We’ve followed open source hardware – and generally hardware that is more open to user customization and modification – on this site since the beginning. As I prepare for a talk on the MeeBlip at Berlin’s Create Art & Technology Conference, though, I think it’s time to do a proper survey of the hardware that’s out there.

The ability to modify music gear is something that’s important to a lot of people as musicians. It means the ability to learn how the technology we use works, and therefore to have a deeper musical and compositional understanding of it. And it can mean the ability to make music hardware more expressive of your sonic imagination and creative ideas. Finally, it adds an additional avenue through which you can share your understanding and use and modification of musical instruments with other people.

Explanation below, or just skip to the survey, or live event in Berlin.

A Spectrum of “Open” in Music Gear

Even proprietary hardware can become more “open” in the general sense. In the early days of synths, it was commonplace to include detailed specifications and even circuit diagrams. That arguably furthered the evolution of music gear, as knowledge was shared, and it certainly allowed more advanced users to better understand how that gear worked. We’ve seen a subtle return to those days, with examples like Korg’s Monotron and MonoTribe hardware, for which the company released schematics.

The viral, revolutionary spread of the monome design owes in part a community built around modification, access to critical schematics, and some open sourced software which the community took and modified. The monome, however, focuses on a fully open-source protocol and availability to schematics. Those schematics are not free for use in your own creations, which has sometimes caused friction as makers sell modified or homebrewed variants of the monome. On the other hand, many in the monome community value the handcrafted original hardware and don’t particularly want “clones” and the like, and have found the available information more than enough to fuel their musical needs.

Open Source Hardware goes further, by placing everything under a license that makes it free for use. This would include the software (either running on the device, on an attached computer, or both), the schematics of the design, and even visual elements of the design, as well as the documentation. Projects that give their users the most freedom to work with any modifications they make also allow for unfettered commercial use; that is, you don’t have to worry if you sell a few, or even many, if you run afoul of the project’s original creators. Without going into the debate for or against such an approach, if this kind of sharing is your goal, then it follows it will important for you to make that freedom explicit. This sort of explicit use is also what is described in the Open Source Hardware definition, which our MeeBlip project has adopted because we feel the project and definition fit one another.

Note that there’s a very real debate about whether the ideals of free software are applicable to open source hardware. There’s no debating it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison: copying hardware means physically manufacturing something. (I’m surprised to see, in German, the use of the term Freie Hardware, which has generally been avoided in English. See also the Open Source Hardware and Design Alliance, which goes beyond some of these specific – and possibly not-really-applicable – licenses.)

I’ll say this: I think adding in the issues of economics, materials, sustainability, local manufacture, labor, distribution, and international trade make this question more compelling for discussion. It’s messier than software, yes – but given that all software relies on hardware on which to run, dealing with these messy and often demanding questions means engaging more of the many dimensions in which technology interacts with economics.

Resources:
Open Source Hardware (OSHW) definition / principles
Business models for Open Hardware
Amusingly, the MeeBlip continues flying under the radar as an open source hardware project, but once we actually get our shipping picture in place over the next couple of weeks, maybe we can work on that.

Let’s See the Gear!

But first, we just need to find out what’s out there. And that’s where you come in. If you’ve got a project, or use a project, or just know about a project, let us know. If it’s your own project – especially if you feel we’ve ignored you in the past (trust me, you don’t want to see my inbox or brain) – now’s your chance to tell us about it.

Because it’s the narrowest and most sharply-defined category, I’m most interested in those projects that fit the Open Source Hardware definition – not for philosophical reasons so much as taxonomic ones. But other projects are welcome, too; I’d like to hear about them.

About that MeeBlip…

And we’ll have the first of a series of updates on the MeeBlip project later this week. (The new SE and micro projects, and updated firmware, as well as vastly-expanded documentation, are all due soon, held up only by international shipping, weather, and illness challenges I’ll describe later.)

In the meantime, fire away.

Or Talk in Person!

If you’re in Berlin, this weekend join some terrific discussions on creativity, technology, and DIY, including my talk on the MeeBlip, lots of talks on hardware design and prototyping (including for beginners), and projects like the fantastic libmonome. And if you see me, say hi! (My talk is Sunday morning.)

http://createartandtechnology.de/

Survey

Direct link to Google Docs survey (login not required)

Light-up grids of buttons are nearly commonplace, but the BlipBox is something different: its array of lights is also a sensor, making it both X/Y controller and light-up grid. And it’s designed to be completely open — firmware, hardware, schematics and documentation are all fully GPL-licensed and open source.

For those of us who aren’t ninja coders, it’s also easy to customize, thanks to friendly software (pictured below) .k for making nifty interactive animations on its display and support for the artist-friendly Processing code environment. As the creators describe it, it’s three (three!) pieces of hardware in one:

• a creative tool and musical instrument
• a large, high definition x/y controller with visual feedback
• a uniquely versatile MIDI and OSC controller

Lest you assume such oddities as this come only from non-musician hackers, these are designed by musicians. The project, built right in London, is available in fits and starts and stock becomes available, but a recent run was “Prices are GBP 140 for a complete ‘box with USB and MIDI interface, and 9v external power connection, in a black aluminium case with perspex side panels.” (To the team: apologies for giving you splashy publicity right as you have precisely none in stock. Readers, follow @cdmblogs on Twitter for updates. Or just follow their site:

BlipBox News

Side note: yes, we need to stop putting “blip” in the name of things. Guilty as charged. (I’ll be writing soon about the Blippo Box, which is … completely different.)

It had to happen — button triggering, as popularized by the monome, here meets a conventional two-channel DJ mixer. But the layout I must say is quite spare and lovely, the work of the Japanese-based PICnome project. Furthermore, it’s Open Source Hardware, covered as I have recommended by a ShareAlike Creative Commons license (with no commercial restrictions) and GPL v3. (The creator prefers the term “Free Hardware,” which I love theoretically but have avoided for fear of people demanding we mail them MeeBlips by sending us a self-addressed, stamped box.)

