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.

PocoPoco is a delightful, fanciful device that takes music control into the realm of kinetic sculpture. Normally, the relationship of music controller is primarily about the operator making physical actions. With PocoPoco, the hardware itself moves. The essential musical structure is familiar: it’s the grid of light-up buttons, with strong similarity to the ongoing interaction design of Toshio Iwai in the 90s and (Tenori-On) past decade. Even aesthetically, there are similarities – perhaps not coincidentally as this team is also Japan-based.

But adding in the element of solenoid-powered cylinders popping out of the grid adds a major element of surprise. There is also an unmistakable similarity to a certain arcade game, Whac-A-Mole.

Whac-A-Mole might be ideal inspiration. The game itself is based on rhythm and time, and the ability (or inability) of the brain to deal with multiple simultaneous stimuli, much in the same way our brain has to track across lines of counterpoint in music. And Whac-A-Mole’s history might be instructive, too: it’s the creation of Creative Engineering, the pioneering kinetic and animatronic company behind Showbiz Pizza and Chuck E. Cheese. (Achievement unlocked: CDM legitimately references Chuck E. Cheese twice in one week.) Founder and design Aaron Fechter’s animatronic shows might not seem a likely source for futuristic interaction design and music, but with the computer added to the equation, simple mechanical effects take on an entirely new significance.

But back to the PocoPoco. As a musical instrument, I’m dubious. It’s fundamentally another a four-by-four step sequencer, so it’s not as though it actually solves a problem. (Well, if you’ve ever wished your step sequencer were also a game of Whac-a-Mole, it’s the invention you’ve been waiting for.) But even if it’s not actually useful, it’s no less intriguing. It could be seen as a tantalizing reminder that adding motion to interfaces could produce musical devices that double as moving sculptures, and performance tools that move rather than sit around waiting for you.

The timing seems right, too, as touch interfaces like the iPad make physical interaction fairly abstract (running your finger on undifferentiated glass), or gestural interfaces take away any touch at all (Kinect).

There’s a great interview at DJ Tech Tools. That’s fitting, as DJTT has popularized their own MIDI Fighter hardware, which accentuates the tactile feel of playing grids by swapping arcade buttons as the input, and likewise has a strong connection as this does to games and arcades. A must-read:

PocoPoco – The Motorized Controller [Interview, DJ TechTools]

Takaharu Kanai, one of the designers from the IDEAA Lab team at Tokyo Metropolitan University, has some good things to say.

Seen other kinetic hardware, or worked on a design of your own? We’d love to see it.

Musical tastes are fickle and diverse – it’s actually the disagreement that makes musical freedom such fun. So I can only ever speak for myself. But ever pick up a compilation, hear a couple of previews, and think to yourself – yup, this one’s going to be on heavy rotation for the coming months.

In an outpouring of love for one of our neighbors, everyone seems to have some sort of benefit for Japan. But Mat Jarvis and Microscopics have put together something really special, a multi-faceted, multi-course feast of electronic sound. The favorites and exclusives on this compilation represent what I feel is some of the best-crafted production technique around. As they describe it, it’s “a supercooled album fractured with exclusives, classics and the new.” Curator Mat Jarvis (Microscopics) writes:

It’s quite a chilled electronic album with tracks and some exclusives from Roedelius ([collaborator of Brian] Eno, Cluster), Richard Barbieri (Japan, Porcupine Tree), Charles Webster (Furry Phreaks etc), Gas, High Skies, Woob and others;
There’s also a bonus DJ mix version, mixed by Charles Webster for anyone who donates above the average.

I also like their donation model. This isn’t Japan’s sorrow being used for promotion (heck, I’ll promote the music, as it gives me real pleasure). The album is simply a gesture that you get back in exchange for donation.

Donation links directly to the Red Cross – any Red Cross and Red Crescent organization. (So, I’ll give to the American Red Cross and choose “where the need is greatest” both for disaster relief in Japan and anywhere it needs to go.)

