele? Maybe just the perfect hybrid instrument – take that, keytar. It’s compact, inexpensive, and shares some of the best sonic characteristics of each. It’s the “ultimate travel and fun guitar,” says Ronban.

Fellow North Americans, I’m not actually clear on whether you can buy the GL1 or not; I can only find UK and Europe availability (no idea for Asia/Pacific/South America, either). I think there are some similar models, though; if you know more than I do, which is very possible, shout out in comments.

Wearables, Accessories, and Design

Ghostly Store

theghostlystore.com

If you could have a gift certificate from anywhere, this might be the place. Gorgeous, music-inspired art. LPs. Digital music. Cool stuff for your desk. It’s probably the worst place to recommend to go shopping for someone else, as you may wind up just gifting a lot of stuff to yourself. Ghostly International was one of the best labels of 2010, but they also are happy to remake your lifestyle and make your walls more artistic and give you inspirational notebooks. It’s so cool, it’s kind of disgusting.

ISO50 Shop

merchline.com/iso50/

Known both as a designer and by musical alterego Tycho, Scott Hansen is a Renaissance man of tasteful sounds and eye candy. His ISO50 shop matches that aesthetic, with beautiful prints and, yes, fashionable MIDI shirts. If you’re a design nerd and music geek, it’s heaven.

Wearables and Swag from KORG, Moog, Ableton, etc.

ableton.com/shop
korg.com/vintagetees
moogmusic.com/moogwear/

Can’t afford to get someone the real deal? Get them a t-shirt instead. (I can wear a Mono/Poly shirt on days when I’m not wearing my Harvard Law School t-shirt or Leer Jet jacket.) Korg has a delightfully-designed set of vintage-inspired t-shirts. Ableton apparel is almost single-handedly responsible for keeping many laptop musicians from freezing, buck naked, and now there’s a clever dance steps t-shirt. (Wear it at your next set to see if someone takes the hint.) Moog Music always has lovely accessories, but this year is special – pick up 40th anniversary pins and apparel to celebrate the Minimoog.

Tracks Headphones

AIAIAI
aiaiai.dk
DKK375, or about EUR50
Available at Dijitalfix, US$65

Copenhagen-based design firm and “lifestyle audio” house AIAIAI makes the TMA-1 headphones. The TMAs are brilliant DJ headphones with minimal design and thoughtful features that lie right at the US$200 cusp. But I’m actually going to recommend the Tracks headphones instead for the gift guide, because they’re easy to give to everyone you know. They’re lightweight but rugged enough to carry with you, and share the minimal design essence of the TMAs. They also sound incredible given their cost and size. A built-in mic also means you can comfortably give them to someone who’s listening on an iPhone, and tell them to please, please throw out those awful earbuds. (The mic also means you can listen to reactive environments in RjDj.) The over-the-ear design also fits when earbuds don’t, perfect for hitting the ellipse machine at the gym without your buds falling out all the time. And boys and girls all like the custom colors. At $70, they’re also a lot easier as an impulse buy. I now alternate between these, the TMAs, and for studio monitoring, studio cans.

What Did Santa Miss?

Got more ideas – particularly those in our modest budget? Let us know in comments.

What if blowing tunes on beer bottles was raised to the level of musical science?

Through even the mundane medium of packaging, design can transform the everyday. DJ and designer Matt Braun of Philadelphia, collaborating with Chris Mufalli, use labels to tune the level of beer remaining in the bottle for musical results. Pitches are printed on the labels, allowing you to exactly match the liquid inside to a pitch you want, and join along with your fellow imbibers for a performance.

It’s not just a label that’s different. Ridges on the sides of the bottles make them double as Guiro-style percussion. The neck was adjusted for ergonomics. Even the wooden box becomes a tongue drum.

It’s all decidedly non-digital, group fun – Create Beer Music? (Actually, technically, they’re printing with digital tech, the quantization of liquid to discrete equal-tempered pitches is a digital process by definition, and you hold it with your fingers. So there.)

So far, this has been used in a microbrew, but the duo are looking for a partner. I’d love to have this at our next Handmade Music, if any of you are in the bottling business.

Tuned Pale Ale [2d3d5d.com - project site]
Found via the wonderful, whimsical design blog etre, maintained by a usability and design consultancy
Thanks to Johan Strandell / 40hz for the tip.

The Tuned Pale Ale are just one of a number of unique designs from Matt Braun, all emphasizing making the ephemeral world of sound more physical.

Matt’s site is a smörgåsbord of design concepts, many involving creative uses of lasercutters and 3D forms. There are “tuned gig buckets” for busking similar to the beer bottles, useful tools for DJs using 45s, and wooden drums made from digital images of the sounds of other drums, producing “generations” of instruments in which the sound of one gives form to the shape of another.