With clean, subtle markings and a nicely-composed layout, it’s hardware that doesn’t scream out its design with big decals or overblown features. It’s just a (colored) grid controller, similar to the monome, combined with controller setup laid out as a two-channel mixer, with the sorts of features you’d expect of each. I love the angled labels, at least aesthetically. (I should note that this is not related to the monome project; the monome is not open source hardware, though it works via open software and commercially-restricted availability to some schematics. It is, of course, deserving of credit for inspiring a whole generation of hardware.)

The controller works with both OSC (OpenSoundControl) and MIDI for maximum flexibility. And, incidentally, this could be an ideal live visual controller, too, especially with that native OSC support.

Good grief; I realize I filled this post with nothing but technical jargon. Hopefully, those of you who speak in such tongue-twisted terms have followed along, and everyone else just looked at the pretty pictures and video.

Carry on.

PICratchBOX – Sneak Preview [atelier.tkrworks]

http://made-in-yamamoto.com/

Japan, hope to come visit you some day soon. Thanks, Regend, for the tip!

Update: Read in comments about some lingering frustration that the original PICnome project was derived from the monome; since the monome doesn’t permit the sale of derivative designs, that could be viewed as an abuse of the available specifications for the monome. In this case, based on what I see, however, I’m hard pressed to see this product as being subject to the same criticism by virtue of having buttons, unless there’s some detail I’m missing. If I am missing something, please let me know.

By the way, if you want to revisit the PICnome project and decide for yourself, that thread is still on the monome community. It’s not accurate to say as some commenters do that the PICnome was a “bootleg” or simple clone of the monome, as it was re-implemented on a PIC chip. The issue is that the product was then made available for sale, because it was built on monome schematics; while those are readily available, they are not licensed for this kind of use. The firmware is free for use; it’s covered under a GPL license, which is non-revocable. However, to my knowledge, those same concerns may not necessarily apply to this project.

To recap: the PICnome project indeed is technically incompatible with the intentions and licensing of the monome project, but the new PICratchBox should be fine. So, here’s to the PICratchBox, which is more interesting precisely because it’s something new.

It is my view that the original PICnome project violated the terms of the licensing of the schematics; whether because of a misunderstanding or not, that’s not something to condone. But the new project does not do so, in my view. I contacted monome’s Brian Crabtree and while we didn’t have an on-the-record conversation, he took no issue with that statement.

Open source software has proven itself in technological, economic, and cultural terms – it’s simply a matter of reality. This site runs atop free software nginx, WordPress, MySQL, and (Red Hat Enterprise) Linux; in music, we have Csound, SuperCollider, Pd, Ardour, JACK, Processing, and so on. Csound has even appeared on karaoke machines. These tools run alongside and interoperate with commercial, closed-source solutions. They’re a part of our technological ecosystem, both in general-purpose computing and in music and visuals.

But what about hardware? Facing scarcity and fabrication, hardware combines all of the challenges of software with new problems. And unlike software, open source hardware lacks clear licenses and definitions.

There’s clearly a role open source hardware could play in music. There are already components, like USB chipsets, that are available in open source form that can benefit music projects. And while true open source hardware has been rare or available only in limited runs, there have been hardware projects with open source components. Most notably, the fully open source software that powers the monome has been instrumental in facilitating the passionate community around that device. Here’s what the monome project proclaims on its official site:

we believe that open source is commercially viable and mutually beneficial for our collective and the consumer. in opening our software we eliminate wasteful, redundant coding for ourselves by incorporating proven libraries and frameworks. we in turn provide these same benefits to others who wish to incorporate our development efforts into their projects. we believe distributed development leads to more stable software and more creative application design. we believe open applications provide more flexibility for users to adapt tools to their specific needs, encourage creative use of software and hardware, and produce a greater diversity output from users.

But even given the monome manifesto above, music gear embracing open source hardware has been relatively scarce – even more so if you apply the definition adopted by many advocates. (The monome, for its part, would not meet a number of the criteria of open source hardware drafted for the summit.)

This Thursday in New York, on the eve of Maker Faire, the Open Hardware Summit promises to break new ground. It features a packed schedule of thinkers from NASA to Texas Instruments to the Arduino project, and the introduction of a first working definition of open source hardware.

I spoke to project co-chairs Alicia Gibb and Ayah Bdeir about the origins and goals of the event, and some of the unique challenges of doing open source hardware.

At the same time, I couldn’t help but notice the absence of music and audio figures on the program. That to me suggests that this discussion is not less relevant, but more so – if there is a disconnect between musical creators working with these ideas and the rest of the community, it’s worth exploring why that is, given that musical expression is such a fundamental part of our culture. More on that at the end, as we don’t yet have a good catalog of active, available projects for open source music.

CDM: Can you tell us how this project, and the Summit, came about?

Alicia: About 7 months ago, in January Peter [Semmelhack, of BUG Labs] said to me, “Hey, I’ve been getting a lot of people from hardware companies calling me and asking for advice. We have learned a lot of lessons in producing hardware and others shouldn’t have to make those same mistakes. Is there a way we could get all kinds of people who work with open source hardware together and all share information, a conference or summit – like an Open Hardware Summit or something.” And I replied to him – “Peter, this is going to be epic, consider it done.” I began working and thinking of key players to involve on this Open Hardware Summit.

Separately, in March, Ayah brought many excellent minds together at the Opening Hardware Workshop sponsored by Eyebeam and CC, it was such an impressive collection, to begin forming a definition of what open source hardware entails. (In the first video on the Eyebeam project site, Ayah explains a bit about how that event was brought together.) The definition that you have come across is the definition that was spurred from that workshop. It was there that I began talking to a couple people about the conference and Chris Anderson [Wired] said “Have you thought about doing it around … Maker Faire?”

Sherry Huss, Dale Dougherty and Becky Stern [all of Make] all sat down to chat with me and loved the idea of having it the day before Maker Faire, they invited me along to scope out the space and treated me as family. They got NYSCI on board as our venue sponsor for the New York Hall of Science. They were absolutely instrumental in getting the Summit off the ground. Ayah mentioned that with her new fellowship at Creative Commons, one of the things they wanted to do was a conference around Open Hardware. Becky told her she should come talk to me – and really, the rest is history

I do have to say it is such an honor to plan this with Ayah, I read her work as a grad student and as Peter texted me after our first meeting with all the key players in the Summit, “I think the fact that the first Open Hardware Summit is being chaired by women is a terrific signal”. I feel very fortunate to have a job that allows me to make my dreams happen, and CEO who truly has his heart in the right place when it comes to open source. Peter’s ability to be a successful business man while not forgetting the importance of sharing, giving back, and maintaining transparency in open source projects has been inspirational to me.

