As digital musicianship grows, it’s critical to have places like Robotspeak. This small, basement-level music shop on San Francisco’s lower Haight is a brilliant music tech boutique by day. On regular evenings, it becomes a venue, packing in fans of genre-bending electronica. Walk off the street, and you feel like you’re in someone’s basement — someone with lots of toys and a great affection for throwing great musical parties.

I got to play Robotspeak last month on a program with some terrific players: the legendary Daedalus, armed with the prototype device that inspired the Monome, the fabulous Chachi Jones, and the sonic explorations of acoustic ensemble Pineresin. Thanks to the power of video, we can share a little bit of that performance with you, complete with discussion of the tools. Tools are not incidental, either: it’s great to see the range of ways people approach exploring sound and performance, even in this small cross-sampling of artists.

My favorite video it the outtakes, but I’ll resist the temptation to start with that — suffice to say, yes, all of us laptopists face the same problems. Be sure to look to the end for that one.

I had an incredibly great time — there’s nothing like being in a really supportive venue, one that values musicians taking some real risks. Now, the videos:

Maker Faire this weekend had plenty to offer fans of DIY musical gear, from Theremin karaoke performances to wild, home-built instruments from independent DIYers and academics. I spent most of the weekend tied to my booth, making music by scanning barcodes, manipulating a simple infrared sensor and touch sensor, and running live interactive visuals in Jitter. (The last turned out to be a huge hit with babies and their parents. Seriously.) But I did get out a bit; my impressions are documented on Flickr:

Maker Faire 2007 Flickr Photoset

If you were there and have some images of your own, or have seen a gallery you especially like, send it our way!

Hello, coming to you live from San Mateo and the Maker Faire hosted by Make Magazine. If you stopped by the CDM booth today, I hope you stick around a while. This site, for musicians, DJs, composers, and soundmakers, covers the audible side. Create Digital Motion covers VJing and live and interactive visuals (for an audience we like to call visualists). We cover store-bought hardware and software as well as DIY, and love having everyone from beginners to advanced readers around.

Here are some links to more information on some of what I was showing:

Sensors and MIDI: Working with sensors and physical inputs is what some term “physical computing.” We’ve covered lots of physical computing projects here on CDMusic.

I wrote up an introduction to MIDI for Make 07 which would be a good place to start if you’re relatively new to MIDI.

The MIDI sock monkey and infrared and touch sensors are powered by Lady Ada’s MIDIsense, as introduced here:
Sensors-to-MIDI with the MIDIsense Board. See also the Arduino board, which we’ve covered mostly on the motion side.

Barcode scanner to music converter, powered by Processing, a Java-based development language that makes programming friendly for artists. Check out the official Processing site, Processing Blogs aggregator, and Processing coverage on our sister site, Create Digital Motion.

Live visuals: The live video-processing “mirror” via the MacBook was built in Max/MSP/Jitter. Check out our ongoing Jitter coverage on CDMotion. Nope, no “source code” / source patch available yet — it’s a bit too messy, the reason you don’t see more open-sourced Max patches!

And totally off-subject: The keyboard I was using is a ReMOTE 37SL from Novation. Nothing to do with Maker or Maker Faire but very handy to have around … and well worthy of combining with other DIY hardware.

I’m in Meatspace largely at the moment, with a weekend packed with events at the Maker Faire. There are plenty of DIY music and motion projects here, and they’ll all be within spitting distance of my booth. Add to that performance events Friday and Saturday, and it’s looking like a great weekend. If you’re not in the Bay Area (which, yes, 99% of you aren’t), expect to see the virtual translation of all this meaty goodness soon. Some of these projects are also suggesting some how-to tutorials, so I’ll be working on that, as well. If you are here, note that the Friday and Saturday night events have no cover, a trend I hope to continue whenever CDM World Tour happens.