Two of my favorites are pictured here. Custom-made shirts use user-modifiable CAD illustrations to produce wearable art made from analysis of any sound file – below, Michael Jackson’s P.Y.T. becomes a pink tee. Another project in early development explores making skeletal three-dimensional forms from the structure of musical harmonies.

I look forward to seeing how these projects evolve; Matt’s looking for collaborators.

http://2d3d5d.com/

Shoes are the new turnables.

Or at least that’s the conclusion you might reach after watching a new Japanese campaign for Nike’s Free Run+ running shoes. Apparently wishing to tout the bendable qualities of its new footwear, Nike enlisted sound artists to transform its product into a musical instrument. The shoes get plugged in, switched on, and mixed up, battle-style, as they sense when the shoe is flexed or moved in space. And yes, everything you see in the video is real: the shoes really are controlling digital sound live. We even have the Max patch to prove it.

Lovers of experimental sound art will immediately recognize one of the Shoe-Js: it’s Daito Manabe, a bleeding-edge sound artist and alternative interface guru with a background in turntablism. I spoke to Daito, and convinced him to share the software that makes the project tick. Daito says he used flex sensors (see examples) and accelerometers to make the shoes interactive. He then processed the control signal and converted it to sound using the modular visual programming environment Max/MSP and Ableton’s Max for Live. (For another example and other resources, you can check out the article I wrote for Make Magazine issue 8, in which I stuffed flex sensors into a sock monkey and connected it via MIDI.)

What’s striking to me about the Max patch is its elegance. For all the power of these interactive environments, sometimes they’re at the best when you do something really simple. In this case, that frees up someone like Daito to focus on the performance aspect.

Here’s what Daito had to say about the project. It doesn’t hurt that the whole team does such nice work:

The agency is W+K Tokyo.
Hardware programming is by Tomoaki Yanagisawa (4nchor5 La6)
and software and sound programming is by me.

My patch is not interesting at all..
Ed.: I respectfully disagree; see above comment – sometimes performing a simple task is the strength of a tool like Max. -PK

I used max for serial communication between the shoes(arduino) and a macbookpro,
and max for live sound.
The serial part crashed many times,
so I separated serial part and sound part.
I use OSC and midi for communication between max and maxforlive.

For making and triggering sound,
I used simple msp patches and Ableton’s sampler
and I used some effects in Ableton live.
The effects are also controlled by the shoes.

The sound settings are a bit strange.
We didn’t need to use a loop machine
because we used Ableton live, but
everything was decided at the last minute,
so we used the loop machine for sampling and looping (i think it was roland machine)

I hope people think it is not fake

I actually like the impromptu feel. That’s usually the sort of thing the advertisers want. (Oh, look! An abandoned tunnel! Open the vodka! Text your friends! Let’s have a disco! Wow, everyone we know is a model!) Of course, in this case, some of the sense of “let’s set up some shoes and make digital music” is just as improvised as it looks. And this clip is making the rounds, because my Dad sent it to me!

Somewhere, Charlie Chaplin smiles.

See also (for coverage of this and many other wonderful things):
CreativeApplications.net

Be sure to check out Daito’s other work; he’s done some really beautiful sound art and interactive pieces, and his site is full of inspiring ideas:
http://www.daito.ws/#5

He’s also known for body hacks, like making music with parts of his face.

The Body, The Circuit, The Computer and The Voice: robot cowboy from STEIM Amsterdam on Vimeo.

If you want to look for some of the roots of live electronic musical performance, STEIM is one place to start. Founded in 1969 by a group of Dutch composers (Misha Mengelberg, Louis Andriessen, Peter Schat, Dick Raaymakers, Jan van Vlijmen, Reinbert de Leeuw, and Konrad Boehmer), and led by the late “founding father” Michel Waisvisz, it has remained an important hub for inventing music technologies. It was one of the first places that gave an indication that these kind of experiments could extend beyond academic labs into grassroots DIY movements and DJ/VJ club culture alike.

Amsterdam has been looking to do a Handmade Music series for a while, and this Wednesday we kick it off. There’s a huge lineup, so I’m packing two video cameras and one audio recorder into my luggage today before flying out.

You can check out the whole lineup on the STEIM blog, for a sense of what the Dutch DIY community is up to:
Feb 17 2010: Hotpot Lab #2 – Handmade Music Amsterdam

The event is Wednesday night; doors open at 20:00 and it’s free. See the STEIM concerts page.

I’ll also be doing an informal “State of the Union” address on the state of DIY tech, where things might go, and where people may get involved – and most importantly, what we can do to make these developments musically productive. One of the things that came out of comments last week is that we need better documentation. If people want to get involved in a broader community, outside even our traditional music community, DIY platforms for software and hardware must first be better documented, more usable, and more accessible.