Ayah and I are the co-chairs of the Summit. However as we plan more and more we hope to bring on other volunteers for help. The other key players that we consider catalysts to this event are: Bug Labs, Creative Commons, littleBits, MAKE, Maker Faire, NYSCI, and Eyebeam.

littleBits intro from ayah bdeir on Vimeo.

Ayah, can you talk a little about your background in this, particularly since Opening Hardware was a project you created at Eyebeam?

Ayah: From my end, i have been working on Open hardware for my own project littleBits (www.littleBits.cc) with advisor John Wilbanks of Creative Commons for a while. Our talks were so interesting that we decided to host a small workshop in March where we would invited interested hardware makers and have a discussion between the open hardware community and creative commons to better understand the issues and licensing options. In the workshop we saw that a license would not be the way to go but rather a community-approved set of norms or definition might work best. Ed.: As noted in comments, littleBits is not yet available for purchase, but “design files, schematics and instructions will be online when we are done manufacturing.” -PK

Who is actively involved in that community effort?

Ayah: The Opening Hardware workshop was organized by me, with eyebeam, ted ullrich and celine assaf, and sponsored by CC. we then set up a mailing list and hosted discussions on the definition, where a bunch of us were actively involved in the drafting (dave mellis prodding people to hash out the version 0.1 draft and Windell did most of the writing for the current (0.3) draft (adopting from the DFSG and the OSI OSS definition)). Although lots of people contributed both comments and text including: Arduino, Adafruit, Buglabs, MakerBot, Chumby as well as Jonathan Kuniholm (Open Prosthetics), Chris Anderson (Wired), Mako Hill (OLPC, Wikipedia), Jon Philips (Qi), Shigeru Kobayashi (Gainer), Becky Stern (Make) and Thinh Nguyen and John Wilbanks (CC) and us (littleBits, Eyebeam), Parallax, Sparkfun, Lilypad.

What drove this effort; what made it come about?

It seemed like so many of us that were interested in porting the open source movement to hardware were struggling with adapting it, and its restrictions and specificities. We believe it is such a worthwile movement to fuel creativity in the world that we really wanted to share it with others.

The most common question I hear asked is by creators, who are concerned that people will simply set up cheap manufacture to clone products, undercutting costs and reducing their ability to invest in support and further development. Is there anything in this definition that would protect against this?

Ayah: From David Mellis, Arduino:

I think the best strategy is to provide good products at a reasonable price, offer good customer service, and establish a brand that people trust. We do mention in the introduction that you can’t imply your products are supported or or sanctioned by another manufacture or use someone else’s trademarks – both intended to help protect a company’s brand and reputation.

Ed.: Okay, there’s quite a lot more to discuss here, I know – so consider this the beginning of this conversation, not the end. I think what David suggests is one compelling answer, but I hope we do have a larger discussion of the issues here, as this a significantly multi-dimensional question. -PK

What’s essential to this definition in your view and what’s up for discussion? For instance, some (though not all) makers believe that some sort of non-commercial
restriction is needed to prevent cloning, but that’s explicitly forbidden in this draft. Is it possible that a future definition might include other tiers, like Creative Commons’ non-commercial license for creative works? Or is that anathema to the definition of open source hardware?

Ayah: We’re trying to define open-source hardware (not create a license). We mostly think non-commercial clauses are antithesis to open source. However, some want a really idealistic application for open source to hardware, but others, (like me) think it’s ok if different companies and individuals have different flavors so that the movement can gain the most traction and people can find their own ways to be sustainable.

What will the role of the hardware summit be?

Ayah: The summit will be a venue to share and discuss issues, problems and solutions in open hardware. This is also an opportunity for us to bring Creative Commons into the discussion with the community.

There will be a very deliberate attempt to remain practical and not too academic/theoretical, and we want to get work done in terms of the movement. We are also hoping to get more comments before the summit and be able to release version 1.0 of the definition to the world!

Where does Creative Commons fit in?

Ayah: CC committed, albeit in an early stage to support the open hardware movement, which can be seen by their awarding me of a fellowship to support the field and focus on open hardware. Even if it will not be throught creating licenses for us, they are interested in being involved in the discussion, and have been very generous supporters.

Are there any usable license models now that someone could look at? Definitions aside, is there a sense of best-practices for someone who has a hardware design now and wants to take the plunge?

Ayah: Again, from David Mellis:

I would recommend people share whatever they feel comfortable with. Open-source hardware doesn’t make sense for all companies or all products, and everyone should decide what makes sense for their own situation. On the other hand, we believe in the value of open-source as applied to hardware in the ways stated in the definition, and so we would encourage its use where possible.

If people want to get involved in the discussion, what’s he best way to do that?

www.openhardwaresummit.org/forum

What are some of the highlights of what you have scheduled for Thursday? What can people expect to hear?

Everything is a highlight for Thursday! The response and interest to the summit has been so incredible that we really tried to pack the best in. The panels are particularly going to be interesting, with such great participants from various fields, we expect to get lots of great questions and answers.
TOne of our most important goals for the Summit is to keep the event very action-driven and solution-driven. This means talking about best practices, advice on how to better make open hardware, and staying away from the theoretical jargon and bikeshedding. We expect there to be a lot of young makers and companies starting out in open hardware, so the more specific/real-world experiences and advice we can give them the better! Another particular highlight we are selfishly hoping for is to hash out the Open Hardware definition and take it from version 0.3 to version 1.0!

Since we’re talking to a music/sound (and on motion, visual) audience, anything likely to be specifically relevant to them?

The sprint talks will be specifically interesting to them. The speakers are showing their projects, in space research, art, design and education. We think it will be particularly interesting eye candy for your audience, as well as have a lot of value in terms of relating to the speakers and the problems/opportunities they face with their work.

