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	<title>Create Digital Music &#187; Hardware</title>
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	<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com</link>
	<description>The latest gear, software, and techniques for electronic music production and performance</description>
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		<title>Arduino Piano Gets an Open Source &#8220;Squealer&#8221; Synth Engine</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/11/02/arduino-piano-gets-an-open-source-squealer-synth-engine/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/11/02/arduino-piano-gets-an-open-source-squealer-synth-engine/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:15:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arduino]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[awesomeness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chip-music]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DIY]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Electronics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free-hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[GPL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oddities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[open-hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[open-source]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[synthesis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[synths]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=8178</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Clean is overrated. If you&#8217;re ready for a little digital dirt in your synth life, powered by the open-source Arduino hardware, Marc Nostromo&#8217;s Squealer is for you. Built atop the wonderful, Arduino-based Pocket Piano kit by Critter and Guitari, it&#8217;s a full-blown, simple, digitally-gritty synthesis engine.
You get a monosynth, some fixed waveforms, a resonant filter, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/11/arduinopiano.jpg"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/11/arduinopiano.jpg" alt="arduinopiano" title="arduinopiano" width="580" height="435" class="alignright size-full wp-image-8194" /></a></p>
<p>Clean is overrated. If you&#8217;re ready for a little digital dirt in your synth life, powered by the open-source <a href="http://arduino.cc">Arduino</a> hardware, Marc Nostromo&#8217;s Squealer is for you. Built atop the wonderful, <a href="http://www.critterandguitari.com/home/store/arduino-piano.php">Arduino-based Pocket Piano kit</a> by Critter and Guitari, it&#8217;s a full-blown, simple, digitally-gritty synthesis engine.</p>
<p>You get a monosynth, some fixed waveforms, a resonant filter, decay, and some aliasing tricks for extra grit. The big news: the Arduino Piano Squealer is now under a GPL license.</p>
<p><a href="http://nostromo.noisepages.com/arduino-piano-squealer-synth/">Official Arduino Piano Squealer Synth Page</a> has everything you need<br />
<a href="http://nostromo.noisepages.com/2009/11/01/arduino-piano-squealer-released-under-gpl-v3/">Announcement of GPL v3</a><br />
All at Mustalk@noisepages.com</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s what it sounds like:</p>
<p>SAP+BOM+Dodgey Eighties Ringing Reverb:<br />
<a title="mustakl audio" href="http://www.gorehole.org/nostromo/audio/ap-bom.mp3">apbom.mp3</a></p>
<p>Eery piano:<br />
<a title="mustakl audio" href="http://www.gorehole.org/nostromo/audio/ap-eery.mp3"> ap-eery.mp3</a></p>
<p>SAP+Flanging Mini KP:<br />
<a title="mustakl audio" href="http://www.gorehole.org/nostromo/audio/ardboy1.mp3"> ardboy1.mp3</a></p>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Novation Releases All MIDI Details for Launchpad</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/11/02/novation-releases-all-midi-details-for-launchpad/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/11/02/novation-releases-all-midi-details-for-launchpad/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:14:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ableton-Live]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[control-surface]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[controller]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DIY]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hacking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[how-to]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[launchpad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Max/MSP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MIDI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Novation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[patching]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=8180</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Novation&#8217;s Launchpad, its affordable (]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/twolaunchpads.jpg"></p>
<p>Novation&#8217;s Launchpad, its affordable (<$200) "grid" controller, may have a big Ableton logo on it. But underneath, it's just a MIDI controller. Bi-colored LEDs, containing a red and green element for red, green, and amber output (amber = red+green), can be triggered using simple MIDI note and control messages. That means, whether you're looking forward to Max for Live or you're sequencing in a tracker or writing Processing sketches, you can use the Launchpad just like any other MIDI controller. </p>
<p>One of the things I thought was a major demerit for Akai was the fact that they failed to ship a MIDI implementation for the Akai APC40. MIDI implementations are the charts of MIDI messages we've had since the very first MIDI devices came out in the 80s. They're usually printed in the back pages of the manual, and even the cheapest gear has often had one.</p>
<p><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/11/launchpadillus.jpg" alt="launchpadillus" title="launchpadillus" width="580" height="309" class="alignright size-full wp-image-8188" /></p>
<p>Score: Novation 1, Akai 0. Novation has done the MIDI documentation, and then some. Its MIDI &#8220;Programmers Reference&#8221; is out even before the official Launchpad ship date. And rather than just doing a MIDI chart and assuming people know how to read it, they&#8217;ve taken the care to fully explain the way MIDI messages work, how to calculate the right messages, and how to really use this. Experts will have all the information they need, but newcomers will also find they can spend a little time and learn how to do what they want.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.novationmusic.com/support/launchpad/">Launchpad Support with Downloads</a> (see Programmer&#8217;s Reference at the bottom)<br />
Via: <a href="http://nezoomie.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/novation-released-launchpad-programming-guide-and-protocol/">Novation released Launchpad Programming Guide, and Protocol</a> [Nezoomie's Zen Wave Blog - great read]</p>
<p>It&#8217;s listed as &#8220;for Max/MSP programmers,&#8221; but anyone using MIDI will want to have a look; that&#8217;s obviously relevant to far more than just Max. (In fact, there&#8217;s not a single mention of anything specific to Max in the document.)</p>
<p>What might people do with stuff like this? Well, as of just four hours ago, Matt DiFonzo lets us know he&#8217;s written a simple monome emulator. It&#8217;s even got a clever name:</p>
<p><a href="http://post.monome.org/comments.php?DiscussionID=6245&#038;page=1#Item_1">nonome &#8211; monome emulator for Novation Launchpad</a></p>