Anyway, I’m thrilled to have a chance to bridge New Amsterdam (NYC) with Old Amsterdam, and start that conversation by listening and learning from a great group of people. Stay tuned.

We’ll have some guest posts through the week while I’m traveling, as well, and I’ll be back on home soil next week.

And nicely enough, there’s a strong emphasis on cheap and DIY projects, meaning these can be ideal even in tough economic times.

SX-150 button mod from Collin Cunningham on Vimeo.

MAKE: Blog > Music Makers’s Gift Guide

Assembled by our friend (and Handmade Music regular) Collin Cunningham, these are the geekiest DIY treasures you can find. I got hands-on with a couple of these recently. The plastic Theremin kit is fun, although you won’t get fantastic results out of it. My favorites: the awesome SX-150 synth kit (above), previously seen only in Japan, and the Thingamakit (which also got mentioned in our holiday guide). They’re both affordable and make some lovely sounds the moment you start using them, with hacks possible later.

For fans of the Arduino electronics/microcontroller platform, see Collin’s separate guide.

The monome didn’t make the guide this year, though it topped our list, but given that you have to basically preorder the moment a run is announced, that’s not exactly a slight.

wire to the ear > Five inexpensive Chistmas gifts for musicians

This small but neat selection is just perfect, I think, from the Moog schematic on a t-shirt (above) to flash memory earrings to Live sound packs from Puremagnetik.

Digital LoFi > The 2nd Annual Digital LoFi Holiday Gift Guide for the Disenfranchised

Digital LoFi has some fantastic selections: buy one, get-one-free offerings from Soniccouture (makers of fantastic Kontakt scripts, by the way), a pay-what-you-will EQ, and wonderful donationware plug-ins. The site also calls out CDM’s own Winter Guide print-on-demand – thanks!

Pt. I
Pt. II
Pt. III
Pt. IV

Honorable mention: The wacky scientists in residence at New York’s Eyebeam research center have introduced Hack Me Elmo. (Thanks, Chris Hahn!) That’s right: it’s a blockbuster holiday toy from years past, hacked into something very odd. Check out our own Mike Una’s how-to on circuit bending if you want to transform a toy into something musical and wonderful, also in our Winter ‘08 guide.

And yes, the rest is here:

It’s not animal-friendly, constructed of black leather and snakeskin, but it is fashion-forward. It’s Rucyl Mills’ over-the-shoulder, wearable MIDI controller, complete with pads, knobs and faders (looking mysteriously like they were liberated from an M-Audio Trigger Finger). Rucyl describes her creation:

I built the elektro-07 so I could control the sonic and visual parameters of my live performances without having to look deep into the eye of my laptop, hunched over in computer music stance. I’m still learning how to play it.. Software wise, it runs a maxMSP/Jitter patch smoothly, connected to my laptop by a long usb cable. Major thanks to Luke DuBois.

I have to agree: I’ve seen people with great stage presence hunched over laptops, but hunching is … well, uncomfortable. Note, by contrast, her relaxed pose.

Rucyl is a NY-based electronic musician and artist, with an impressive portfolio of interactive works.

Rucyl Mills site

As for the “Sexy Computer Nerd” reference, that’s a reference to Rucyl’s love ballad to you PHP-coding, blinking-LED-heart heartthrobs out there:

Sexy Computer Nerd from elektrocardio on Vimeo.

Thanks to Eric Dunlap for sending this our way. Other examples of wearable interfaces, anyone — or other ways you’ve made your gear strap-on-able?

Just in case you think you might extract any respectability from this $299 novelty guitar, there’s more: interchangeable face masks. Multiple colors for matching your favorite team (you’ll have to provide the logos — guess they didn’t pony up for a license). A built-in speaker, just in case an amp looks too, you know, professional. And the pièce de résistance, football-shaped guitar picks.

Helmet Guitars

Any pride left? Well, how about filming a demo video playing this,(inexplicably) shirtless. Hint: do not tell, say, potential dates or job interviews “Last night, I took off my shirt and started totally wailing on my helmet guitar!” That could be interpreted in way too many ways, none of them not wrong.

Hey, at least Miesel Stringed Instruments doesn’t have any illusions. They promise the guitar “will have you rockin’ all the way from your rec room at home, college dorm, tailgate party, to the Super Bowl after party!”

Will you see anything this fun at CES? I don’t think so.

But if I sound in any way critical, it’s only because I think the Helmet Guitar can’t begin to compare with the same builder’s aquarium acoustic guitar (among others).

Tune in January 17-20 for live coverage from the NAMM show in Los Angeles, from the awesome to the awesomely strange. And stock up on donuts, because you may start craving them.