(CDM) Call for Open Source Music Hardware

My read of the situation is that this is the beginning (or even a prelude) rather than the end of the story. So that means, since there really isn’t much, if any, representation of audio and music platforms at the summit (unless you count Arduino, or a possible cameo by a x0xb0x), maybe it’s time to do a tally of those platforms.

What projects do you consider “open source hardware” for music? Are there any you’ve seen recently, or use actively?

What would you want in an open source hardware platform?

And do you have a project you’ve considered for an open source license yourself?

I’ve actually seen a few projects recently that I’m excited about, either available now or coming soon, so I’ll be covering those, but at the risk of proposing a list that’s incomplete, I’ll leave them out for now and listen to what you think.

The Summit…

http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/

Open hardware means the ability to create exactly what you want. But it doesn’t have to intimidate the newcomer – not so long as you’re up for a project and a little creativity. The monome grid controller, long a sensation with digital musicians, finally sees a major update in its kit version. The “kit” isn’t built from scratch; instead, it includes the major components largely pre-assembled. A US$60 logic board contains the brain and USB port, with all surface-mount soldering done for you. (You don’t even have to upload firmware to make it run). A $40 driver operates the grid. $120 buys you the main guts – just add LEDs yourself (allowing you to pick a color) – and put the grid and pads into a housing.

Specs on the new version from the monome folks:

• USB bus powered
• supports up to four 8×8 keypad grids, for a total of 16×16
• auxiliary ports for additional digital or analog i/o, such as knobs, joysticks, accelerometers, rotary encoders, switches, LEDs
• boot loader for easy firmware updates and customization, no external programmer needed
• open source firmware and schematics

we’ve designed a modular system which allows scalability and customization. the individual parts are:

• logic: hub which communicates with the computer and other connected modules. easy user firmware updates allow extended functionality.
• driver: helper electronics which light up the grid and collect keypad data. connects to the logic section with a single ribbon cable.
• grid: 8×8 keypad surface, connects to the driver board directly. customizable LED color (not included).
• one driver is needed per grid. for a full 8×8, you’d need 1 logic 1 driver 1 grid. a full 8×16 would require 1 logic 2 driver 2 grid. etc.

Why use the kit? With those additional ins, you could add controls like accelerometers or even the knobs the monome is missing. You can add your own custom enclosure, made from whatever materials you like, so that you have a one-of-a-kind, unique creation no one else has. And you can change the colors of the LEDs, too. Just decide your favorite color. (“Red … no, blue! Aaaaaaa…..”)

I asked co-creator Brian Crabtree to offer some insight into the new kit.

CDM: How is the mk different from the previous kit?

- expanded capabilities while remaining bus powered: up to four 8×8 grids, auxiliary analog and digital i/o
- boot loader for easy firmware upgrades
- more elegant design– single ribbon connector, low profile
- cheaper

Why make those changes?

fundamentally it’s a response to user requests and observing what users are trying to accomplish. numerous people have built 16×16 devices from kits, which not only end up being expensive due to technology redundancy but rather unwieldy due to needing four USB ports (many people embed a powered USB hub). luckily our router software is very capable of combining smaller grids into a large grid, so functionally these mega-devices work great.

most users require some form of analog control (in the form of a knob or slider box) to compliment their button mashing. while the old kit had some minimal facilities to collect analog input, this new revision has a wide, customizable auxiliary section: up to 8 analog inputs (potentiometers, etc) or 8 rotary encoders, and numerous additional switches or programmable LEDs. we’re hoping the kit can facilitate users building highly-tailored devices that match a unique performance style.

the introduction of a boot loader seems like a boring technical matter, but i feel this is one of the more opportune moments for both customization and community building. a boot loader basically allows the firmware of the device to be updated remotely without using a hardware programmer or opening up the device. paired with the fact that everything that went into this kit will be released open-source, i’m expecting variations of the standard kit functionality will appear on the forum and wiki. these will be easily accessible to all kit users, not just those adventurous enough to buy a programmer.

and what might these variations be? two ideas, one trivial, one less so. a very often requested feature is to change the startup animation– very easy now. an often used method host-side could be moved to hardware-side: view offsetting. add four auxiliary keys to an 8×8 grid, each key could used to change which quadrant is viewed within a larger 16×16… like virtual pages, but not virtual.

the design has been refined to be lower-profile, no longer using an FTDI breakout board as the logic section is fully surface mount and pre-assembled. fewer ribbons cables are necessary with the application of board-to-board connectors. the keypad grid has been redesigned using a fancy multi-layer board to enable perfect tiling.

lastly, it’s cheaper. very substantially if you’re building a grid larger than 8×8. these are all still assembled, tested, and packed by kelli and myself up here in the catskills.

How would you direct people to begin on the enclosures? What sorts of creative solutions have people found?

i’d suggest avoiding the impulse to purchase a pre-fab monome case simply to get started using it right away. enclosing the kit is a great opportunity to explore design and appreciate the building process.

See our separate story with some enclosure ideas to stimulate your imagination. -PK

Okay, anticipating a likely question from readers and monome fans: “I’ve never done an enclosure before, but I want to learn. Where do I start?”

i’d start by first using your imagination, then perhaps looking at what others have done. hundreds of people have posted photos and build logs of their kits on the monome forums.

We’d talked a bit privately about why you’d do serial-over-USB (that is, using drivers for the monome’s FTDI chip). What’s the logic behind this choice?

USB *is* serial. we use a transceiver that has a widely supported driver which creates a virtual serial port. the major reason we’ve chosen this method is that it exposes the lowest level of communication directly to the user in a manner that’s easily accessible to essentially every programming language and environment. it’s incredibly efficient and fast.

packets and protocol can be formulated to allow optimal communication– for example, there’s a message to update a full 8×8 frame of pixels, packed into 9 bytes. if we were to update 64 LEDs with 3-byte MIDI (assuming a traditional note-to-keypad relationship) it’d be 189 bytes, not to mention that conforming non-traditional data to a MIDI-centric topology is often unintuitive.

we feel the hardware should have a proportionally light burden involving communication so that the chip can be freed up for its intended purpose– updating displays, collecting data, as fast as possible for low latency. we’ve certainly accomplished this– monome latency is insanely small. the host computer can handle the more complicated communication– in our case we suggest our router which translates serial to OSC, making a readable, dynamic communication layer available to other apps.

