God bless you, 4/4. Yes, there’s still something about that four-beat, sixteen step bar that gets toes tapping and booties shaking and floors fouring on the… floor. So, when musician and maker Steve Cooley decided he wanted more physical control, he didn’t want some perfectly generic controls, and he didn’t want rows and columns. He wanted sixteen steps and faders alongside. The result is Beatseqr, an Arduino-powered hardware controller recently spotted at the Maker Faire outside San Francisco.

Because it’s just a controller, they’ve built Roxor, a Mac software step app that sends OSC, and Steppa, a Max/MSP patch, though other options would be viable. The idea is to combine software to make a productive “toolchain.” (I’m still surprised people don’t make more use of tools like Python for these sorts of tasks, not only for cross-platform compatibility, but even for ease. But the principle is the same.)

I like the idea and layout, and if you want one, you can even buy one for $299. (We’re talking extremely limited runs. Right now, there appears to be … one of them.) It’s a cool creation, though it makes me imagine this as a prototype for something else – something with onboard MIDI or possibly even basic onboard sound generation. I think we could be on the verge of a real explosion in new, hand-built devices of that sort. And that could mean layouts like the one found on Roland’s 808 are about to make a very big comeback, re-imagined for a new generation.

And the bottom line: it’s fun for its creator. It’s not only a solution to a problem from an engineering perspective; it represents bridging the gap from wanting something, and realizing exactly that thing you want by making it yourself. As Steve puts it:

The goal wasn’t to create a box that can do all things for all people. It’s a specific tool for a specific purpose. It is a very fun tool for improvising and performing.

If that isn’t the spirit of DIY, I don’t know what is.

http://www.beatseqr.com/blog/

Moldover at the Maker Faire from The Amazing Rolo on Vimeo.

Yann Seznec aka The Amazing Rolo brings CDM his coverage of music tech at the Maker Faire in three episodes today.

Our friend Matt Moldover is a mad scientist of controllers. Stock Novation and M-Audio keyboards enter, and wind up coming out as live musical control monsters. You know that kid who mashes up toys in the first Toy Story movie? It’s like that, only musically productive.

Moldover has been steadily perfecting what was originally the Octamasher, a set of M-Audio keyboards connected to a central Ableton Live brain. The basic concept is a powerful one: instead of one person, one set of secret mappings even the performer (cough) sometimes forgets (yeah, that’s me), and one computer behind which he can hide, get a bunch of people jamming and remixing live – even if they’re new to computer music.

The Syncomasher is the latest iteration, and it’s looking utterly beautiful. It can be an installation toy or a serious performer instrument – or both at once. Check out the new custom body – which still retains that whimsical Moldoverism.

Check out this controller modification how-to, as well, from last year:

Elly Jessop and VAMP at the Maker Faire from The Amazing Rolo on Vimeo.

Yann Seznec aka The Amazing Rolo brings CDM his coverage of music tech at the Maker Faire in three episodes today.

Continuing the tradition of computer-augmented vocal performance and interactive gloves, Elena “Elly” Jessop shows off her VAMP system at Maker Faire. Elly is a Masters student at the MIT Media Lab’s Opera of the Future research group, headed by Todd Machover. Interestingly, Elly’s background is in conventional theater, including stage and costume design and choreography.

http://web.media.mit.edu/~ejessop/

VAMP stands for “Vocal Augmentation and Manipulation Prosthesis.” What’s really nice in this demo is that the results sound like more than just effects – they begin to become real augmentation, setting up a complex relationship between the vocalist and the sounds that come out.

It’ll be great to see your work evolve over time, Elly, as you fuse that experience. (And I know what a challenge can be, as I’m still working on fusions of my own, having likewise come from various non-digital backgrounds… heck, I made my way through puppetry class at Sarah Lawrence, even. It’s a lifetime-scale commitment.)

For more on data gloves and such: composer, computer scientist, and futurist Jaron Lanier did lots of seminal thinking about these ideas leading back to the 80s. And you can find some extraordinary work from “augmented vocalists” like Laetitia Sonami and Pamela Z. Here’s a terrific 2006 interview by Sua Constabile for Cycling ’74 with Laetitia:

Barry Threw demos the K-Bow at Maker Faire from The Amazing Rolo on Vimeo.