Here’s the quick summary of events:

Friday Night: Robotspeak 8 PM - 11 PM, 589.5 Haight Street at Steiner, music/visual lineup with discussion (flyer after the jump)

Saturday Night: CDM + Make team up for the Chips + Music + Fish party
Chips + Music + Fish details @ Makezine.com
Confirmed lineup: Pineresin, Starpause, Chachi Jones, Steve&Derek, Zaxxon Spacecase, Barney the Theremin Wizard, myself, and live visuals!

(The as-always-fantastic design comes to us by way of our graphic maker Nat.)

All weekend long, Maker Faire!
Maker Faire page, San Mateo County Event Center

Real posts should pick up again once I return, so thanks for your patience.

MAKE:Magazine and Create Digital Music will co-host the Chips + Fish + Music Maker Faire Party next Saturday in San Francisco. But before we get to that, I have to share the latest design from CDM’s visual artist Nat Jeanneret (the reason CDM looks the way it does, and the blogger behind onetonnemusic):

If you are in the Bay Area, or coming into town for the awesomeness that is the Maker Faire, we would love to invite you to the party.

What: Chips + Fish + Music Party, the Maker Faire “after party”
Brought to you by: MAKE:Magazine and CDM
Who: Anyone making their own music with chips (little chips, big chips, Intel Core Duo chips), or anyone who loves to eat chips and/or fish. Makers from the Faire, locals, visitors all welcome.
When: Saturday, May 19. 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm: featured music sets. 9:30 pm - whenever: hang, DIY musical show-and-tell, eat fish and/or chips.
Where: Edinburgh Castle Pub, 950 Geary St. San Francisco, CA. 415-885-4074. (5pm - 2 am; map.)
Why: Because we love DIY music, whether it’s customized hardware, self-made software, or just lovingly-programmed commercial gear and apps.

And there’s more: I’m looking for a couple of additional featured sets, lots more partygoers, and also have a music lineup to share Friday night at Robotspeak (more performances than party there):

Next week, all week I’ll be in the Bay Area, California for Maker Faire, the Burning Man meets Science Fair meets World Expo meets Happening event hosted by our friends at Make Magazine. With so much going on, here’s a look at some of the digital music-specific events and workbenches featured this year (as I did last year). And yes, I’ll be on-hand personally showing alternative instruments, performing, and co-hosting/playing two parties (stay tuned here for the latest):

Cassette-tape DJ battles are just one of TradeMark G.’s retro, regressive, subversive musical creations. He also likes to put on glasses, a white lab coat, and interactive sewing thimble gloves, in order to produce illegal, copyright-crushing musical performances.

Many of the techno-gimmicks seen here on CDM are one-offs and prototypes. The Evolution Control Committee, by contrast, has been producing “illegal art”, often with the aid of technology, for some 20 years. They’ve been “culture jamming”, dropping Napster bombs (remember Napster?), infamously attracting the ire of CBS, and dressing up as giant pairs of trousers and cans of Parmesan cheese ever since. (I’m especially fond of the giant pants costumes.)

For the last few years, they’ve been perfecting the Thimbletron, a glove with sewing thimbles attached to a hacked M-Audio Oxygen8. (I always knew those Oxygen keyboards would be good for something.) The interface gives them newly-expanded powers of sample triggering. Happily, unlike Wired Magazine, they don’t overuse the term “mash-ups” to describe what they’re doing. Try, instead, “plagiarhythm” or “plunderphonics”: “In the world of The ECC’s music, Public Enemy duke it out with Herb Alpert while TV news anchor Dan Rather is the new frontman for AC/DC.”

Thimbletronic Energy Technology Page (video link at the top)

TradeMark will be performing with the Thimbletron at the Maker Faire, as well as running the cassette tape DJ battle we saw earlier:

Call for Cassette Jockeys @ Maker Faire, Cassette Tech Roundup

CDM (meaning me) will be at Maker Faire all week, sending as much coverage and causing as much havoc as possible. I’m hoping Dan Rather shows up.

More glove music controllers:

Controlling Music with DIY Interactive Gloves