Ed.: Note that this driver is now often included in the Linux kernel – making a netbook + monome performance rig, for instance, a tasty choice. More on that soon. -PK

Several years on, what still makes the monome kit stand apart from other grid controllers and DIY options? (No need to mention those by name — what’s special about the monome?)

the decoupled grid controller originated with the monome. the monome community has amassed an amazing collection of contributed applications over the years, most following our preference to keep sources open.

simply put, these applications work best and most easily with monome devices. the community is terrifically active and supportive which is encouraging for newcomers and prospective builders.

this may sound like i’m shaking my own hand, but i’ve been thinking about and refining this device constantly for almost ten years. i hope we’re starting to figure it out.

Readers: want to see more of the monome kit? Need a little more handholding for building one? Let us know, and we’ll hook you up. -PK

velosynth release#001 from velosynth on Vimeo.

Bicycle transport is cheap, environmentally sound, and quiet – a little too quiet. Since bikes don’t make noise, it can be difficult to hear them coming. And since a bicyclist should be focused on the road, any visual feedback to the bicyclist is potentially distracting. What’s the solution? How about a box that easily straps to a bike and makes sounds? Sounds can provide feedback to pedestrians, fellow cyclists, and other people sharing the road. They can also make distraction-free sonification of data the cyclist might want, as opposed to requiring that a rider take their eyes off the road to read a display. Using network features, you can even communicate amongst a crowd of cyclists.

The Velosynth is an open-source (Creative Commons-licensed), hackable sound gadget that attaches to a bike. To measure speed and acceleration (essential for making vroom-vroom-style sounds when the bike is in motion), the device uses a magnet and sensor combination on the wheel. There’s also a three-axis accelerometer, built-in amp, and Arduino-compatible brain. You can buy the device as a US$100 kit or get a pre-assembled device.

EFFALO, despite the silly and tongue-in-cheek video, are a serious “hyperlocal” maker of new designs to explore interaction, environments, and DIY hardware and fabrication. The group is based in Portland, Oregon, and includes monome community regular Michael Felix, aka “%.”

The EFFALO crew aren’t just looking for publicity, though; they hope that they can get help, including bright ideas for how to make this project useful, from hackers, designers, and musicians. The Kickstarter project they’ve started isn’t just a beg for money, either – it’s effectively a preorder page for kits for hackers or pre-built devices for non-hackers. A few kits are left, though I expect they won’t last very long after this post.

The potential of a bike-mounted synth also shows how transformative mobile sound synthesis can be. Sure, today’s digital synths aren’t far removed from those available twenty or thirty years ago. But whereas early synths required big budgets and big rooms, making them useful to sound studios or academic research facilities but not much else, sound today can be a commodity. Just as with the display, mobile sound synthesis may have uses far beyond just making unusual music. (That’s why yesterday’s mention of batteries wasn’t just a random post.)

Case in point: Velosynth isn’t alone. Electric cars face a similar challenge; their silent operation means that producing synthesized sound becomes a safety feature. That issue appeared just last week on the superb design blog core77:
An update on “vroom tones” for electric cars

Of course, unlike conventional motors, it’s possible to actually design the sounds transport methods make. That can mean producing sounds that are less disturbing to neighbors and that are simultaneously more effective for localizing where the vehicle is relative to the listener. Another project to watch: the makers of the upcoming OP-1 synth by Teenage Engineering have also engineered an electric bicycle, meaning some sort of interaction between the bike and the synth is possible.

All the details on Velosynth:
http://velosynth.com/

For more tunes by %, check out virb.com/owneroperator

Previous posts on the relationship between bikes and electronic music:
Music Sequencing as Bicycle Wheels, Rubik’s Cubes at Fest in Argentina

Maker Faire: Giant Bicycle-Part DJ Looping Reel-to-Reel Tape Deck

Music for Bicycles: Ensembles, Symphonies, and Bikelophones

Nutcracker Suite Played Exclusively on Bicycle Parts

More Musical Mayhem, Instant Art with Bicycles

Open source hardware may not sound like something that would produce a huge musical hit – unless you’ve met the x0xb0x. A clone of Roland’s legendary TB-303 bassline generator, the open version offered not only greater afford-ability than the now-rare antique, but expanded possibilities for hacking the hardware into a musical device you could love as your own, all with the backing of an impassioned community. The gadget was designed by Limor Fried and an unidentified “crazy German engineer” who has kept his identity private. (I wish I had my own secret crazy German engineer. Darnit. Any volunteers?) The resulting design has been marketed by Limor’s adafruit shop. The only downside of the x0xb0x’s awesomeness? It was something of a victim of its own success, with rare parts a challenge to find and an ongoing waiting list of pent-up demand. After shipping 900 units from 2005 through the beginning of this year, adafruit announced it was dropping sales of the x0xb0x.

But the story doesn’t end there. Aside from ongoing efforts by the x0xb0x community in general, one figure has stepped forward to lead sales of the project and (most exciting to me) generate new projects that share its open license and build on some of its components. As announced on adafruit (via Synthtopia), x0xb0x community member James Wilsey is launching a new design and sales effort.

My goal with Willzyx Music is to keep supplying the x0xb0x community with Parts and Kits. I have spent the last year building up a stock pile of parts and will bring the Kits back at an affordable price. Any new projects that are produced from Willzyx will have the same MIT open source license, so you can hack, modify and commercialize any of Willzyx’s original designs.

James is no stranger to the x0xb0x community, having sold his own completed kits as bitcrusher76. But his vision is, refreshingly, even bigger than the x0xb0x: he hopes this could lead to other open projects with shared resources. With the growing quantity and quality of free hardware and software projects, many with shared goals and features, I think now could be a great moment for the larger open source music ecosystem.

The new store:
http://www.willzyx.com/collections/x0xb0x

Price for a kit is a very-reasonable $185.

And for more on the x0xb0x project:
x0xb0x Forum @ Adafruit

I asked James to answer a few questions about the project for CDM.