<p>There&#8217;s some bad news mixed with the good. Even with something as simple as a grid of buttons, MIDI isn&#8217;t as friendly as it could be. I still would like to have a MIDI editor for the Launchpad so you can reassign buttons if you like &#8212; that&#8217;s a feature, incidentally, available on rival Ohm and Block hardware from <a href="http://www.lividinstruments.com/#">Livid Instruments</a>. Also, the documentation reveals that Launchpad uses &#8220;a low-speed version of USB,&#8221; which runs at a maximum of 400 messages per second, thus taking 200 milliseconds to update a Launchpad&#8217;s LEDs. (There are some workarounds, but they&#8217;re &#8230; more work. <strong>Clarification:</strong> Once you double up messages, though, you can get this to a more acceptable gap, and that&#8217;s for updating all the LEDs, not the latency of input messages.)<span id="more-8180"></span></p>
<p>Also, here&#8217;s a hint to Novation: use a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons license</a> for that document. That way, your users will be free to document even more ingenious solutions and friendly guides. You win, and your users win. For instance, I have the illustration here, which I should be able to do for purposes of reporting on this story. But can I write my own how-to guide using your guide? Why not make it explicit to encourage me to do so? (They list the PDF as &#8220;proprietary,&#8221; though there&#8217;s no explicit license, and I think they just mean &#8220;proprietary&#8221; as in &#8220;what we&#8217;ve done on our hardware.&#8221;)</p>
<p>That&#8217;s a difference between open hardware and closed hardware, but I don&#8217;t even want to belabor the point &#8212; CC licenses are something a commercial company like Novation could easily use. In fact, if anyone at Novation or Ableton would like to talk to me about why I think it&#8217;s a good idea, I&#8217;d like to extend an open invitation. I&#8217;m no legal expert, but I can explain what it means to me as a user and developer, and connect you with some of the right people at Creative Commons and the CC-using community.</p>
<p>But those gripes aside, kudos to Novation for getting this documentation out here. I think it&#8217;s really good news for people experimenting with grid controllers. And we&#8217;ll be looking at how all of these tools, hardware and software, fit together, and how open source development can make them more powerful. </p>
<p>Patchers and coders and hackers: if you&#8217;re interested in working on interoperability between all this stuff, let us know.</p>
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		<slash:comments>69</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Make Noise with Circuits: Handmade Music Austin Video, Freebie Kit, More</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/26/make-noise-with-circuits-handmade-music-austin-video-freebie-kit-more/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/26/make-noise-with-circuits-handmade-music-austin-video-freebie-kit-more/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:40:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[austin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[circuits]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DIY]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Electronics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[handmade-music]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[how-to]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kits]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=8085</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Once upon a time, people made things from electronics. Boys, girls, laypeople made stuff. My Dad actually tinkered with Theremins growing up and subscribed to Popular Mechanics. Now, in an age of hyper-specialization, too many people assume that making sounds with geeky-looking, handmade electronics should be left to the pros. But give people some instruction [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object width="580" height="352"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jqp2OfjqfEU&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jqp2OfjqfEU&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="352"></embed></object></p>
<p>Once upon a time, people made things from electronics. Boys, girls, laypeople made stuff. My Dad actually tinkered with Theremins growing up and subscribed to <em>Popular Mechanics</em>. Now, in an age of hyper-specialization, too many people assume that making sounds with geeky-looking, handmade electronics should be left to the pros. But give people some instruction and let them make some noise, and you might be surprised how eager people are to try something out. Noise making, it seems, is some sort of primeval human instinct.</p>
<p>So, it comes as little surprise that the wizards of Austin got lots of people into the act of electronic sonification. Led by Dr. Bleep, Eric Archer, and 8ms, they&#8217;ve kicked off the Texas iteration of Handmade Music Night, and send us the video to prove it. </p>
<p>There&#8217;s no reason you have to be left out of the fun, though &#8211; you can handmade some loud noises at home. Eric Archer has expanded the site for his freebie Mini Sound Rockers, the kit he used to get folks started at Handmade Music Austin:</p>
<p><a href="http://ericarcher.net/devices/mini-space-rockers/">http://ericarcher.net/devices/mini-space-rockers/</a></p>
<p>Check out the video below to see them in action. And I think we should definitely have, in addition to the schematics, a step-by-step tutorial. The gang in Austin also promises some ready-to-buy kits coming soon, so stay tuned.</p>
<p>More on the Handmade Music series around the world:<br />
<a href="http://handmademusic.noisepages.com/">http://handmademusic.noisepages.com/</a></p>
<p><object width="580" height="352"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3w6Yx0W3NmY&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3w6Yx0W3NmY&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="352"></embed></object></p>
<p>And for another video of the Mini Space Rockers circuit, here&#8217;s a terrific creation from Switzerland, as suggested by Eric in comments:<span id="more-8085"></span></p>
<p><object width="580" height="469"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zgt_TGxAh70&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zgt_TGxAh70&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="469"></embed></object></p>
<p>The work is by datenkrieger75, using both Eric&#8217;s circuit and a hacked Gakken SX-150 bassline.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Compact Foot Controller Mod: KORG nanoKEY for Your Feet</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/23/compact-foot-controller-mod-korg-nanokey-for-your-feet/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/23/compact-foot-controller-mod-korg-nanokey-for-your-feet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:03:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[controller]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DIY]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[feet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[foot-controller]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[foot-pedal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hacks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Korg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MIDI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mods]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nano]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nano-key]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nano-series]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=8075</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Compact MIDI controllers for your fingers are plentiful, but tiny foot controllers are far fewer. map~map aka Marcus Fischer decided to build his own by performing a simple but clever mod of the KORG nanoKEY. Now, personally, I find the nanoKEY the one product in the nano series that&#8217;s lacking; it feels more like a [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/nanofoot.jpg"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/nanofoot.jpg" alt="nanofoot" title="nanofoot" width="580" height="367" class="alignright size-full wp-image-8074" /></a></p>