Yann Seznec aka The Amazing Rolo brings CDM his coverage of
music tech at the Maker Faire in three episodes today.

As long as there have been computers, violinists have looked for ways of extending the nuances of their physical performance into the digital realm. (Us keyboardists have it easy – we’re used to pressing an array of levers, and a lot of the gestures we make are, arguably, superfluous.) Many of these concepts return to the idea of the bow.

The K-Bow by Keith McMillen Instruments is a Bluetooth-enabled bow with sensors that read bow angle, length, acceleration, grip pressure, and even hair tension. It’s accompanied by software developed in Max/MSP. The bow itself is one of those “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it situations,” at US$4000-5000 retail, though they claim the bow itself – specially-designed kevlar and carbon graphite, anyone? – can compete with more expensive bows even before you add in the sensors.

http://www.keithmcmillen.com/kbow/index.html

In the video at top, developer Barry Threw of Keith McMillen Instruments demonstrates the K-Bow.

Here’s what you get out of the software screen:

Barry has also written up a visit to the STEIM research center and work with sensor bow pioneer Jon Rose.

Jon Rose with the K-Bow

And yes, you can rock out hard with this thing:

I know what you’re thinking – you could also just hook your violin into a pickup and some distortion pedals. I think it’s really the experience of playing it that changes, though I’m just guessing, since I’m not a string player.

Previous research projects:

Jon Rose’s own Hyperstring project (warning: loud hyperviolin audio auto-plays, and I don’t see any mute button!)

The Augmented Violin project at IRCAM: see Emmanuel Flety’s development blog, IRCAM project page and references

And that’s by no means a complete list, of course.

Andrew Turley writes to share his microfiche-to-MIDI music maker, which he shared at the Maker Faire. The idea: take the humble library microfiche, and translate light and dark values into MIDI, fed to a Casio keyboard. Sound like a random idea? Well, it would be — except Andrew happens to be in a band called Microfiche. (Check them out on MySpace.) None other than IEEE Spectrum — yes, from the IEEE standards body that brings us stuff like FireWire (aka IEEE 1394) — got hands-on with his project; IEEE Spectrum’s Josh Romero named it one of his favorite musical projects at the faire.

Maker Faire Highlights: Making Music the Hard Way [IEEE Spectrum]

Andrew has more impressions of the Faire on his blog Pillowsopher:

I’ve been there for the last two days presenting some of my projects, such as:

• Unicorn Vs. Dolphin
• my stomp pad
• $2 multitouch instrument (based on the water-in-a-bag design by Erling Ellingsen)
• Rock Band Keynote
• the Microfiche Machine (light to MIDI converter for the band Microfiche)
• the LED VU Meter

Cool, but I’d love to do this with microfilm — especially with the film cranked up to full speed. Wheeeee— click, click … crap. Film came off the spool. (What, am I the only person who’s done old-fashioned library research?)

More Maker Faire Videos

Make: Blog’s resident musicologist Collin Cunningham has a video with more of the music projects at Maker Faire:
Musical interfaces @ Maker Faire from Collin Cunningham on Vimeo.

Anyone else with fun Maker Faire reports, do send them our way. Sorry I couldn’t make it this year — but I’ll take this opportunity to finally edit all this footage I have from Yuri’s Night Bay Area, for more Greater San Francisco DIY Musical Goodness!

No laptops. No CD players. No turntables. The Cassette Jockey World Championships will be cassette tape only. And the rules are tough: store-bought, commercial cassette tapes only. (Dig that Paula Abdul out of your closet — you know you want to.) Sounds dull? Think again: how you play those tapes is entirely up to you, and from what we’ve seen insane circuit benders and mad scientists of circuitry do to tape machines, that could get real interesting.

Mark Gunderson, aka Trademark G, is organizing the event at day one of the Maker Faire outside San Francisco, Saturday, May 19. You’ll need a ticket to the Maker Faire — but if you have even a slight shot at access to the Bay Area that weekend, I’d suggest you do that, anyway. (I’ll be there, lurking about, trying not to burn out sensors because I confused +5V and +9V.)