Peter: Looking back at the x0xb0x’s first half decade, obviously it hasn’t been an easy piece of gear to get. Was it just not a goal to make it more widely available?

James: I think this is a big misconception among a lot of people involved with the x0xb0x. Adafruit made something that had a huge want factor. If you were at all interested in synths, a TB-303 clone was something that you have been dreaming about for a long time. So in 2005 a huge flood of people come and there was just no way that they could keep up with demand. They killed themselves to get 1,000 kits out. The way I look at it is this: They made a TB-303 clone that kicked ass and everyone wanted it.

That’s where I came into this. For the last year I have been selling complete x0xb0x’s on eBay and was very successful with it. I was only able to do this because of the open source nature of the x0xb0x. I started talking to Adafruit and it became clear that I have the time and resources to get the x0xbox out to as many people as possible.

Peter: What does this mean for availability of the x0xb0x?

James: If we are talking about kits, they will be coming back very soon.

Will you be accepting preorders?

Perorders scare the crap out of me.

I think demand is manageable at this point and I am not the only one selling kits. If you really want a kit you can find one if you poke around on the adafurit forums. The kit will be coming very soon and I should be able to keep up with demand.

That sounds great. So you’re looking at working up new designs, as well?

Really all I want to do is expand the firmware, I want a few LFOs and some more CVs and gates. We need to look at a new microcontroler, but its all pretty doable. The only downside is we are going to be dealing with SMDs which can be really unpopular in the DIY world.

I see listed on the site a separate item that’s just the “rare parts.” Is that idea that people could source the more common parts, then get the rare ones from you?

That is correct, the rare parts have always been a road block if you wanted to self-source your own kit. There are quite a few situations where it doesn’t make sense to get a full kit.

What’s your own connection to the x0xb0x? Do you use it in your music?”

I have always wanted a TB-303. My first attempts at making music were with Re-Birth. So that sound has always been a part of my music. When the x0xb0x first came out I had to have it! I have been in love with it ever since.

Any plans for the future of the x0xb0x?
My first priority is to keep the kits available but I am looking at the x0xb0x as a open source hardware platform for other synths that are not necessary TB-303 related. The analog synth business is very grassroots. There has been a big boom with small synth makers that might only do a run of 50 or 100 synths. It would be cool if they could just copy and paste the digital section from the x0xb0x. I am not too sure what this is going to look like but that’s the direction that I will be pursuing. Of course any of my designs will have the same MIT open source license that the x0xb0x has.

If people want to help out, what can they do to get involved?
Make and sell kits, hack the firmware, do mods but make it available to every one. Transistorize The World!

But is it as good as a 303?

I like the fact that the x0xb0x could be hacked as an entire platform, but since I missed it when picked up by Synthtopia in February, here’s a shoot-out between the open hardware and the original Roland piece.

For all the hype around mobile music creation, here’s a story with an ending in the opposite direction. Independent developer Olivier Gillet is the reason a lot of people see handheld gadgets as potential music making devices; he’s the creator of the brilliant Bhajis Loops for Palm. But, as if to prove that hardware can be a digital platform, too, his latest creation, while it will fit in your palm, isn’t for a device like the overcrowded iPhone.

And as we take up the issue of platforms for sonic tech, Olivier’s timing is perfect. Amidst gloom and doom predictions of the sunset of tinkering, the tinkerers soldier on.

http://mutable-instruments.net/shruti1

“I did not continue writing mobile music software as I didn’t like the direction the iPhone (and to some extent Android) took, but I have recently started experimenting with minimal/DIY-friendly hardware,” says Gillet. “A couple of units of my first mono synth will be available as a kit in a few days ( http://mutable-instruments.net/shruti1/ ) and you might want to check it out – not that I’m looking for free press, almost all units of the first batch are already reserved It has some common points with Bhajis Loops – taking a limited hardware platform (in this case, the ATMega328p chip, also used in the [open source DIY hardware platform] Arduino boards) and squeezing the most out of it – with a no-nonsense interface. I’ll probably release a couple of other products (artisanal, small volumes, or kits) with similar design approaches (synths, FX, modules for modular synths).”

I’m personally tinkering with one of those somewhat absurdly powerful-and-cheap ARM cores this week, but talk about bucking trends. Consider the Shruti-1:

• 16 Mhz, 2kb memory baby! As the self-effacing product description notes, “8You’re more likely to find this 8-bit wonder in vending machines than in synths… Yet, the Shruti-1’s firmware squeezes the most out of this tight processor to render classic waveforms, but also FM or weird digital sounds – all of them in their full 8-bit quirkiness.”
• Vintage analog filtering. This isn’t just about harsh digital sound, though. The filter is decidedly retro – the CEM3379 VCF/VCA, similar to what you’d find in a Prophet VS, Ensoniq ESQ-1 or Waldorf Microwave. That warms up the resulting sound.
• Make it yourself, open source: You can get on the list for a kit, but the full instructions and bill of materials are also on the site; check the maker/hacker section. And without getting into a tricky discussion of intellectual property and open source hardware, let’s put it this way – with Creative Commons specs and GPL3 firmware, I think the Shruti-1 is “good enough for jazz,” whatever your local lawyer may think.
• Small, light, portable, 9V-battery powered, and as mobile as the Palm app.
• MIDI support, so this is playable from a keyboard (strap one to an AX-09, perhaps) and sequence-able.

It’s also notable that you don’t have to be a fan of chip music to love this design: it’s an electronic instrument suitable to a wide range of tastes, including chip lovers but other folks, as well. It’s not a perfect design for everything: I’d like to see a fully-integrated board, its future is somewhat limited by availability of that filter, and I’d prefer more physical controls to the few controls and reliance on the LCD. But it’s cheap, sounds fantastic, and looks like great fun.

Put this alongside creations like the wonderful Ruin & Wesen devices, and we have a small, growing galaxy of open, open-ended, hackable music hardware that stands with or without a computer. That’s a subject for another article – nominees welcome.

Kits are priced 115€ + shipping – with the convenience of not having to worry about sourcing parts yourself.

More on the parts, and what the inclusion of the vintage filter means, from Olivier:

The project is 100% open (and well-documented), so there’s already enough information on the site to allow someone to source the parts, get the PCBs manufactured, build and flash the firmware, and assemble it.

