Ableton Live controllers are suddenly everywhere, in commercial products and DIY creations. But an in-progress prototype being designed by Serbia-based creator Sasa Djuric, found on the CDM Flickr pool, goes the extra distance to integrate more effectively with the software. The hardware looks more like the on-screen UI, for starters – an elusive objective for many controllers. And by working with the Mackie Control protocol, Sasa is able to make communication between hardware and software fully bi-directional, so the controller gives you essential feedback. There’s even a facility for scratching. The design is based on the popular MIDIbox platform.

Sasa writes with details of what the creation process is like. It’s all still very much in progress, so we’re really excited to see how it evolves into a finished design.

Sasa explains (with videos to follow):

Omer Yosha has created a beautiful, elegant interface that uses infrared sensors to control music applications. Touch-free interfaces, of course, date back to the Theremin, but Omer is trying some new things here, creating an invisible matrix of controls in the air. And I love the way the physical object looks. He writes to tell us about the details:

I’m an Interface Design student from the FH Potsdam (near Berlin), i have a musical background, and the idea to create an AirPiano developed as i was playing around with the Arduino board, Processing and some IR sensors in my free time. It was fun controlling MIDI through moving my hands in the air, so i eventually found a way to set it all up in a way that makes sense and that is easy to control.
The concept behind the AirPiano is having a matrix in the air, with virtual keys & faders. The location of each key must be very clear for the user and easily learnt. The AirPiano is therefore only one example of an application that could adopt this concept. Since it is only the first prototype i built, it features at the moment a matrix with 3 layers, 8 keys for each layer. As long as a key is triggered, a note plays and an LED underneath the virtual key turns on (unfortunately it is hard to see it on the videos). The LEDs give the user additional feedback. The device is connected through USB and communicates with the AirPiano Software, which allows the user to assign each key/fader with a Note/Controller number, Channel and Velocity as well as transpose and save/load presets. The AirPiano Software can communicate with any MIDI instrument/sequencer. It is of course a polyphonic controller.
The AirPiano is not only fun to play, it also invites to experiment, to explore endless arrangements and develop new playing techniques. It might be useful for DJ performance, as a music therapy instrument or as a toy.
I’m at the moment trying to look for investors and people that could help me take this idea further. I presented the prototype two months ago in the Hannover Messe and received very good feedback. The concept is protected as a Provisional U.S. Patent Application.

If you can help him, chime in! I’d love to see what develops.

Here it is controlling Ableton Live:

More photos and another video to give you a sense of how this works (it’s particularly clear once you see the software interface):

Daft Punk is on a mind-blowingly cool tour. Aside from, you know, being Daft Punk, they’ve assembled dazzling futuristic visuals, slick leather jumpsuits, and sophisticated, animated LED helmets.

What? You want to tour with LED helmets, too? It’s easy, outlined in a PDF by the creators. I can make the steps even more brief:

1. Cast your face and make a bust of the face and clay models of all the parts.
2. Modify a motorcycle helmet for the electronics.
3. Design your own LED display and controller board.
4. Glue in LEDs … one … at … a time … and connect three feet of wiring per LED.
5. Build another custom PC board for a control keypad on the armband. (Hey, step #3 was easy enough, right?)
6. Custom manufacture all the exterior plastic and finishing.
7. Paint

The best way to experience all of this is in person, naturally, but here’s a roundup of some terrific coverage.

Daft Punk Concert report and lots of technical details, via our friend Chris O’Shea / Pixelsumo (who points to all the details on the visuals and costumes)

Word of an Upcoming Daft Punk Movie, from our friend and CDM contributor Quantazelle (Liz McLean Knight)

Many, many, many Daft Punk videos on dailymotion.com

Brilliant black-and-white snaps backstage on Flickr from leather jumpsuit designer Hedi Slimane

Alien, futuristic action figures — because they can.

Gobs of videos of the pair in action:

In June 2005, we first saw the Tenori-On, a futuristic music-making device covered in a grid of interactive, lit buttons, designed by the talented interactive artist Toshio Iwai as a prototype for Yamaha. Last week, Yamaha revealed some details about plans to make Iwai’s experimental device into a shipping product. (I missed this in preparations to fly off to Oahu.)

Basic specs: 16×16 grid of buttons, MIDI out, sequencing, and perhaps most surprising, built-in sampling and Motif sound capabilities with internal speakers (plus line-out, naturally). (Notably missing: any mention of network capabilities, which was arguably the most compelling part of the prototype. MIDI out would be notably limited in this respect. Perhaps these features will resurface.)

Anticipated price: £500.
Availability: Unknown, but soon — UK launch first, evidently.

Tenori-On specs [Future Music blog]
Hands-on Tenori-On video [Sonic State]
Tenori-On official site, Toshio Iwai Tenori-On blog, neither of which have been updated as I write this

Much like a car maker releasing a concept car as a factory model, it’s exciting to see this happen. Now there’s only one problem: a lot has happened since June 2005, and light-up buttons you can turn on and off aren’t exactly inaccessible technology. Here’s a quick review of what’s been developing in the world beyond Yamaha since 2005:

How much does circuit bender Gijs Gieskes love circuit boards? Enough to make them into puppets. A little paint, lots and lots of colored lights, and the ability to receive clock signal (MIDI sync) from LSDj, the homebrew music app for Game Boys, and you have a geeky, wonderful animated character who can flash along to your Game Boy beats:

gieskes.nl/visual-equipment/pcb-puppet

Gijs conceived it as a way to add to his Game Boy performances.

