CDM contributor, mic flag fabricator, beat bicyclist, and sound artist extraordinaire Michael Una has been up to more sonic magic-making in Chicago. He showed two recent creations at MGFest 2008 — that’s MG as in “Motion Graphics”, not, sadly, the car, though I think sound art would also go deliciously with MG automobiles.

On display in Chi-town: giant pods to fill rooms with sound, and a man in a sound-induced, hypnotic blizzard of milk. (Yes, they have winter in northern Illinois.)

Snowy Day at MGFest 2008 from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Octophonopod at MGFest 2008 from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Behind-the-scenes commentary is available on Mike’s site, not to be confused with the domain-squatting personals site that you get if you leave out the hyphen. (Will, someday, an entire romantic community be devoted to Una Love? I wouldn’t rule it out.)

One lesson learned: milk can be incompatible with electronics.

Squarely in the “not seen at NAMM” category, the Bubblegum Sequencer uses differently-colored bubble gum balls, arranged in a grid of holes, to create rhythmic patterns. It’s not exactly a leap forward for music — you wind up with a pretty simple drum step sequencer — but it does look like fun. Or it would be, except I’d wind up eating the tangible sequencer. Note to self: make interfaces out of something I won’t devour.

What’s rather interesting here is that the whole system uses computer vision analysis — a camera spots the gum balls by color. One thing that means is that you could skip the grid altogether and apply this to something very different.

The hyper-rational voiceover I find really amusing. Now, just add hard-disk recording next year, and the Bumblegum 5000 could  in fact be at NAMM.

Thanks, Johan!

Updated! Holy crap! Analog Industries has started a blog war:

Peter Kirn got all up in our grill with a bubblegum sequencer over on CDM. Well, Peter. I’ll see your bubblegum sequencer, and raise you one done with Skittles.

“I Eat Beats” Skittle Sequencer

I Eat Beats from Kyle McDonald on Vimeo.

But, come on, Chris. I enjoy my Skittles now and then, but bubble gum is more delicious, and you can’t blow a bubble with a Skittle.

I have heard that Moog Music is introducing a Candy Sequencer OS (Old School), using salt water taffy. And looking at comments, the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression this year may just turn into a massive rumble / turf war of tangible interfaces. Which is why my tangible interface will be Pop Rocks.

Updated, again! Still more. This time, Evan from thisisnotalabel sees our bubblegum sequencer and raises us a ball bearing sequencer. Careful, though, kids. Those are not edible. Choking hazard!

Still more: it’s a dining table as musical interface, in a sonically-augmented culinary artwork:

The Monome’s clean-slate grid of light-up buttons has proven a huge hit, not only among musicians but multimedia artists in general. It’s been such an Internet sensation that many people assume some significant company is behind it. In reality, part of the clarity of the design comes from the homemade approach to design and construction, and the personality of its two primary co-creators — Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain. Our friends at Etsy.com — specifically, resident videographer saguirl — got a chance to shoot some video in their loft.

“People have used it as a drum machine, sequencer, as an egg timer…” said Crabtree. The open-source software can be used and altered by anyone.

Crabtree and Cain assemble most of the Monomes at their loft, a daunting process that involves countless hours of wiring and soldering. A new Monome, the 256, was about to be released to the public when we visited. Crabtree assembled one for us on the spot.

Watch closely for some videos of Brian’s performance from the CDM Handmade Music event, co-hosted with Etsy.com and Make Magazine. I have some videos I’m going through from those events, too; not fantastic but I’ll post soon.

This Handmade Life: A Moment with the Monome [Etsy's The Storque online mag]
Monome-tagged stories on CDM

By the way, if you’re curious about 256 assembly, there are some interesting updates over on monome.org.

MAKE:Magazine and Create Digital Music will co-host the Chips + Fish + Music Maker Faire Party next Saturday in San Francisco. But before we get to that, I have to share the latest design from CDM’s visual artist Nat Jeanneret (the reason CDM looks the way it does, and the blogger behind onetonnemusic):

If you are in the Bay Area, or coming into town for the awesomeness that is the Maker Faire, we would love to invite you to the party.

What: Chips + Fish + Music Party, the Maker Faire “after party”
Brought to you by: MAKE:Magazine and CDM
Who: Anyone making their own music with chips (little chips, big chips, Intel Core Duo chips), or anyone who loves to eat chips and/or fish. Makers from the Faire, locals, visitors all welcome.
When: Saturday, May 19. 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm: featured music sets. 9:30 pm - whenever: hang, DIY musical show-and-tell, eat fish and/or chips.
Where: Edinburgh Castle Pub, 950 Geary St. San Francisco, CA. 415-885-4074. (5pm - 2 am; map.)
Why: Because we love DIY music, whether it’s customized hardware, self-made software, or just lovingly-programmed commercial gear and apps.

And there’s more: I’m looking for a couple of additional featured sets, lots more partygoers, and also have a music lineup to share Friday night at Robotspeak (more performances than party there):

Yes, just in time for the summer grilling season. Hercules — known in the 80s for their video cards and more recently as makers of a rather flimsy DJ controller — have introduced a toy-like wireless DJ controller. As a serious “controller,” it’s not much good; it’s only slightly evolved from remote control. As a toy, though, it’s quite cute and I imagine someone would have some fun with it.