I’ve decided to behave “responsibly” with the CEM3379s (http://mutable-instruments.net/node/91 ). While It could be possible for me to buy the last stocks from all the distributors that stock them, and to squeeze some other batches of kits, I am not doing it to leave room for the Ensoniq/Sequential repair/servicing market.
However, one of my contacts in the “vintage chips” world is confident that there are still pretty decent stocks of those waiting to be unearthed, so whenever new stocks are found, I could do more runs of the original design – though at the moment, I’m investing all my energy building a more modern analog section, even if it’ll mean
deviating a bit from the original Shruti-1 sound.

Speaking of that sound, here’s what the thing sounds like:
Sweet Shruti-1 dreams by mutable.instruments

FM Glass jam by mutable.instruments

Shruti-blipfest by mutable.instruments

(Lots, lots) more:
http://soundcloud.com/mutable-instruments/tracks

It’s terrific work. I could see a lot more like this. I’ll be curious what people do with them. Keep us posted – particularly if you get creative with the case, with musical uses, or other mods.

What can you do with a button? What circuits can you bend? What software and hardware can you construct? Want to meet up with myself and fellow makers from the DIY music and visualist communities? I’m touring and looking for new works, we have one call for one-button objects that (if you can ship it) can come from anywhere in the world, plus upcoming events in New York, San Francisco, and — this month, Amsterdam at the planetary music tech hub that is STEIM.

STEIM + Handmade Music Amsterdam (Netherlands, February)

Handmade Music is beginning in Amsterdam. To kick things off, I’ll be visiting the legendary STEIM research center. The event will be open to anyone with inventions and self-built hardware and software you’d like to share. We’ll plug in and make a raucous noise. I’m really quite looking forward to meeting folks from this area.

When: Wednesday, February 17, 8p – ?
Where: Utrechtsedwarsstraat 134, Amsterdam
Cost: FREE
STEIM Hotspot Lab Event Page

I’ll also do a short presentation of some work TBD; more on this next week.

If you’re attending and want to share what you’re bringing in advance or make sure you see me, use the CDM contact form.

One-Button Objects Call (SF + World, March)

What can you do with one button? In an age of ever-more-complex touch interfaces, we’d like to imagine what a single, tangible, hardware button can mean for a design. To celebrate the arrival of their Gamma game event in San Francisco, art game collective Kokoromi is teaming up with Create Digital Music and Create Digital Motion to launch a call for ONE-BUTTON OBJECTS.

So, sorry monome — too many buttons (unless you want to make a one-button monome, that is). The one-button game objects will incorporate a single-button-centered design and inspiration from the world of gaming into unique creations. Read up more on our sister site:

Call for Works: One-Button Game Objects
Then send your submissions for the gallery show in San Francisco to onebuttonobject@kokoromi.org
(see also Kokoromi
Receipt deadline: March 1

If you’re in the NYC or San Francisco, we’re looking to do some informal hackdays to play with buttons, HID interfaces, Arduino and microcontroller platforms, and the like — we just need a hackerspace to host us. And if you’d like to do that elsewhere in the world, let us know and we’ll promote it.

And of course, be sure to attend Friday, March 12 at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts if you’re in the Bay Area or attending the Game Developer Conference.

Handmade Music Brooklyn Returns; Your Inventions, Live Artists Wanted (NYC, March)

Handmade Music in its hometown of New York is being rebooted. We’re launching new workshops, new hacking, and a new quarterly performance series at a proper performance venue, Galapagos.

That means we need you.

For the quarterly party, we’re continuing to look for people to bring in your own creations. If it runs on a netbook, if you have headphones you can bring, if it’s made out of wood and you can play it, if you can plug into a portable amp and make some noise, if it’s a circuit-bent toy with built-in speakers, it’s a welcome guest.

But we’re also looking for live artists in the greater New York area who incorporate DIY instruments, hardware, software (and even wearable interactive costumes, if you’ve got them) into your act. We’d like to hear who’s out there. We can’t invite everyone to play, but that’s all the more reason to hear about what people are doing.

If you have a project or act to consider, send them here:
Official 2010 Handmade Music NYC Call for Works

The first event is Monday, March 8. Doors open 7p, live acts start 8p.

“Okay,” you say to the Web geeks, “I’ve had enough. I don’t want another little app that looks at my iTunes collection and tells me that if I like Lady Gaga, I probably also like Madonna. I want to listen in new ways and, most importantly, make music. What have you got, Web 2.0… 3.0… whatever we’re on now, that I can actually use. I want some of the deliciousness of the future, now.”

“Oh, and another thing – can I patch this Android phone of mine in absurd ways?”

Wish granted.

The latest Music Hackday in Stockholm was filled with the usual simple, first-draft hacks – as it should be; the whole idea is to do something quickly and start something real. But among them were some really strong ideas about how connecting music makers to the Web could do intelligent, new things.

Here are some of the best. Themes emerging:

There is a “there” there. Use proximity, and make location start to help people share musical tastes (and, by the same token, music making).

Put music creation in the browser – without Flash. New JavaScript-based tools can do live synthesis. There’s even a Nanoloop-style sequencer, built entirely with JavaScript and HTML. While these won’t be replacing dedicated music software any time soon, they can have the inverse effect, which is bringing musical creativity to more online apps. (Trust me, it’s more fun than most of what’s on Facebook.)

Make musicians’ online lives easier. Thanks to open APIs, all your gig info, tour info, and music uploads can finally come together.

Get physical. Hacks involving everything from big robotic visualizers to physical radio controls connect open hardware platforms like Arduino and Android.

(And yes, there were a lot of new Android apps, early proof that open mobile development could make a splash.)

Here’s a look at some of the coolest individual projects:

AlbexOne
Data as connected, kinetic sculpture

It’s one thing to talk to a Web API and put the results on the screen. It’s quite another to turn that feedback into a massive, mechanical sculpture.

Ingredients:
One Web API (Echo Nest Java API, for song analysis)
One Google NexusOne phone, running Android, receiving data on wifi and sending on bluetooth
One microcontroller, receiving signals from the Android and rotating a giant, mechanical arm to make a drawing

Here’s hoping co-creators Albin Karlsson and Alex Olwal can send us video of the project working in action.

