The Music Bore – Video 2 from Nicholas Humfrey on Vimeo.

“I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t allow you to listen to Coldplay.”

What would radio be like if playlists were not only robotic, but had robot DJs pulling information from the Interwebs dynamically? That’s the question asked by the winning team at London’s Music Hackday last weekend, which created an epic mashup of data sources to produce a voice-synthesized IRC chatbot that researches and plays music for you.

Music Bore

Music Bore was just one of a number of projects developed in the weekend of musical hacking, some for listening, and at least one (a fantastic and free synth plug-in) for what we really like – production. With some of the world’s top musical coders in attendance, the results were amazing, even if not all projects were entirely finished. (Hey, that’s why they call it hacking.)

You can check out the full list on the wiki, but here are some favorites — and if you were there, do shout out to us as you put more documentation up of the event and projects.

Harmony Box by Dave and Mike is a synth plug-in for Mac (AU/VST) and Windows (VST, thus also Linux) that quickly creates lovely chords. I love the simplicity of the instrument – really lovely work, gents – and I think I may actually use it on a project. They accept donations if you’d like to see this instrument mature. Of course, with everyone else doing Web mash-ups, this didn’t win, but it’s more up our alley. (Web 2.0 – meh, whatever.)

The synth has its own project blog:
http://davenoise.com/blog/

Other winners (in our book, and as recommended by Harmony Box co-creator Dave Gamble):

LonelyHarps by Jamie Hollingworth and David Padbury is a Last.fm-based tool concept that helps you find dates – and choose the right tracks to set the mood – using music for compatibility. And, really, do you really want to date someone who doesn’t have musically compatible tastes? (I’m sure it’s just because they spotted lots of hotties on Last.fm, but…) The only bad news: the app didn’t actually get fully made yet, but we’ll stay tuned, gents. They do have impressive-looking formulas.

Music Zeitgeist by Cristiano Betta visualizes lyrics by decade, such as the 1980s, above. (Yeah, it was all about wanting and karma, the 80s.) Check out the project directly.

Theremag by Jono Cole and Jonty Wareing of Last.fm is actually the app I most want to see, but there’s no documentation yet. It’s a Theremin emulator on the Google Android-based HTC G1, with an unusual sensor — the built-in magnetometer (the one that normally acts as the compass) which was used to pitch-bend Michael Jackson. Once they get documentation up, expect to see it here. (I love that magnet sensor, too. Good fun.)

iPhone Music Visualizer by George J Cook and Matt Biddulph grabs Soundcloud files, analyzes them with Echonest (which recently got an iPhone-friendly Cocoa API), and then plays them back with a visualizer. It looks like a great place to get started if you’re planning on building something similar yourself.

In fact, it’s well worth checking out the wiki not only because some of the projects have (okay, sometimes-sloppy) source code, but point you at the resources you’d need to tackle something like this yourself if you’re a coder. And the event prompted a lot of folks from Last.fm to Echonest and BBC and others to get their APIs together.

It’s a terrific idea, and it sounds like we need another music hackday here. (Press releases, ahem, claimed this was the “first” music hackday, even though we’ve done a global event ourselves, but who cares — let’s do more!)

New York would make a nice base of operations for a similar event because a lot of folks with interesting APIs are here (or in nearby East Coast towns), but I think it’d be great to get more people online and not just in one locale.

What think you, sirs and madames? Tips on how we could make an online event work?

It was inevitable: eventually, someone would figure out that mobile computer musicians wanted to be able to have a slim-line controller (particularly for MIDI keyboards) that was tiny enough to fit anywhere and take anywhere. I actually heard a rumor at one point that someone would be M-Audio, but Korg has beaten them to the punch. Our friend Ben Rogerson of MusicRadar.com (from Future, the Computer Music and Future Music folks) is at the London International Music Show and sends along the scoop:

Korg nanoSeries puts laptop users in control [MusicRadar.com]

Info at the Korg Japan Page (and yeah, I’m sure these will be huge – or, erm, tiny – in Japan!)

There are three different controllers in the line:

• nanoKEY: 25 keys, transmitting either as MIDI notes or (via a separate mode) Control Change (CC)  messages. Octave shift (natch). Pitch, modulation. And it’s supposed to be velocity-sensitive, too, although we’ll have to get our hands on one to see how sensitive it is.
• nanoPAD: 12 pads, supposedly inheriting the terrific sensitivity and feel of the padKONTROL, which is pretty much the favorite pad controller round these parts. Chord Trigger. Control Change mode (as with nanoKEY). There’s even an X/Y touch pad with roll and flam mode, favorite features of the padKONTROL.
• nanoKONTROL: 9 faders, 9 knobs, 18 switches, transport controls. (No, really.) MIDI notes, 168 CC messages. There are even attack and decay times for the switches, allowing them to work as faders, filter controls, effects settings, and the like – something I’d love to see on other (full-sized) controllers.

Additional features are available using the free KONTROL Editor software: on the nanoKEY, you get velocity curves / fixed velocity and assignment editing, and the nanoPAD and nanoKONTROL support scene editing (four of them) in addition to other assignment editing choices. There’s also a download code for the M1Le, the “light” edition of the Legacy Collection Digital Edition, for any M1 fans out there.

They aren’t terribly pretty (the nanoKEY buttons look like they were lifted off a vintage DEC microcomputer), and it’s hard to tell what the feel of that keyboard will be like, but these are indeed promising for tight spots.

Bus-powered, USB. I wonder if, using a hub, you could easily plug in two or three?

Now the bad news: we know neither when these will be available, nor for how much. Let the waiting begin.

The closest thing we’ve seen to this is the Kenton Killamix Mini, a pricey but nicely-built slim-line knob box. (MusicRadar has a review.) And, on the cheaper side, there’s also the cute Novation $99 Novation Nocturn CDM saw at NAMM, which could very well complement one of these. But the really tiny MIDI keyboard has generally been elusive, making this very interesting indeed – not to mention, any of these could sit atop a full-size MIDI keyboard if you’d rather roll that way.

I think fans of the microscopic will find a way to connect these to ultra-mobile PCs or hack iPhones or Nintendo DSes. Any takers?

The embarrassment of riches that is music software for the Nintendo DS continues to grow. Alongside the homebrew entries, DS developer AQ Interactive has the one officially-distributed DS soft synth, a loving emulation of vintage Korg goodness in DS form. We’ve gotten word that the DS-10 makes its public debut this Saturday in London, as part of the London International Music Show (LIMS):

"KORG DS-10 night in London"
Date: Saturday, 14th June, 2008
Time: 22:30-26:00
Location: LIFE, 2-4 Old Street London EC1V 9AA
tel: 020 7250 3737 (http://www.life-oldst.com/)
Admission is FREE!
———————————-
We will have fine entertainment at the event, featuring smooth vibes from cool DJs and a special appearance by the producer of the DS-10, sanodg.  He will not be at LIMS but will be only at our event, so do not miss this only chance to see his performance with the DS-10!
Come one, come all and shuffle on down, and please receive a free drink by letting the reception know that you’ve received this invitation at the door!

I’m supremely jealous (London gets to have all the fun these days), so if anyone would like to cover the event for CDM so the rest of the world can enjoy, please get in touch! No word yet on whether you can trade your free drink ticket for a “free DS-10 cartridge ticket.” Guessing not, unfortunately.

Still no more word on pricing/availability for the rest of us on the DS-10, but I expect this means we’ll be hearing more soon. When I hear from AQ, you’ll hear from me.