<p>Compact MIDI controllers for your fingers are plentiful, but tiny foot controllers are far fewer. map~map aka Marcus Fischer decided to build his own by performing a simple but clever mod of the KORG nanoKEY. Now, personally, I find the nanoKEY the one product in the nano series that&#8217;s lacking; it feels more like a QWERTY keyboard than anything resembling a MIDI keyboard. But Marcus transforms it into the world&#8217;s most compact and portable foot controller. You may have to be somewhat delicate with your toes, but he says the solution works perfectly!</p>
<blockquote><p>i’ve been wanting a compact usb midi foot pedal for a long time. i built one out of a usb number pad last year but it was less than ideal.  tonight i popped all of the keys but five off of my korg nanokey in order to see how it would work as a pedal. it turned out that it worked really well.  i cut some small pieces of plywood out to raise the key height and some scrap plexiglass to cover up the missing keys. a little spray paint and double stick tape and it was all finished.<br />
i think it turned out pretty well.  not bad for a cheap keyboard and scrap materials.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://unrecnow.com/dust/1827">279 / nanopedal</a></p>
<p>Those wooden blocks look quite lovely. KORG, you may have inadvertently created a new product.</p>
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		<slash:comments>19</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>The Sonic Manipulator: Bizarre Wearable Musical Inventions, Stolen from Space Aliens?</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/19/the-sonic-manipulator-bizarre-wearable-musical-inventions-stolen-from-space-aliens/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/19/the-sonic-manipulator-bizarre-wearable-musical-inventions-stolen-from-space-aliens/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:17:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alien]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alternative-instruments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alternative-interfaces]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DIY]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Electronics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oddities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[radio]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sci-fi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Scratch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Theremin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UK]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wearable]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=8039</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It may be 2009, but you can still play electronic music as though you&#8217;re an invading alien visitor from the future. Just ask The Sonic Manipulator, an electronic musical performer and inventor, alias Claude Woodward. His musical creations range from warped radios to instruments derived from turntable scratches and Theremins. And then there are some [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object width="580" height="469"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DrWxbdVX_s0&#038;rel=0&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;feature=player_profilepage&#038;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DrWxbdVX_s0&#038;rel=0&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;feature=player_profilepage&#038;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="580" height="469"></embed></object></p>
<p>It may be 2009, but you can still play electronic music as though you&#8217;re an invading alien visitor from the future. Just ask The Sonic Manipulator, an electronic musical performer and inventor, alias Claude Woodward. His musical creations range from warped radios to instruments derived from turntable scratches and Theremins. And then there are some instruments that seem to be sonic weapons. (Apologies to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2009/sep/25/sonic-cannon-g20-pittsburgh">recent protesters in Pittsburgh</a>.)</p>
<p>CDM reader Andrew Cordani caught Claude at the UK&#8217;s British Invention Show. Claude is apparently a Perth, Australia transplant, by way of Cambridge, though Andrew writes that he &#8220;has been known to travel about a bit (Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Alpha Centauri, Epsilon Indi, Teegarden&#8217;s star and further).&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/sonicmanipulator.jpg"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/sonicmanipulator.jpg" alt="sonicmanipulator" title="sonicmanipulator" width="400" height="513" class="alignright size-full wp-image-8042" /></a><span id="more-8039"></span></p>
<p>Andrew describes Claude&#8217;s other creations:</p>
<blockquote><p>Met at the British Invention Show (<a href="http://www.britishinventionshow.com/show/index.html">http://www.britishinventionshow.com/show/index.html</a>), at Alexandra Palace (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Palace">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Palace</a>)<br />
(Organized by [MP3 player inventor] Kane Kramer &#8211; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_Kramer">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_Kramer</a>)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/sonicmanipulator">http://www.youtube.com/user/sonicmanipulator</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.sonicmanipulator.com/">http://www.sonicmanipulator.com/</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.sonicmanipulator.com/Inventions.htm">http://www.sonicmanipulator.com/Inventions.htm</a></p>
<p>The Claude-a-tron &#8211; a sort of pre-wireless (i.e. wired) Theremin &#8211; and is &#8220;Way cool&#8221;</p>
<p>The Radiolian a lot of fun &#8211; Essentially triggerable (pre-recorded) radio samples &#8211; Used to switch-between radio programs (reminds me of <a href="http://www.neave.com/television/">http://www.neave.com/television/</a> )</p>
<p>The Greet-o-metre + The Transatron should be given out to all travellers, interstellar or not!</p>
<p>(My fave was the Rap Rod &#8211; which does for scratching what CDs did for vinyl. The Bash-a-tron was a close second, though)</p></blockquote>
<p>Definitely check the Sonic Manipulator site for many, many more bizarre creations if the one at top doesn&#8217;t impress you. See a couple of my faves at bottom.</p>
<p><object width="580" height="469"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZBdnQ0RfsDU&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZBdnQ0RfsDU&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="469"></embed></object></p>
