If you want new ideas about design and interaction, ask a musician. Before the Wii remote, the iPhone, Microsoft’s Surface, and Minority Report, musicians were trying oddball ideas for music performance. That hasn’t slowed down, either, from the futuristic and space-y to down-and-dirty acoustic techniques. We’ve got quite a gamut coming up for our madcap, sound and noise-packed hour of competition happening this Saturday at NASA’s Ames Research center during Yuri’s Night, and we’d love to share them with everyone online.

For starters, here’s the rundown of the projects with links to project sites and artists, and all the judges:

Futuristic Music Design Challenge: Meet the Competitors, Judges

Join the event on Facebook

The projects: the Bubblegum Sequencer (previously on CDM), The Box custom hardware with colored lights + Reaktor ensemble, the surface-temperature tangible interface table Weather Report (previously on CDM), the strange polygonal Kromatron wireless instrumental interface, the Thimbletron gloves-as-samplers with lab coated performers project (previously on CDM), the bicycle wheel and analog tape Looping Pedal (previously on CDM), the computer-powered musical saw WaveSaw, the 28-string just-intoned microtonal casmolyra, the turntablist custom software ammoBox and the GrooveStep DS pattern maker (previously on CDM).

I’m also pleased to announce…

The judges:

• Roger Linn, father of the modern drum machine (in my opinion, anyway) and creator of the MPC60 for Akai, plus recent creations — and he plays the mandolin
• Liz Enthusiasm, lead singer of Freezepop (check out their albums or just play a Harmonix game) and evidently an expert on Dr. Pepper
• (Matt) Ganucheau, a mastermind of Yuri’s Night’s music and art, a composer and sound designer (and teacher of sound design for games), an electronic musician, and creator of the NSFW "foreplay robot" Moaning Lisa
• … and yours truly as emcee

Speaking of Roger Linn, Tom at Music Thing just posted an auction on the pre-Akai prototype.

Hopefully we’ll get to do some quick interviews with the judges, as well, for Planet CDM. Stay tuned on yuricdm.com.

It’s tough to pull off an April Fool’s joke in the age of the blogosphere, because on April 1, everyone’s RSS feeds are saturated with fake news.

So, how do you fool people? With real news that seems outlandish enough to be a joke. It wouldn’t be the first time 4/1 became an auspicious date; Apple, Inc. incorporated as a business on the first of April.

And so, it seemed I got … uh, punked. Because sources close to Asheville tell us that the Moog guitar, teased yesterday in a video, is really coming. A guitar from Moog. You heard that right. (More comments are coming in, leaving no question: it’s real. Oops.) The Moog Music homepage has the video, so maybe someone who knows something about guitars / doesn’t already look like an idiot regarding this story would like to comment?

I just hope Gibson doesn’t sue Moog claiming to have invented sound.

At least this is a 4/1 fake. Right? Isn’t it?

Photo courtesy Matrixsynth @ Flickr; see “New Moog Guitar Related?”

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FL Studio 8 is here, more or less — as I write this, Release Candidate 3 is available for download, but the final version appears imminent. So, as other tools have matured, why is it that FL is one of those few programs that seems to attract real love?

The press release for the new FL Studio (known to everyone except developer Image-Line as “Fruity Loops”) keeps using the term “DAW.” I have nothing against that, even though DAW as a term has little do with music. (It is the sound English speakers make when they see a cute little lambie or puppy. You know, “dawwwww!….”) It’s a familiar situation: Ableton Live, whose developers came up with the far more descriptive “live sequencing instrument” for their product, felt (rightfully) that Live could compete with more traditional programs and so adopted an otherwise meaningless name. As in that case, FL’s combination of MIDI and audio tools, plug-in hosting and (cough, Reason!) audio recording means you can produce music end to end with it. (Too bad the acronym “DAW” does nothing to hint at what it means.)

What it means to be Fruity

  So, it’s not that FL isn’t a DAW — it’s that it is something else that other programs may not be. I think it needs its own acronym, especially with FL 8 stronger than ever after nearly a decade of ever-maturing releases, a passionate audience, and a dedication to talented developer Arguru, whom the music software community lost last year.