It’s an open call — and if you think you’ve got what it takes to judge, you should get in touch, as well.

Art of the Cassette Tape

Whether you’re going to the Maker Faire or not, I’ve also rounded up cassette tape creations from CDM stories past, just to get your tape juices flowing.

Homemade Cassette Tape DJ Mixers + Max/MSP PC
International Mixtape Project Sharing Tapes, CDs Worldwide
Warhol for TDK Tapes (Okay, video cassette tapes … maybe a VJ session should come next.)
Obsessive Cassette Tape Collection
Homebrewed Game Boy sequencer, via Walkman tape player
Put a Cassette Deck in Your Windows PC

Open Call for Cassette Jockeys

Here’s the full scoop on the “CJ” competition from Trademark G:

2007 Cassette Jockey World Championships
*** CALL FOR COMPETITORS ***

CALLING ALL: Cassette Jockies… Retro-Tech Lovers… Magnetic Media Monsters… Circuit Benders… Multi-Media DJs… Walkman Hot-Rodders… we want you at the:

2007 CASSETTE JOCKEY WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
at the Make Magazine Maker Faire!

http://makerfaire.com/cj/

In 2003 at a festival in Chicago, a group of retro-tech geniuses organized The Cassette Jockey World Championships. Like the popular DJ (Disk Jockey) competitions with record-toting DJs showing off their turntable skills, the CJ Championships showcases skills and styles in the venerable world of cassettes. Since CJs were encouraged to hot-rod their own equipment, eviscerated boomboxes, disembodied tape heads, and overclocked Walkmans were the weapons of choice… anything that used the standard cassette as its ammo.

Now, in 2007, we’re hijacking the battle and hauling it to the west coast!

Forget DJs, this is for the CJs: The Cassette Jockey Championship is where YOU can show off your skills as a world-class CJ. This is your chance to show the world what the venerable and once-mighty cassette tape is capable of. The CJ who amazes the judges with their skill, technique, and knowledge will become the 2007 CASSETTE JOCKEY CHAMPION!

The Rules

1. One (1) Cassette Jockey at a time – no teams.
2. Competitors are ENCOURAGED to create or alter their own cassette tape decks/players/recorders/etc. to compete on. However, some stock cassette equipment will be provided at the competition.
3. Standard cassette tapes ONLY – no mini-cassettes or 8-Track tapes.
4. Cassettes used MUST be published, pre-recorded, “store-bought” cassettes for source material – No dubbing of CDs/LPs/8-Tracks/MP3s to tape, home recordings, battle cassettes, or found sounds are allowed.
5. Spliced tapes/tape loops are allowed. (But remember Rule #4.)
6. Live microphone usage and live feedback are allowed.
7. Headphones are allowed (supplied by competitor).
8. Competitors may use no more than six (6) cassette devices.

Competition
Competition will be Saturday, May 19, 2007 at the Maker Faire (admission/ticket required). The competition begins at 1pm with an Elimination Round, with each competitor given three (3) minutes to compete. Each will be scored by a panel of judges based on the criteria described below. The top five (5) scoring Cassette Jockeys will progress to the Final Round at 5pm. During the Final Round, each competitor is given five (5) minutes to compete. As before, each will be scored by the judges. The highest scorer is the winner, and receives a prize package and the title of Cassette Jockey World Champion!

Judging
A panel of judges will score each competitor in each round based on the following criteria:

1. (10 Points) Content. Techniques, musical ideas, and exploitation of the cassette medium.
2. (10 Points) Form. Performance style, transitions, overall set structure.
3. (5 Points) Intangibles. Bonus score for anything else the judge deems worthy.

Entry
For an entry form and up-to-date information about the 2007 Cassette Jockey World Championships, send an email to: cjchampionships@gmail.com
Entry Fee: $20 (payable at contest; does not include entry to Maker Faire)

It all sounds … hard. If only there were a way to meditate on tapes themselves. You know, get into what it means to be the tape. Okay, take it home, Andy. (I’ll leave it to you to apply this to audio tape as well as video; I’m off to find someone’s unwanted dual-VHS deck for my next VJ gig):