<p><object width="580" height="469"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gpIbytBuqZw&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gpIbytBuqZw&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="469"></embed></object></p>
<p>Fans of DIY, the whole event sounds fantastic! Thanks, Andrew, who can be found here (with his own futuristic creations):<br />
<a href="http://midisticks.ltd.uk/">http://midisticks.ltd.uk/</a></p>
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			<wfw:commentRss>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/19/the-sonic-manipulator-bizarre-wearable-musical-inventions-stolen-from-space-aliens/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>15</slash:comments>
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		<title>Handmade Music: NYC Thursday &#8211; Wearable Sound, DIY Dance Music + MP3s</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/14/handmade-music-nyc-thursday-wearable-sound-diy-dance-music-mp3s/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/14/handmade-music-nyc-thursday-wearable-sound-diy-dance-music-mp3s/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:53:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ableton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ableton-Live]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arcade]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[artists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brooklyn]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[buttons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Community]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[controllers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DIY]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Electronics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[events]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[handmade-music]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NYC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wearable]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=7973</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[From Sarah and Lara Grant, we have a dress that makes music, with tube-like apparatus made of felt for connecting sound, modular fashion. From the raucous duo Great Tiger, we get a homebrewed arcade controller Ableton Live that mashes loops into dance music with a quick button push. Yep, it&#8217;s Handmade Music time again in [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/greattiger.jpg"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/greattiger.jpg" alt="greattiger" title="greattiger" width="579" height="409" class="alignright size-full wp-image-7976" /></a></p>
<p>From Sarah and Lara Grant, we have a dress that makes music, with tube-like apparatus made of felt for connecting sound, modular fashion. From the raucous duo Great Tiger, we get a homebrewed arcade controller Ableton Live that mashes loops into dance music with a quick button push. Yep, it&#8217;s Handmade Music time again in New York tomorrow Thursday. If you&#8217;re anywhere in the area, come on down &#8211; and feel free to bring your own projects and/or expect some surprise technological appearances. If not, we&#8217;ve still got some MP3s, visuals, and how-to information to share.</p>
<p>If you do make it to Brooklyn, we can promise some behind-the-scenes demonstrations, noise, at least one live set, and free, ice-cold Colt 45s while they last.</p>
<p>Read on for event details, a preview of the projects, and videos and downloadable MP3s from Great Tiger.</p>
<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/sounddress_concept.jpg"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/sounddress_concept.jpg" alt="sounddress_concept" title="sounddress_concept" width="372" height="500" class="alignright size-full wp-image-7980" /></a></p>
<h3>Wearable Patch Cords in a Sonic Dress</h3>
<p>Sound artists, inventors, and designer sisters Sarah and Lara Grant present an in-progress audiological fashion experiment involving patch cords made from felt. (I love the gorgeous conceptual drawing.) They&#8217;re working with a dancer to make this into a performance, and we get to see the work evolve before our eyes.<span id="more-7973"></span></p>
<blockquote><p>the title of the piece is &#8216;Audiotrails&#8217;, playing off of the word &#8216;entrails&#8217;, since as you&#8217;ll from the drawing attached, we are designing a dress that has several felted cords coming out from the gut which will act as patch cords.  These patch cords connect to different parts of the garment to produce various noises and effects. </p>
<p>What we will be bringing is an example of our patch cord concept in the form of a felted swatch and a concept drawing of the final piece, which we have not completed, but hope to present either next month or the following at handmade music. We will be talking about our process and answering any questions based on that. Sarah and I had been envisioning our set up on a table in the smaller room, since had not been planning to perform and since our goal has been to show our progress of a project that would take a couple months to finish.</p></blockquote>
<p>Here&#8217;s a look at one of the coils, a felted patch cable that can then become part of the garment:</p>
<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/feltcoil.jpg"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/feltcoil.jpg" alt="feltcoil" title="feltcoil" width="580" height="435" class="alignright size-full wp-image-7981" /></a></p>
<p>Sarah Grant has also done fascinating research into what she calls &#8220;felted signal processing,&#8221; in which textiles can themselves become active sound elements.</p>
<p><object width="580" height="435"><param name="flashvars" value="offsite=true&#038;lang=en-us&#038;page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2Freizorlove%2Fsets%2F72157604101032880%2Fshow%2F&#038;page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2Freizorlove%2Fsets%2F72157604101032880%2F&#038;set_id=72157604101032880&#038;jump_to="></param><param name="movie" value="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="offsite=true&#038;lang=en-us&#038;page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2Freizorlove%2Fsets%2F72157604101032880%2Fshow%2F&#038;page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2Freizorlove%2Fsets%2F72157604101032880%2F&#038;set_id=72157604101032880&#038;jump_to=" width="580" height="435"></embed></object></p>
<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/arcadecontroller.jpg"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/arcadecontroller.jpg" alt="arcadecontroller" title="arcadecontroller" width="580" height="435" class="alignright size-full wp-image-7988" /></a></p>
<h3>Push the Button: DIY Arcade Controller for Ableton Live and the Button-Mashing Music of Great Tiger</h3>
<p>That&#8217;s button mashing in a <em>good</em> way. Inspired by games, fast push-button moves and combos, and electronic music, the duo Great Tiger has built a custom rig for mashing samples in Ableton Live.</p>
<p>The custom arcade controller, looking like what happens when an 80s arcade cabinet and the monome have a love child, was <a href="http://www.djtechtools.com/2009/03/17/a-new-arcade-button-controlller-is-born/">featured on the DJ blog DJ TechTools</a>. (Worth reading that article for lots more technical details from the duo.) This video by Great Tiger gives a behind-the-scenes look at how the hardware is used with Live and how it&#8217;s put together.</p>