ProximRadio + Blobble
Making software and hardware proximity-aware

The work by Michael Coffey (github | @eartle) and Jonty Wareing (github | @jonty) may seem at first like more of the usual social song-playing stuff. But it’s really a clever use of Bluetooth and proximity that could have significant implications for listening to and making music with other people in the same room.

Using new clients and servers, Michael and Jonty change the experience of listening to music. As people enter and leave a room, radio feeds respond accordingly. And the experience of “scrobbling” — writing a piece of music played on your computer to the Web — changes from solo to ensemble experience. If you and a few friends listen to Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz, now all of your Last.fm accounts respond accordingly.

Note, too, that by using the open-source GUI framework Qt4, what looks like a native Mac UI is actually portable across (cough) platforms.

Let’s say you’d rather make music than play it. Well, good news: developed could use these same tricks to build Bluetooth-enabled musical instruments that respond to proximity, not only for social interactions but better-integrated
hardware.

Radio Free Hackday
Virtual radio meets the physical radio object

Simon Hohberg and Robert Böhnke (aka @ceterum_censeo) had a brilliant, simple hardware hack: put the soul of an Arduino mini into a friendly-looking Panasonic FM radio. Result: physical controls for virtual radio, and an actual, local FM stream transmitted back from the computer into the stream.

With some minor upgrades (like a beefier, non-Arduino minicomputer), this could be a self-contained Internet radio. But it’s a reminder that making physical controls for software can be fun, frivolous, and novel. After all, it’s really the way we interact with real-world objects that makes them meaningful.

Webloop
Game Boy mainstay Nanoloop, reimagined as JavaScript

Start with Nanoloop, the unique, elegantly-designed music creation software for the Game Boy. Now imagine it as a browser application – no Flash, no standalone app, but all JavaScript, even down to the audio output.

That’s what Jan Krutisch did with his Webloop, now in its second iteration. It’s a testament to the universality of Oliver Wittchow’s design for Nanoloop, and the growing power of the browser and JavaScript as an open platform on which to make music software.

Synthism
Patching synthesis in online browser modules

This is a bit hard to see in action, so we’ll have to take their word for it. But the idea is compelling – and is another example of the action that could take place in the browser (in this case, with the actual sound work done elsewhere in a more traditional fashion):

Synthism.com our frontend to the powerful BrainBeat compiler, which is also built by the synthism.com team. This gives you the possibility to export synthesizers from synthism.com to different platforms, e.g. as a VST instrument. The flexibility of the BrainBeat compiler allows us to add support for exotic hardware such as FPGAs or special purpose built DSPs found in different hardware synthesizers, making export to such platforms available.

And yes, all of this is meant to be “collaborative,” which could add more dimension to it.

Songkick On Tour from Matt Biddulph on Vimeo.

Songkick on Tour
A Web service that adds information to your trip

It may be technologically less impressive, but part of what I think will make the Web more useful is the use of open Web APIs to reduce the amount of work you have to do to get information. Songkick on Tour is a great example of that: it figures out your travel itinerary from the awesome Dopplr and lets you know what gigs are happening when you’re traveling. I’m a big fan of Dopplr and feel it’s underused; this demonstrates the sort of thing that could be done.

Of course, this quick hack is only the start – it could make it easier for touring musicians to stay on top of information when they’re on the road.

Along the same lines, and on a grander scale…

Holodeck
One place on the Web, all your artist stuff – automatically

“A tool for artists to create their own website with music from SoundCloud, gigs from Songkick or Last.fm, news/posts from Tumblr.”

That says it all, doesn’t it? Instead of adding yet another Web service to keep track of, another dimension of complexity in your life, this mashes together information you’ve already put elsewhere.

Imagine if every time you made a note of something, you scattered it in a different part of the house. Imagine how complex your life would be.

Oh, wait. I don’t have to imagine that. I do that. Anyway, yeah, let’s have the Web not work that way so it pays for the time, electricity, and money it consumes, ‘kay?

Echonest Midi Player

A Web-to-MIDI converter

Internet comes in, music goes out. Connect an Ethernet cable to one side of this gadget (via the Arduino Ethernet Shield), connect the other to a MIDI instrument, and Bertrand Gondouin’s creation plays MIDI music automatically.

Of course, this has other creative implications, like the ability to pipe your own music or musical events to installations, remote players, to rig up an Ethernet- (or wifi-) powered MIDI band, or whatever you might imagine.

And bless the presence of simple, free Web servers, like the one on which this site runs. (Actually, CDM is LXMP – Linux nginx MySQL PHP – not LAMP with Apache, but I digress.)

More cool projects

Tired of embedding a whole Flash-powered player? the hackable SoundCloud JS player is customizable and lightweight. (It’s not Flash-free – you still need Flash as the back-end to decode the audio, as sadly HTML5 still doesn’t mean consistent MP3 and OGG codec support across browsers, at least so far.)

HacKey asks a fascinating question, which is whether people’s musical tastes are related to key.

BuddyJ for iPhone adds a dead-simple, cueable music output. Now, true, this may not look like an all-powerful DJ app, but that’s not the point: it makes the iPhone or iPod touch into a cueable “deck” you could connect to a mixer, etc.

SleepApp is a simple Android demo app, but it also demonstrates – with all the code on Google Code – how to do basic UIs and stream Internet radio, meaning it could be a good starting point if you’re dabbling in Android music development.

More coverage

Five music hacks from the future [Pocket-lint]

New Echo Nest APIs demoed at the Stockholm Music Hackday [Music Machinery, where you can also follow the Echo Nest APIs]

Hacking in Stockholm [A report from Last.fm's LAST.HQ]

48 Hours, 31 Hacks – Stockholm Music Hack Day [Programmable Web]

And here is some rough mobile video of the presentations:

New York?

NYCers, I’d really love to help host a Music Hackday here (I missed the nearby Boston event, but we have some specific folks in NY who would be great to involve.) The only remaining challenge: a venue that can host 100 or 200 people, free. Suggestions?

http://musichackday.org/

All the Stockholm hacks