Some nominations:

Insane Idiosyncratically-Awesome Music Suite — IIAMS! Wait, no, that sounds like dog food. (Dawwwww!)

Toybox of Sonic Wonders — TOWS.

Beat Bonanza Tracker Sequencer Hybrid — pronounced BbbbbTHHS!, which is the sound I suggest you make at anyone who suggests FL isn’t capable of serious music or “sounds bad.” (Try to produce some spittle in the process.)

(your superior idea here)

Why am I making a fuss over this? Let me see if I can boil it down:

• FL’s approach to sequencing is like nothing else. Rich MIDI sequencing tools meet up with a unusually-focused approach to patterns and loops. It’s really a kind of hybrid between conventional sequencers and music trackers, blending some of the best of each. At first, that can make it confusing to use, but once you wrap your head around the combination, it can be very powerful.
• It’s kind of a ridiculous value. US$50-$100 buys you a perfectly usable version of the program — not a stripped-down, crippled version; you even get some extras. The most you can spend is about US$199-299, or $399 if you absolutely have to have it in a box. Opening that collection is like walking into an art museum of plug-in development, from avant-garde oddities to classics, with all the bundled noisemakers. Only it’s a museum where you can lick the paintings. For soft synth lovers, even the $500 Logic Pro bundle or new $1000 Ableton suite can’t compare in sheer value.
• It keeps getting better. Cheap and free upgrades keep you getting new features. FL has gradually matured from a nifty niche tool to one of the most mature programs out there. And download versions have lifetime free upgrades.
• It’s not for everyone. Some people find the interface maddening. Its kitchen-sink approach may frighten away people who don’t have an appetite for synths and sequencing. And it generally seems to attract a special crowd of FL lovers. But that’s why we love it. And go ahead, hate it if you don’t get it — FL lovers won’t care.
• It’s a reason to use Windows. Because of the way it was developed, FL almost certainly won’t be appearing on the Mac any time soon. But FL can make Windows look better, with rock-solid platform support, Vista support on day one when a lot of other things were broken, and rich ASIO support. It even installs ASIO4ALL by default so you can use the headphone jack on your laptop and other non-ASIO hardware. You could do that yourself. But it shows they care.

It’s always fascinating to me how people hear, what they thing of as “real” or “authentic,” and what meaning they find in the things they listen to.

Yesterday, we got a glimpse of a new car advertisement for Ford in the UK featuring instruments constructed from automobile components:

Interview: Building a Musical Ensemble Out of Ford Focus Car Parts

What you see on the screen, of course, is not literally what you hear — the TV ad and soundtrack are edited together, and this is a car ad, not a documentary. But quite a few readers (and even blogs elsewhere) wondered if they were actually hearing instruments constructed from the Ford Focus — or if there was some audio fakery going on, as well.

Following up on our interview (which was evidently an exclusive for CDM, whatever that’s worth), sound designer Bill Milbrodt actually called me last night and we got to have a long chat about the whole process.

Here’s the short answer:

Yes, the instruments are really made from a Ford Focus. (The strings are conventional strings, which has a huge impact on timbre, but until Ford starts putting something that can substitute for strings into their cars, you’ll have to live with that.) Yes, musicians really did play them. Yes, you really do hear that recording (edited) in the ad. Bill points out that they could have saved a lot of money by just creating props. This is, indeed, the real thing.

And yes, the musical effect is awfully close to classical music played on conventional instruments. That was apparently the requirement of the agency and director. The sound of the Car Music Project is very different — and I suspect a little closer to the tastes of the readers here. Here’s what the ensemble sounds like live, at least until we get live footage of the Ford Focus ensemble (got my fingers crossed for that):

I just find it really interesting that people reacted the way they did — and to the whole issue of authenticity and recordings. We’re both immediately suspicious of anything recorded, yet cling to the idea of a recording as a “factual record” — despite the fact that sound depends entirely on your point of view. Even with live sound, you might experience a different concert in a different part of the hall. With recordings, mic choice, mic placement, and other factors impact the sound even before someone’s had a shot at digital “manipulation.” You know that, I know that — but still, we have some sort of deeply-ingrained expectations about what a recording is, or what we want it to be, that go beyond even the technical knowledge of a group of practictioners.