<p><object width="580" height="469"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wJaWk5srYms&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wJaWk5srYms&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="469"></embed></object></p>
<p>Here&#8217;s Great Tiger live in action at Brooklyn&#8217;s Red Star:</p>
<p><object width="580" height="352"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MgsLCuGRibc&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MgsLCuGRibc&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="352"></embed></object></p>
<h3>Free Great Tiger MP3 Downloads</h3>
<p>Great Tiger were kind enough to share a couple of their fun tracks with us, so you can grab them wherever you are.</p>


<p>Great Tiger on <a href="http://www.myspace.com/wearegreattiger">MySpace</a> | <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Great-Tiger/121576306614">Facebook</a></p>
<h3>Come Visit Us</h3>
<p>RSVP to handmade@3rdward.com OR<br />
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=148219741542">RSVP on Facebook</a></p>
<p>Handmade Music&#8217;s Brooklyn edition is held at 3rd Ward in East Williamsburg, a brisk ride on the L train out of Manhattan. </p>
<p>FREE, as always<br />
&#8230;plus FREE Colt 45<br />
7:30-10:00 pm, Thursday, October 15 (arrive by 9 or you&#8217;ll miss a lot)</p>
<p>Presented by CDM with our friends at <a href="http://makezine.com/blog">MAKE</a>, <a href="http://etsy.com">Etsy</a>, and <a href="http://xlr8r.com">XLR8R</a></p>
<p><iframe width="580" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;hl=en&amp;q=195+Morgan,+Brooklyn,+NY&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;ll=40.717664,-73.93095&amp;spn=0.022769,0.049782&amp;z=14&amp;iwloc=A&amp;output=embed"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;hl=en&amp;q=195+Morgan,+Brooklyn,+NY&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;ll=40.717664,-73.93095&amp;spn=0.022769,0.049782&amp;z=14&amp;iwloc=A&amp;source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small></p>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<title>Livid Block: Open Grid Button Controller Adds Knobs, Faders &#8211; and Choice</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/12/livid-block-open-grid-button-controller-adds-knobs-faders-and-choice/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/12/livid-block-open-grid-button-controller-adds-knobs-faders-and-choice/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:41:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[block]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[buttons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Electronics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[grid-controller]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[livid-instruments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MIDI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[monome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ohm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ohm64]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[open-hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[previews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sustainable]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=7920</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The grid is in. While the monome remains the standards bearer for hardware with grids of buttons on it, arrays of buttons are suddenly everywhere, in the commercial Akai APC40 and Novation Launchpad, and, from Livid Instruments, the Ohm64 and now the Block. I think it&#8217;s a real compliment to the monome&#8217;s creators &#8211; and [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/block1.jpg"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/block1.jpg" alt="block1" title="block1" width="580" height="340" class="alignright size-full wp-image-7922" /></a></p>
<p>The grid is in. While the <a href="http://monome.org">monome</a> remains the standards bearer for hardware with grids of buttons on it, arrays of buttons are suddenly everywhere, in the commercial Akai APC40 and Novation Launchpad, and, from Livid Instruments, the Ohm64 and now the Block. I think it&#8217;s a real compliment to the monome&#8217;s creators &#8211; and the community that has authored ingenious open software for the monome &#8211; that there is this excitement around the design.</p>
<p>The latest entry is Livid&#8217;s Block, a compact, aluminum-and-wood controller that&#8217;s easy to carry and which weighs less than 3 pounds. It&#8217;s not a monome &#8211; it eschews the monome&#8217;s stringent minimalist design aesthetic and adds knobs on top, faders on the side. That layout has made the M-Audio Trigger Finger a blockbuster hit, so I think it could attract people who want more than just buttons. (That&#8217;s why choice is generally a good thing.) But just as importantly, the Block takes cues from the monome beyond the skin-deep. As with the Ohm64, Livid is working to open-source both the guts of the hardware and the software on the computer. The instruments are made by hand using sustainable materials and finishes, manufactured in Texas in their own shop rather than the lowest bidder overseas. The hardware itself encourages hacks and customization. These are principles championed by the monome&#8217;s Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain, and they&#8217;re badly in need of some company. Livid, like those monome creators, is a handful of individuals rather then a big company, but they give us new hardware that embodies sustainability, openness, and local production &#8211; and that makes the monome and its principles stronger. (Livid has been crafting performance hardware and Max patches for many years.) And while this bus-powered USB MIDI device doesn&#8217;t yet support (OSC) OpenSoundControl, that could come &#8211; without sacrificing conventional MIDI connections to outboard gear when you don&#8217;t have the computer connected. (Clarification: as with the Ohm64, OSC support is not yet available but should be possible. Stay tuned.)</p>
<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/block2.jpg"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/block2.jpg" alt="block2" title="block2" width="580" height="389" class="alignright size-full wp-image-7923" /></a></p>
<p>Basic specs:<span id="more-7920"></span></p>
<ul>
<li>8&#215;8 backlit keypad with corresponding knobs, function buttons, and faders</li>
<li>Square layout that can be used at any rotation (so the USB port lies where you want it)</li>
<li>Runs a suite of apps built in Max/MSP from Livid &#8211; including a sampler, synth, sequencer</li>
<li>blockEditor for customizing layouts, lights</li>
<li>US$399, available November 1</li>
</ul>
<p>I&#8217;m interested in more open software, so I&#8217;m working on making an editor in Java and would love to hear what else people might want. (SuperCollider looper? Pd algorithmic grid controller? Processing library?) These I hope to make work both with the Livid hardware&#8217;s added faders and knobs, and the monome&#8217;s more minimal design. Of course, OSC will be terrific for computer applications if that comes to pass, but I love the idea of gear that can also talk to MIDI hardware.</p>