This may be not safe for work. It depends on how what you think those flashing circles are. I do think someone in comments on Gijs’ site is reading way too much into the eyes, though.

I received an email this morning from a friendly fellow Australian named Keith. He had googled his way to a short post on my site Jaymis.com looking for a source of Friendly Plastic/Shapelock/Polymorph in Australia. After a couple of emails back and forth I figured out that he’s Keith from plasq/Comic Life/Rax, and he figured out that I’m Jaymis from CDMu/CDMo, but we still didn’t have an Australian source for useful thermoplastics.

Update!: Paul wrote in to tell us that he’s found a source of polymorph in Australia, at the soldergeekly favourite Jaycar! It’s reasonably expensive at $10/100g, but the material is infinitely reusable, and if you have an ABN you can get it through Jaycar’s wholesaler, Electus.

How is this relevant for CDMu readers? Well if you’re able to browse a few pages of CDM stories tagged “DIY” and not end up with a brain full of custom controller ideas, then you must have a much more focussed brain than I do. I’ve been working on a more visually focussed prototype, and as I couldn’t get my hands on any thermoplastics I ended up using casting resin.

Resin gives you a very pretty result but it’s not much fun to work with. Unless, of course, you enjoy inhaling noxious fumes, getting dizzy and spending the rest of the afternoon on the sofa with a headache (I’ve purchased a proper fume mask for my next batch). For a prototype it’s way too time consuming and permanent, so I’m still looking around for thermoplastics. The fact that Keith found my site and has had similar troubles locating any in Australia indicates that there may well be others out there in our situation.

So if there are any Australian readers who can help us find please hit the comments. If you’re also looking for this stuff leave a comment too and we’ll notify you when we’re successful in tracking some down.

Ed: I definitely want to make sure Jaymis gets some of this stuff in Australia because then he and I can work on DIY projects using it and share the results with you loyal CDMers! I’m also interested in hearing if any of you know about this material or alternative materials and want to tell us about your experiences with it, so non-Australians, please hit comments, too! -PK

Media artist Toshio Iwai continues to develop stunning, fanciful ways of making music. From SONAR, here is Toshio Iwai working live with his Tenori-On music controller, in case you haven’t seen this already:

More YouTube goodness after the jump, but let’s skip ahead to the even better news: Toshio Iwai has started a development blog for the Tenori-On. Nat, the graphics designer behind Create Digital Music, has all the details on his blog onetonnemusic.

Tenori-On Report by Toshio Iwai and Tenori-On Development Team

Aside from keeping tabs on the Tenori-On, you can watch other ideas develop, like a blue-lit sound installation on a music stand. (Clever way of making that portable!) Also, in case you weren’t jealous enough of the people who got to go to SONAR, we appear to have missed what looks like a bumper car rave. Okay, I’m officially saving up miles for next year.

Videos and additional links after the jump. (Thanks to Fabio and Señor Pantalones for the tips. Okay, there’s a silly sounding sentence.)

Toshio Iwai, creator of Electroplankton, is working on a new digital musical instrument with Yamaha. It’s called the Tenori-On and, at least from an industrial design point of view, it looks beautiful. And if you’re in Spain, you can check it out live in action.

I don’t care how great your touch typing skills are, when you’ve been drinking beer and jumping around on stage for an hour you’re going to need some light to help you trigger that next sample. Fortunately for laptop performers an increasing number of current machines are coming with integrated lighting solutions. Whether it’s the Macbook Pro’s backlit keyboard or the Thinkpad Thinklight these gadgets are a boon for electronic musicians.

My primary VJ machine is a Thinkpad so I’ve got no lighting issues there, but I also have a second Asus laptop for running Live or generating visuals. It has no keyboard light and I haven’t picked up a commerical LED lamp, so at the moment my keyboard technique is to feel for the f bump or to bend down and squint wildly. I did have a bunch of LEDs and USB cables waiting around for the right project, but it seems the project may have been waiting for me.

Australia’s Silicon Chip magazine published these cheap and cheerful instructions (via Make) in 2002. My electronics knowledge is minimal but perhaps a couple of LEDs could be chained to obviate the need for complicated things like resistors.

Alternatively: a bunch of LED throwies could be attached to nearby ferrous gear and angled to provide an audience of helpful fireflies.

Via Pixelsumo comes a fantastic lineup of links to futuristic interfaces for music, etc. If you were impressed by Cycling 74’s new Lemur touchscreen, with the power to let you touch multiple points on a pad simultaneously for controlling music/sound/etc., Jeff Han has built his own. His Frustrated Total Internal Reflection project may sound like some sort of existential experience, but it’s really an optical system for tracking multiple finger touches on a screen. You need a back projector, so it’s not as portable or compact as the Lemur, but watch the video: extremely low latency, extremely high sensitivity. Jeff has other tricks up his sleeve, too: using LEDs for touch control, and volumetric 3D displays using dust, among others. I’m heading to NYU later this week, so I’ll have to see if there’s something in the water. If you’re at Siggraph, go check these out and let us know more!