Of course, it’s curiosity about how things are actually done that drives some of this site, so I say, keep asking questions and questioning your ears.

But, for the record, this ensemble is, for all practicality, real. And there’s really not a cello on that recording, I swear.

Here are the full technical details from Bill, with links to still more information — and this answer actually winds up going into more of the nuts and bolts (sorry) of how these instruments were used musically:

We’ve seen basses and turntables made from motorcycles, and bicycle parts turned into DJ setups, ensembles, and The Nutcracker. But The Car Music Project has gone further, building two entire ensembles out a single car, first a sound designer’s old Honda Accord and, more recently, deconstructing a brand-new Ford Focus into a full instrumental ensemble in just five weeks.

In other words, before — a five-door 2008 Ford Focus hatchback as built for the UK market looks like this:

… and after the Car Music Project gets to it, 21 parts from that car become 31 individual instruments:

The ad campaign premiered yesterday in England. Above: the extended, three-minute version.

More: More cowbell! Ford turns Focus into musical instruments [Autoblog]

I got to talk to New York-based sound designer Bill Milbrodt, who led a 22-person team to build the instruments, with Ray Faunce III managing fabrication. Composer Craig Richey, who scored The King of Kong, Friends With Money, and Lovely & Amazing (among others), wrote the music for the ensemble.

Bill describes to CDM the daunting task of going from Ford hatchback to chamber ensemble. It’s an incredible insight into instrument design and construction, whether your DIY instrument tastes tend in the acoustic or digital realms.

PS, to the Crave blog and other doubters: the music is real. They actually made some fantastic-sounding instruments out of that Ford Focus. I certainly know when I buy an automobile, I like the peace of mind that comes from buying one I could later deconstruct with 22 skilled metalworkers and play original scores on.

The Martenot is a bit like the Theremin’s sexy, friendly younger sister. If the Theremin is a tricky-to-drive race car, the Martenot is a sleek, road-ready coupe. (Okay, I’ve been watching way, way too much Top Gear.)

Anyway, the Martenot gets way too little credit. It’s played the theme from Star Trek. (Not a Theremin.) It’s played Radiohead. It’s played some really gorgeous Messiaen. Martenot met Theremin and the two went on to direct the course of electrified music in the 20th Century.

The Martenot has gotten a lovely round-up on MetaFilter:

Ondes Martenot, or, When Maurice Met Leon

… and you can read more at Obsolete.com, or even Encyclopedia Britannica. (Those over the age of 25, you can explain the retro appeal of these early treeware Wikipedias.)

Andrew Cordani of Midisticks sends this our way, and just at the right time — the Martenot is a terrific example of the kind of thing you can do with continuous controllers, like ribbons. So go pick up that free ribbon circuit kit and get with the inventing! Come on, "will exercise more" is no fun as a New Years’ resolution, is it? How about "will build my own Martenot"?

I’ve always been fascinated with the evolution of species. Ever seen those bizarre, short-lived organisms in textbooks, the ones that look like they have twelve eyes and a hundred really tall legs and a spindly tail that serves no purpose? I feel the same way about new instruments, interfaces, and music software. Sometimes it’s the evolutionary aberrations — whether practical or not — that are the most interesting, and that perhaps tell us the most about the more dominant species. (Hello, guitars.) And with an open door policy for DIY instruments, we’ve seen some wonderfully unusual experiments at the Handmade Music event series along just these lines.

Continuing our performance series, with assistance from Make Magazine and Etsy.com, we had some special guests last Sunday at openhousegallery in SoHo, New York: the Mister Resistor Ensemble. Headed by Ranjit Bhatnagar, the inventive sound artist who brought us robotic Theremins and MIDI ironing boards, this group of students from Parsons is lucky enough to spend a whole semester building fun instruments with hardware and software. The results are clearly experimental, but that’s the point. Some informal video clips:

Handmade Music: Mister Resistor from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.