<p>I really like Novation&#8217;s Launchpad, but for a little more money, you get a beautiful case, additional controls, and added flexibility, all in gear handcrafted by the maker and with an open approach to hardware and software. Without getting into a debate over the merits one way or another, consider this: <em>you can choose</em>. We didn&#8217;t use to have these kinds of choices in music hardware. The fact that we do now &#8211; not only the ability to choose the nameplate, but the very philosophy behind the device&#8217;s manufacture &#8211; I think can benefit everyone, users and manufacturers alike. It opens up the entire music tech industry to new ideas and new variety.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lividinstruments.com/hardware_block.php">http://www.lividinstruments.com/hardware_block.php</a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>72</slash:comments>
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		<title>PlayBox and PlayLive: Multitouch Control of Ableton Live and Beyond</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/12/playbox-and-playlive-multitouch-control-of-ableton-live-and-beyond/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/12/playbox-and-playlive-multitouch-control-of-ableton-live-and-beyond/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:08:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ableton-Live]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alternative-controllers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[berlin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[code]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DIY]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Electronics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[multitouch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[python]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[touch]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=7913</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As computer music practice &#8211; part composition, part instrumental play &#8211; spreads, the idea of software interface as performance tool is becoming second nature. Putting those opposable thumbs and sensitive fingertips to work, multitouch controllers are growing in number, variety, and sophistication. Berlin-based artist Marco Kuhn shows off his beautiful creation, the PlayBox multitouch hardware, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/playlive.png"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/playlive_t.png" alt="playlive_t" title="playlive_t" width="580" height="379" class="alignright size-full wp-image-7915" /></a></p>
<p>As computer music practice &#8211; part composition, part instrumental play &#8211; spreads, the idea of software interface as performance tool is becoming second nature. Putting those opposable thumbs and sensitive fingertips to work, multitouch controllers are growing in number, variety, and sophistication. Berlin-based artist Marco Kuhn shows off his beautiful creation, the PlayBox multitouch hardware, and its first app, PlayLive. That first software focuses on Ableton Live performance, but Live could be just the beginning &#8211; Marco has worked with Pd in the past and promises other apps to come. He&#8217;s interested in selling this device in the future, and he shares with us the tools he used to create this work for those of you doing development along similar lines.</p>
<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/playbox.jpg"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/playbox.jpg" alt="playbox" title="playbox" width="553" height="474" class="alignright size-full wp-image-7918" /></a><span id="more-7913"></span></p>
<blockquote><p>The Project:</p>
<p>&#8220;Play Box&#8221; is is a User Interface for Natural User Interaction.<br />
? allows multi-touch and object recognition (TUIO marker)<br />
? hovering is also possible<br />
? 22 ” TFT display , 1680 x 1050 pixel<br />
? robust<br />
? plug`n play</p>
<p>&#8220;Play Live&#8221; is a dedicated multitouch controller surface for Ableton Live.</p>
<p>- GUI Elements support multi-touch interaction<br />
- easy to setup , just load the “Play” Control Surface<br />
- you need no controller assignment<br />
- you can control 32 tracks and 127 scenes, that are 4064 clips<br />
- track controls are mute, solo, record, send1, send2, pan, level<br />
- scene feedback name and state<br />
- clip feedback color, name and state<br />
- Transport control<br />
- 2 Returns<br />
- Master<br />
- support bidirectional communication<br />
- display track level meter, name</p>
<p>The whole app is coded in python.<br />
- use Python Ableton Live API<br />
- and libavg <a href="http://www.libavg.de">www.libavg.de</a> for the GUI and Trackingengine<br />
- PyPortMidi receive/send Midi Messages</p>
<p>&#8220;Play Live&#8221; Future plans:<br />
- FX View per Track<br />
- subpage for abstract clip controlling</p>
<p>I tested it with my mac book pro, &#8220;Play Live&#8221; and &#8220;Ableton Live&#8221; is running at the same machine. It should work on all platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X). That Project started with my Diploma Thesis in Applied Computer Science 1 year ago.</p>
<p>Everything is coded and built by myself. The GUI &#8211; elements has been designed by Gösta Wellmer.</p>
<p>In this work, I created a GUI-Controller Library which allow me to Develop very rapidly Multitouch Interfaces for other Audio Environments.<br />
More Apps coming soon ;-)</p>
<p>I [plan] to sell the&#8221; Play Box&#8221; and Apps like &#8220;Play Live&#8221; if anyone is interested.<br />
The price is yet not specified.</p>
<p>That`s not my first multitouch Interface. 2 Years ago I created forfour &#8211; <a href="http://forfour.hi-pi.de/">http://forfour.hi-pi.de/</a><br />
- used PD, Processing, Reactivision and OGRE.<br />
But the &#8220;Play Box&#8221; is another level;-)</p></blockquote>
<p>For more on the project:<br />
<a href="http://www.hi-pi.de/play">www.hi-pi.de/play</a></p>
<p>I hope to have video to share soon &#8211; and yeah, it&#8217;s time to plan another visit to Berlin.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>12</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Eigenharp Details: MIDI, High-Res Protocol, and Open Source Plans for the Space Bassoon</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/09/eigenharp-details-midi-high-res-protocol-and-open-source-plans-for-the-space-bassoon/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/09/eigenharp-details-midi-high-res-protocol-and-open-source-plans-for-the-space-bassoon/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:57:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bassoon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[C++]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eigenharp]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[instrument-design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[instruments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MIDI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[open-source]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[OSC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[protocols]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[python]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[technical-details]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[USB]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=7909</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Pico model may lack the impressive array of keys on the flagship Alpha, but when it ships next month it&#8217;ll cost well under a grand. And even the Pico promises high-resolution touch, velocity-sensitive keys that you can &#8220;bend&#8221; as well as press, and high-resolution breath input.