And this is an appropriate time, I think, to recall that disaster and humanitarian crisis faces other people on Earth all over the world, right now spanning from Japan to Libya. Need can arise literally down the street, or a place that’s completely foreign to your experience. People can find themselves in need in the “developed” world or in the resource-poorest corners of the globe. At least in the new musical community, we get to share work, limited only by our own languages and the (increasingly-expansive) reach of the Internet. Artists are uniquely able to reframe those connections, and help express in ways words can’t how we feel about our own humanity.

Just giving arbitrarily isn’t meaningful, but you can do your homework on an organization like the Red Cross and find that your donation really does go to places where it’s needed, with minimal administrative overhead. (This is, at least, my own opinion and based on volunteering with other NGOs.)

But since we’re musicians, I hope, too, that our musical expressions have some meaning independent of news headlines. I believe pretty strongly that they can be a place to go and reflect and share experience, now across those same geographies, and say something that the news alone can’t. On my darkest days, I find music I love can really make me feel hopeful. I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way, or you wouldn’t be here.

So, enjoy the work of:

Woob
January Tuesday
Lo;rise
Richard Barbieri
High Skies
Charles Webster
Anne Garner
Roedelius
Richard Barbieri
Gas
High Skies

“Supercooled,” indeed – each track is chilled-out, but as dynamic and dense as dry ice.

Anyway, I’ll stop drooling over this particular album and give you time to listen to it. Anyone who claims we don’t have an abundance of great music at our fingertips, from a stunning variety of artists of different backgrounds, probably isn’t looking very hard.

http://www.microscopics.co.uk/japan/

A week ago today a 9.0-magnitude earthquake shook northern Japan, leaving much of the area in utter devastation.  For the past week, all eyes have been on the island nation, most prominently due to the affects the quake has had on nuclear reactors in the area.  Only one day before the quake, Laurent Fintoni made his annual trip to the place he calls his spiritual home.  Laurent is the man behind the Rhythm Incursions site, Original Cultures project and a host of other things in and around the world of modern electronic music.  In the immediate aftermath of the quake, he housed up with Rhythm Incursions co-presenters Raid System and started work on a compilation to be released to support the relief efforts.  Today, exactly one week after the quake, that compilation Nihon Kizuna has been released with a stellar lineup of over 40 artists including Kode 9, Kuedo, Rudi Zygadlo, Daisuke Tanabe, Paul White, Mux Mool, Ernest Gonzales, Onra and many more.

You can listen to a short mix of the music included in the compilation below or just go straight to the Nihon Kizuna site and purchase the compilation.

V.A. – Nihon Kizuna (日本絆) by laurentfintoni

Updated: TRUE CHIP TILL DEATH has a chip music compilation going, too. I know there are many others, so feel free to add them in comments.
http://truechiptilldeath.com/japan/

We live in a fragile world, and I’m immensely grateful for the opportunities we’re gifted to share ideas about music making and engineering, sound and tools.

I will continue our regular content, but I also want to ask all of our readers to reflect on our friends and colleagues impacted directly and indirectly by the aftermath of Friday’s tsunami, earthquake, and nuclear crisis. It is to date one of the most far-reaching disasters in its connection to the larger audience for this site, though we remain sensitive to loss throughout our community worldwide. I want to specifically send our thoughts to our Japanese readers, and our friends at Korg, Roland, Yamaha, and too many other manufacturers and press outlets to name as they face the challenges ahead.

We rely on electricity and network availability to even be connected to one another via this outlet; recent events in Egypt and Japan correlate to odd silences in countries that otherwise make large showings in server logs. But absent those connections, we can still contribute.

I’m sure there will be musical benefits; one such sound design project is being discussed at the monome forum. But as we as musicians and artists share one larger global community (this site alone registers visits from seven continents, and we’re English-only), here are good ways to give. All are in what I’ve been able to research efficient, generous, and well-respected organizations, and all equip themselves to handle not only these most recent events, but unexpected crises around the world. I’ll be giving on CDM’s behalf.

International Rescue Committee
Global Giving
American Red Cross | International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Tech writer Rick Martin has compiled an excellent list of ways to give sorted by where you are in the world.