A big thanks to our beverage sponsor, Function Drinks, and the lovely venue, openhousegallery New York, for making the event possible!

Crispin writes to tell us about his site, which lists a couple hundred free VST plug-ins (most are Windows-only). You can add that to the growing list of places you can find free music software tools, as well as "reasons no one can argue computer music is too expensive" and "reasons no one has an excuse to pirate software."

With that many choices, I asked Crispin to tell us his top five favorites. Here’s what he came up with (in no particular order), plus a few words from me:

DSK Brass: Sample-based brass instrument, with two layers and 23 waveforms, effects, automation support, and even micro-detuning. There was a full tutorial [PDF link] in a recent issue from our friends at Computer Music magazine (UK).

DSK StringZ: Sample-based strings, two layers, separate ADSR envelopes for each layer, effects, automation. (See above, but for strings.)

Syntar: A sytar-like synthesizer.

Dr-Fusion 2: Drum sampler and synth with, well, a ridiculous number of identical silver knobs. Layering, per-sample controls, and effects round out the various goodies.

Tapeworm: Mellotron-inspired synth with fine-tuning and automation support. (Get it? Tape?)

In case you’re not overwhelmed enough by these options (once you click through, you’ll find loads more stuff at each developer site), Crispin’s regular site has more:

http://freemusicsoftware.org/

Previously:
The Best, 100% Free Windows Music Plug-ins - Just Add Host (Updated) (including a number of Mac plug-ins in there, and yes, we do need to do a good best of Mac list)
Straight Out of No Cash series

Norman Fairbanks has released the first album produced entirely on the Tenori-On, the unusual LED-bestrewn sequencing sampler instrument currently available from Yamaha in the UK. It’s a no-risk listen: the full album is available for download free from his website. The results sound like a Tenori-On album, with minimal looping patterns a bit like those you’d expect out of a newly-invented Pocket Steve Reich Machine, but the textures get immersed in a cool, ambient landscape. Good listening for gray November days here.

Now, pitching an album as produced entirely on a new, buzz-friendly instrument is clearly a nice gimmick — Yamaha even sent out a press release touting the creation. (One more reason for us non-Brits to be jealous.) But I was curious nonetheless what drove Norman to use just one instrument. The lesson here is nice: sometimes limited tools can be ideal. And this confirms for me what’s beginning to happen with new digital interfaces, which is that they’re not so much instruments in the traditional sense as windows into musical structure, part way between instrument and score. Here’s how Norman responded to CDM’s Five Questions:

I know what I want for Christmas.

Accordion Hero II [Shadenfreude Interactive GmbH]
via: Accordion Hero makes you want others in the genre [Make:blog] and MITer Cati’s blog Architectradure. (Nope. Can’t pronounce that, Cati.)

Come on, you know this was your first thought when you saw the original Guitar Hero. (I know it was mind. I also wondered about maybe Contrabassoon Hero.) And check that double-bellowed controller. Perfect for playing the song lineup:

• Leichtensteiner Polka, Traditional
• The Bowling King, Those Darn Accordions
• Can’t Touch This, M.C. Hammer
• Ya Ya Wunderbar, Frankie Yankovic
• Pictures of Matchstick Men, Status Quo
• In Heaven There Is No Beer, Traditional [Ed.: Whoo! My favorite!]
• Ride The Lightning, Metallica [Don't Fear the Reaper could sound good on accordion, too.]

I have touched the Future

All of this xxx Hero and Rock Band and Harmonix stuff does raise the question: how will we listen to music in the future? Will we have new interactive platforms for music that turn us from passive listeners into active. What will that platform be like? Some of you expressed, to put it kindly, a healthy dose of skepticism when I said I thought a new Harmonix-developed game for the iPod suggested new possibilities for mobile, interactive music.

Now I understand why. The real interactive platform for music could turn out to be a marker and your hands (if you, like me, weren’t one of the 7 million people who found this on YouTube, just wait until about halfway through for it to get interesting):

See also Daft Bodies, though that’s strangely less successful.