The &#8220;space bassoon&#8221; Eigenharp seems to have landed from [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/pico.jpg"></p>
<div class="imgcaption">The Pico model may lack the impressive array of keys on the flagship Alpha, but when it ships next month it&#8217;ll cost well under a grand. And even the Pico promises high-resolution touch, velocity-sensitive keys that you can &#8220;bend&#8221; as well as press, and high-resolution breath input.</div>
<p>The <a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/08/bassoon-of-the-future-eigenharp-launches-preview-of-whats-to-come/">&#8220;space bassoon&#8221; Eigenharp</a> seems to have landed from another planet. Today, I&#8217;ve got good news: it&#8217;s bringing alien gifts with it. By next year, both the software and the high-performance protocol the instrument uses will be open source. Taken together with other advancements in the open source community and with protocols like OSC, that could mean we&#8217;re at the vanguard of a golden age for more open, more intelligent, more expressive digital instruments.</p>
<p>Genuinely new music controllers made available commercially don&#8217;t come along very often. So this week&#8217;s news of a strange but wonderful-looking instrument shaped like a bassoon with customizable key controls turned many heads. With high-resolution, high-frequency data and reliance on the computer for everything from sound generation to mapping the keys to different tunings, the computer connection matters. Eigenharp&#8217;s chairman, John Lambert, sets the record straight for CDM on the software, the way it talks to your computer and other gear, and how open the tools and protocol will be.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll be talking more with John next week, but I want to bring you this news now. Part of blogging means that you don&#8217;t hold back &#8211; you share that first reaction and then learn more. I&#8217;m pleased to say I was dead wrong on the Eigenharp. What looked on the spec sheet like MIDI-only communication and proprietary software turns out to be just the opposite. Sometimes, being wrong is great. Here are all the details:<span id="more-7909"></span></p>
<p><strong>What protocol do the instruments use?</strong></p>
<p>The instruments talk to their base station by a dedicated, high speed, differential, transformer-coupled, error-correcting digital protocol designed (and tested) for use in noisy stage environments by ourselves. The wire used is a 4 core, standard star quad mic cable and can be up to 40M long. The base station then talks to the control software running on the host PC (Mac at the moment) via a dedicated protocol over USB2. In the host system, the native protocol used between agents (our software components) is a network protocol called Eigentalk. This can run over Ethernet wires (with slightly increased latencies due to some smart jitter buffering we do). We will be making this public and freely available (when we open-source our main software) in Febuary next year. There is an open API, to be published at the same time, for our equivalent of AU&#8217;s or VST&#8217;s, hosted in our software, EigenD. This is rather richer than the AU and VST API&#8217;s, for reasons connected with the expressiveness and configure-ability (is that a word?) of our system. A couple of interesting AU vendors are looking at producing native EigenD instruments at the moment, and I think there will be many more in time. We try to avoid MIDI wherever possible as it has so many serious performance limitations.</p>
<p><strong>Had you considered OSC?</strong></p>
<p>We did have a look at OSC but there are a bunch of things that our protocol does that OSC didn&#8217;t (not least of which, for example, is clock syncronisation for jitter removal, utterly vital over ethernet for live performance) so we decided to grow our own and release it. Absolutely no reason whatsoever that we can&#8217;t interoperate fuly with it though, I suspect that an OSC EigenD Agent will probably come quite soon after the open source release.</p>
<p><em>Ed.: Actually, with OSC (OpenSoundControl) moving increasingly toward broader input and assimilating other standards, I can easily imagine that a future implementation of OSC could begin to implement these features. More on both protocols in the coming months. -PK</em></p>
<p><strong>Is it possible to use this as a controller for MIDI hardware? MIDI software?</strong></p>
<p>Yes, EigenD has in and out MIDI gateway programs. The incoming [MIDI] is mainly used for pedalboards at the moment (to control scale, key, tempo, etc.), although there is no reason you couldn&#8217;t use a midi keyboard to play notes. We&#8217;re using the MIDI out to do a wide variety of things, including playing MIDI sound modules, and controlling video DJ software and lighting systems. There is a huge reduction in effective bandwidth when &#8216;downsampling&#8217; to MIDI, but for a lot of things it still works very well. And of course, the AU and VST standards (which we fully support) are a kind of MIDI interface.</p>
<p><strong>Is it possible to access its native protocol for custom software / Max-Pd patches and the like?</strong></p>
<p>Well, we&#8217;re open sourcing the whole thing early next year, and I think there&#8217;ll be a lot of work done to glue all sorts of external stuff in then. Max/MSP has attracted a lot of interest in this area. The whole of EigenD is kind of built for this really. We&#8217;re an Open Source company: my main personal desktop is Linux and I have a strong personal commitment to open standards. I offer a number of &#8216;programming bounties&#8217; for Linux improvements on my personal website at <a href="http://johnhenrylambert.com">http://johnhenrylambert.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Tell us more about open-sourcing the software. What tools did you use to build the software.</strong></p>
<p>It&#8217;s written in a mixture of C++ and Python. It&#8217;s quite scary code, but very clean and pretty, with little &#8216;cruft&#8217;. I think the open source community are going to have fun with it. Its a big system too, 8 years of R&#038;D in one huge release. I don&#8217;t think that there&#8217;s been anything quite like this open sourced before in the music world &#8211; it is a bit as if Logic or Ableton were GPL&#8217;d tomorrow.</p>
<p><strong>Thanks, John! Stay tuned for more details, and let me know if you have specific questions for the creators.</strong></p>
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		<title>Handmade Music: Cybernetics, Wireless Beats, and Ingenious Sonic Circuits</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/08/handmade-music-cybernetics-wireless-beats-and-ingenious-sonic-circuits/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/08/handmade-music-cybernetics-wireless-beats-and-ingenious-sonic-circuits/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:22:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[austin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[awesomeness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[circuits]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cybernetics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DIY]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dr-bleep]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[drum-machines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Electronics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eric-archer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hacking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[handmade-music]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[how-to]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[instructions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sync]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wireless]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=7889</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[four tiny drum machines from ALH84001 on Vimeo.