Updated: See also the record label 12k online shop who are giving 100% of profits (and are themselves supporters of Japanese music), and, in turn, their beneficiary Japan Society’s relief fund

It’s easy for the other things we do to seem meaningless in the face of tragedy, but I believe that part of why we share with each other, commercially and culturally, with music and with tools, is because it is a gift to do so, to be part of a greater community of people. Wherever you are in the world, I can’t thank you enough for that.

From comments (thanks, Charlie Cowper!), here’s a live performance by Japanese electronic artist Rei Harakami on nothing more than a 1990s-vintage multitrack digital workstation, Roland’s VS-880. (The VS-880 was introduced at NAMM in January 1996.) Harakami is a virtuoso on this machine, not simply playing back tracks but dancing through menus and settings and adding live mixing and effects. It’s a mix performance, yes – but it’s a seriously impressive one. And it shows how much this now-”vintage” machine can do, even with some simple parameters.

I’m almost afraid to mention the VS-880, lest we get an arbitrary direct translation of this device as a Roland iPad app. But perhaps the real point here is that choosing limitations, practicing with a tool over an extended period of time, and finding a working and performance method that matters to you is what really makes a difference. It’s not endless parades of iPad apps, not endless parades of VST plug-ins, not endless parades of hardware buys… the list goes on. (And to anyone who bugs you about whether you’ve seen the Gorillaz produce an album entirely with an iPad, I suggest you snarkily refer them back to the VS-880. Ironically, the VS faced the kinds of complaints about quality that mobile devices now face. Then, as now, one might refer instead to the quality of the musical input being recorded, not just the technical restrictions of the gear. Ahem.)

But I’m rambling. The video really says it all. And it’s a reminder that whatever you’re using, you’d better leave some time to practice. On that note…

(PS – how did we get on this topic in the first place? This workstation got our friend Ben Long started on a career path that would lead him to successful music and sound design work in gaming. There’s always a special place in your heart for that first real piece of gear…)

But wait, there’s more… Okay, I was asking for it, I suppose. We’ve already got a submission for an Akai MPC3000, as suggested by Hernan Gonzalez. Unlike most of the countless MPC jams you can find online, though, this one includes a projected screen. Bonus points to Atom Heart TM.

Having made their own DS-10 instrument, Korg and DS developer AQ Interactive yesterday presented something new for the handheld Nintendo. This time, they’re revisiting one of the all-time greatest hits of digital synthesis, the Korg M1 workstation.

Markus Schroeder tips us off that the M1 will be the next release for the DS. An iOS (iPhone/iPad) version may follow, as with Korg’s recent mobile rendition of the ElecTribe.

Markus is also kind enough to translate the Japanese contents of the presentation:

Features are (subject to change / error):

• 300 original M1 PCM Sounds
• 8x multi timbral
• 8 track 16 step sequencer 1 sequence max 64 pattern, max polyphonic sound 12
• master reverb, delay effect
• track overview, sound browser, sequence edit, mixer, keyboard. Simple and functional display
• notes/chords,/drum input mode by touch control
• data exchange by wireless transmit
• drag & drop transpose
• sustained notes

Release Date is set to 31st 12. 2010 over at amazon.co.jp.

(With past experience as a guide, delivery outside Japan may happen later – and it’s a shame this won’t happen by the holidays, huh?)

GearJunkies has a couple of screen shots.

None other than Nobuyoshi Sano does the demonstration, the veteran Namco Bandai composer who contributed to legendary scores for Ridge Racer and the Tekken series, and was the producer of the KORG DS-10 application.

And so it continues: whereas once, only analog synths could be classics or inspire nostalgia, the digital instrument has clearly arrived. The digital follow-up to KORG’s own Legacy Collection tried a similar revival of the M1, but there’s something about having it in a $150 handheld, let alone one that can also swap over to Zelda. Hey, maybe a lap of kart racing will wind up giving you a musical idea.

Check out Markus’ YouTube account for more.

Musicians have long made pictures to represent musical ideas, share those ideas, and allow others to participate. Before computers, we created scores. Now, we can create interfaces, too. Of course, just because you’re using a digital interface doesn’t mean the pencil as prototyping tool has to go anywhere. It’s the quickest way to sketch out an idea. And if your hand is steady, it just might become a lovely, personal interface.