Plug a receiver into USB on your Windows PC, and the Hercules controller wireless manipulates included DJ software. Two LCD screens show which MP3/Windows Media WMA track is playing, and there are controls for two-channel mixing and jog wheels for very basic scratching. It’s just over a pound, even with batteries. Apparently for amusing friends, family, children, and pets, there are even sound effects (applause, loops). Hercules promises “House parties, BBQs and family functions will be even more fun than ever.”

Silly as this gadget may be, I’d love to see a serious music controller that’s simple, wireless, lightweight, and battery-powered. So who says you can’t learn something from Hercu–

Augh! My hands were slippery with barbeque sauce and I dropped my wireless DJ controller! It’s on fire! Mmmm … burning plastic.

Wireless DJ Mixing Controller (actual product name, apparently composed from Google keywords; European product site so it says “whilst”)
Via FutureMusic.com, who don’t like things that are white and respond in general, “Yeesh!!”

Not sure about North America, but in the UK it’s £59.00 Inc Vat.

Great sample libraries usually give you painstakingly-recorded collections of equipment and instruments to which you lack access. It’s a chance to get into someone else’s kitchen. Usually, that isn’t literal. In this case, it is. Welsh’s Synthesizer Cookbook has taken hundreds of samples of cookware from a US$5.95 price to free, providing kitchen sounds for those too lazy to sample your own cooking implements.

Actually, scratch that — even if I went and sampled everything in my kitchen, I couldn’t come close to being this exhaustive. Can you tell the difference between a 8.5” springform pan and a 9.5” springform pan? Recorded individually using bottoms, sides, rims with mallet and light stick? It’s in there. Microwavable saucepans and plastic containers are included, as well — 140 implements, from containers to pans to pots in all. If nothing else, it gives me the motivation to sample everything else in my house just to try to catch up.

Free Cookware Downloads, via the very-cool Rekkerd.com.

The trend of gelatinous music interfaces continues. Last week, it was Eric Singer’s Slime-o-Tron, as seen at the Etsy/MAKE/CDM evening. Now, via the increasingly-hopping CDM flickr pool, A*A*R*O*N sends us his Jell-O sound sculpture, looking a bit like an alien brain with wires coming out of it.

Jello Sound Sculpture [flickr]

There’s always room for sound sculpture! And it includes a special green eye.

This project was part of an assignment for USC’s Media Lab: “Surprise Menu: Eleven Courses in Seven Days” - Second Year Combined One-Week Interactive Design Project. Here’s the brief — brilliant:

Each student has been provided a serving platter and cover dome with which they have conceived of, designed and produced an interactive experience in which something happens upon removal of the cover.

Interactive experiences aside, I hope at least one of the projects was edible.

IMD Forum for 3/8/06: Second Year MFA Projects

I love the crazy projects, but if you’d rather take photos of your Moog or your latest laptop gig and upload those to the flickr pool, that’s okay, too. Actually, we can just make JELL-O or other delicious processed snacks the requirement. So, make sure there’s a pudding pop next to your MacBook, and we’ll take it.

It wouldn’t be a winter NAMM music trade show without the galleries of musical curiosities that are Barry Wood’s NAMM Oddities. Barry’s finds range from the unique and useful to the utterly baffling. Many of the techno geek toys aren’t strictly new, but they are strictly strange and unusual. And there’s plenty of evidence to suggest us digital musicians aren’t nearly as odd as the people who play guitars made to look like women’s anatomy or constructed from hunting trophies.

Barry writes to his fans:

This was the tenth year that I’ve put myself through the torture that is a NAMM Show in order to expose these specimens to the harsh light of day.

I hope you appreciate my sacrifice ;)

We do, Barry, we do. We’ll sacrifice some productivity in your honor:

NAMM Oddities 2007

Delicious.

Man cannot live by synthesizers alone. No, really; even I’m not that dedicated. I keep something to nosh on while I work; don’t you?

So, while this time last year I was celebrating the keytar (thanks for the reminder, matrixsynth), here we’ll go off-topic and say that good food and time with family and friends goes perfectly with good music and good technology. I’m sure you’ll agree even if you’re not the part of our readership here in America.

On that note, I’m pleased to be able to share Egg and Soldier, a project I’ve been working on with my partner Jennifer. The site is a bit like create digital food, but with Jennifer’s own take. This is the stuffing on Jennifer’s Thanksgiving table, and it should be just perfect for holing up for the winter. (We have a few readers here from Berlin who I’m sure will appreciate that, even as the half of Team CDM that’s in Australia hits summer!) The vision, writing, and much of the photography is all Jennifer’s; I’m just adding some design and photo contributions and doing lots of eating and drinking.

The Omnivore’s Stuffing
Egg and Soldier

Ah, you say, but there’s really not a CDM angle on this, is there? To that, I’ll have to turn to Google for the segue … let’s see, “stuffing” plus “synthesizer” equals Chris Randall on Analog Industries talking about stuffing a DIY synth, which in turn leads to an archive page full of goodies, like Variophone pictured below. (Thanks, Google! We truly live in an age of marvels.)

Stuffing? DIY synths? Variophones? Actual stuffing? Now that’s what I call delicious. And so say all of us. Happy start to the holiday season.

Announcement: new server. And lastly, an announcement: my Thanksgiving Day present to the website is to move it to a hosting service that can actually handle the growing traffic we get. (Thanks, readers! Seriously — it’s the one problem I love to have.) After some bumps through Thursday, we now appear to be running just fine. If you find otherwise, tell us on the feedback forum. And unlike our previous hosts, both of which suspended our account for overuse, Media Temple (mt) will actually grow with us instead of just cap site traffic. Welcome to the new server; more improvements are on the way.