Cybernetics is poised to make a comeback. The theory is, everything from electronic circuits to plants and animals can be understood in terms of feedback loops, as organisms &#8211; mechanical or organic &#8211; respond to input from their surroundings. The father of modern cybernetics, MIT mathematician Norbert Weiner, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object width="580" height="435"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6345584&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=CC0000&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6345584&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=CC0000&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="580" height="435"></embed></object>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/6345584">four tiny drum machines</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1081686">ALH84001</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics">Cybernetics</a> is poised to make a comeback. The theory is, everything from electronic circuits to plants and animals can be understood in terms of feedback loops, as organisms &#8211; mechanical or organic &#8211; respond to input from their surroundings. The father of modern cybernetics, MIT mathematician Norbert Weiner, was <a href="http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_wiener.htm">inspired by working on the guidance systems</a> of missiles. His writing was picked up Louis and Bebe Barron, informing their organism-like sonic circuits, as used in the film <em>Forbidden Planet</em>. The word cybernetic itself comes from Plato. Plato was talking about human self-governance. But designed with cybernetic ideas in mind, technology, too, becomes self-governing and autonomous &#8211; and the sonic circuits, too. </p>
<p>Young designers like <a href="http://ericarcher.net">Eric Archer</a> are to me the newest continuation of work like the Barrons&#8217;. Inside his lab, Eric and others are creating hardware that behaves like intelligent life. In the video at top, four tiny drum machines, equipped with insect-like brains and reflexes, network together wirelessly over infrared, responding to light by way of photocells. These tiny devices form a colonial consciousness.</p>
<p>Eric may be a mad scientist, but he isn&#8217;t keeping his work secret or proprietary. He&#8217;s sharing the tools, sharing his methods, and with a whole growing crew of sonic DIYers in Austin, Texas, inviting anyone to join the revolution under the banner of the Handmade Music series. (More on the upcoming event shortly.) If you&#8217;re not from Texas, a lot of this documentation is also appearing online.</p>
<p>Here are more of the creations, plus the simple but powerful circuit that makes it all happen.</p>
<p>And yes, there&#8217;s a lot of potential to wireless IR sync.<span id="more-7889"></span></p>
<p>The drums have names:</p>
<blockquote><p>Drum Machines (Eric Archer)<br />
ASR mk I &#8220;pops&#8221;:  two analog damped sine oscillators with photocell pitch control, 16 presets<br />
ASR mk II &#8220;snappy&#8221;: analog white noise, photocell controlled filter, envelope + VCA, 16 presets<br />
ASR mk III &#8220;twiki&#8221;: photocell tuned analog osc, photocell tuned LPF, envelope + VCA, programmable<br />
ASR mk IV &#8220;boomer&#8221;: analog damped sine oscillator, long decay, photocell pitch envelope, programmable</p></blockquote>
<p>But drum machines are just the beginning of what could eventually be wirelessly synced. First up, this autonomous bassline generator, created by <a href="http://www.4mspedals.com/">4ms Pedals</a></p>
<blockquote><p>The Autonomous Bassline Generator creates deterministic bassline patterns in a sci-fi retro sound by generating melodies on the fly, based on a knob. It&#8217;s just an AVR (attiny44) chip doing all the work, plus an opamp to act as the filter (photocell). The blue button is Tap Tempo, or if you hold it down for 1 second, it syncs up to the pulses on the IR receiver (this lets you beat-sync multiple Andromeda Space Rocker modules). The red button lets you edit a single note in the melody. Pulse-width modulation is currently pre-set to a certain envelope, but that will become user-controllable soon!</p>
<p>Part of the &#8220;Andromeda Space Rockers&#8221; series of modules, see <a href="http://www.ericarcher.net">www.ericarcher.net</a> for drum modules.</p>
<p>The 6-pin header board dangling to the right is an ISP header. Totally hackable!</p></blockquote>
<p><object width="580" height="469"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/puOPrJ6EYBA&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/puOPrJ6EYBA&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="469"></embed></object></p>
<p>&#8220;Ah,&#8221; you say. &#8220;But I have computers and things. I don&#8217;t just want a bunch of little drum machines running around my studio like so many electronic beetles while I furiously tap my tap tempo in Ableton. Can&#8217;t I sync thing up?&#8221;</p>
<p>Yes. Yes, you can. There&#8217;s already a MIDI-to-IR prototype in the works.</p>
<blockquote><p>Four analog drum machines are synchronized with a desktop computer running Logic. Logic is playing a loop with TR808 samples. MIDI timecode from Logic is converted to IR Sync with a PIC microcontroller. The PIC flashes an infrared LED, providing wireless clock to a chain of analog drum modules. Each drum module has an onboard sequencer, analog sound generator, and IR Sync repeater. At the end of the video, the tempo is increased to almost 3000 BPM. In a separate test, the system played OK at 1000 BPM. Of course this tempo is ridiculous but it is a nice &#8220;torture test&#8221; of Nathan&#8217;s PIC code.</p>
<p>PIC stuff: Nathan Wooster<br />
drum machines: Eric Archer</p></blockquote>
<p>Our friends at <a href="http://bleeplabs.com/">Bleep Labs</a> also have projects in the works.</p>
<p>Eric and 4ms have contributed the circuits at the heart of this.</p>
<p>This simple circuit handles infrared clock networking. (Click for the full circuit.) I&#8217;m assuming you know how to read this; we may have to put together an actual how-to tutorial for those new to electronics, too.</p>
<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/irclock.png"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/irclock-300x197.png" alt="irclock" title="irclock" width="300" height="197" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7895" /></a></p>
<p>And 4ms has a version for interfacing with microcontrollers.</p>
<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/hairnet.png"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2009/10/hairnet-300x225.png" alt="hairnet" title="hairnet" width="300" height="225" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7896" /></a></p>
<p>The Barrons would be proud.</p>
<p>For more on the Handmade Music series as it spreads around the planet, visit <a href="http://handmademusic.noisepages.com"> http://handmademusic.noisepages.com</a>.</p>
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