OtoBlock by Tsubasa Naruse is a hand-drawn music sequencer. The basic interface is nothing new, dropping blocks into sequence to make sounds, but the charm is the rough edges on the pencil-made buttons, and the whimsical hand-drawn characters that live on them.

OtoBlock @ iTunes
Tsubasa Naruse website, in Japanese, but don’t miss the other adorable sketches
Via Matrixsynth, by way of Palm Sounds

Here is a 2009 experiment in “sonic interaction” by the same artist, also exploring
some of these ideas. (link) I’m not sure I could even describe it, but the relationship of minimal electronic sounds to handmade animation is utterly irresistible.

So, with mobile music tools like iPhones and portable amps from the likes of Roland and KORG, can you actually go out and make music in a subway? I recall people mocking an old M-Audio ad in which someone was doing laptop production on the subway platform. But when it comes to mobile busking, the same videographer who shot the hands-on video at top also captures an impromptu TB-303 jam in the Tokyo subway. (Apparently, this young woman did not inspire love from the police. Sadly, the app she’s using is entangled in some sort of contract issues.)

More great iOS videos on perfumepod’s channel; it’s a great way to explore different user interfaces:
http://www.youtube.com/user/perfumepod

And yes, I’ve been tipped off to “Tokyo Techno Girl” before; I have to find out more about her.

The urgency of being way behind a single dominant player can make electronics makers do some odd stuff to promote their products. iPod, once an icon of digital cool, has achieved such ubiquity that it doesn’t even try to be hip any more. The thing is being promoted with American Idol, for crying out loud — not exactly indie cred. We saw Microsoft enlisting indie musicians and animators to sell Zune, of course.

But here’s where things get surprisingly amazing: Sony is using weird and wonderful Japanese experimental music to promote Walkman.

Now we’re talking.

And whether or not Walkman is cool again, this is for sure: Japanese experimental musicians? Mind-blowingly cool. And, apparently, in love with using light as a controller for sound.

Atsuhiro Ito uses contact mics on a fluorescent bulb he dubs the Optron. Instead of just being stage eye candy, the bulbs are really making the sounds here; coupled with guitar effects, he can solo on the bulbs. It’s what the Knitting Factory will be like after the nuclear winter. I can’t wait.

Taeji Sawai uses a light pen to draw melodic lines and rhythmic onto a screen. The basic effect – track light from a single source – is old. Yet he’s clearly got a brilliant aesthetic mind that makes it all work; the elements are strikingly simple but never fail to be engaging. And there’s a strong connection to work by his fellow sonic inventor Toshio Iwai.

Thanks to our friend Donald Bell of cnet, aka very talented and (cool) musician Chachi Jones, who has a great write-up:

Sony Walkman promos are awesome, confusing

Confusing? No, I’d say Sony is confusing; the real question is why their Walkman can’t be more like these ads. Plus, since neither Don nor I can read Japanese, how do we know those characters don’t say something like “Hey, guys, sorry for that bit with the lousy boring electronics – we’re coming back from the dark side to make awesome things again”? Okay, maybe not. (Do let me know if the next one says “Fine, you damned snarky blogger, I’d like to see you run a giant multinational corporation.”)

Admittedly, the problem here is this makes me want to toss my iPod touch out the window and build my own open source MP3 player with Popsicle sticks and wire, or, at best, mod an original Walkman so I can play circuit-bent OGG files using power from a bicycle. At the very least, I’m ready to add to my Atsuhiro Ito and Taeji Sawai collection. And I don’t think their full body of work is on iTunes. That’s just as well.

So, Sony, thanks. Now, will you let us run homebrew music apps on your PSP? Please?

Hi there! my name is Tomi from AQI Inc.and I’ll be in charge of this product for international territories. For those of you out there wondering the release of DS-10 other than Japan, well, here’s a good news. YES, we will release DS-10 worldwide and currently we’re making an adjustment with each territory. So please be patient. Your support means a lot to us and we’ll keep you all with the latest update of the international release as soon as possible.

Via Matrixsynth.

Thanks to Mark Mathews for the tip!