Karate Kid AV Remix from momo_the_monster on Vimeo.

A major highlight of the party CDM held last weekend with our friends at TRASH_AUDIO and VJKungFu.tv: a live remix of The Karate Kid. Momo the Monster mangled the video while Shane Hazelton and Stephan Vankov did music. The whole event was powered by some clever MIDI sync that managed to wrangle the gear — enough hardware that it seemed like the crew had just raided a Guitar Center — and sync up the video.

Sure, the remix may sound silly — and it was. (Deliciously so.) But the interplay between the three, punctuated by ridiculous live vocals by Shane, really put it over the top. Adding some MIDI intelligence to your digital trio could help all kinds of performances, not just this one We’ll have to get Momo to share what he did.

Momo has more over on Create Digital Motion, complete with technical details:

Karate Kid AV Remix

But this clip should give you an idea of just how live the vocals were — in a moment that captures, shall we say, the brutish masculine power of the film:

Karate Kid live remixing music performance from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.

There are synthesists, and then there are people like Phil Dodds. He’s perhaps best-known as the man who wrangled the (real) ARP 2500 synthesizer in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind so that it could perform an elaborate jam session for (fictional) aliens. But he left an extensive legacy of achievements that helped make music technology more than science fiction.

Our friend Yann Seznec (aka The Amazing Rolo) writes:

You’ve mentioned Phil Dodds on your site before, the guy who played the ARP 2500 in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He was VP of Engineering at ARP, he wrote all of their service manuals and schematics and helped design and build many ARP synths, from the 2600 to the Chroma. He then went on to work for Kurzweil, developing digital piano systems. He was even involved in the creation of the MIDI standard. He also happened to be my uncle. I thought you might be interested to know that he died last weekend.

Our condolences to Yann and all of Phil’s friends and colleagues. There’s some really moving commentary at the Aviation Industry CBT Committee blog (really, because after all of his work in synthesis, he also was a driving force behind a distributed online learning initiative for the Department of Defense):

“What are we saying to each other?”

That was a single line, spoken by the sound engineer at the end of Close Encounters of a Third Kind, as he played chords and a friendly alien spaceship played music back.

The Passing of Philip V.W. Dodds

… and more on Wikipedia:

Phil Dodds

We talk a lot about tools, of course, but that question of “what are we saying to each other” couldn’t have deeper resonance for what we do. And if aliens do show up, thanks to Phil Dodds, I think we might put on a great show.

It’s easier being green than you thought. Dig the fantastic green sharp and flat keys on this Casio EP-30, a kid-friendly variant on the legendary (okay, maybe just infamous) Casio SK-1 sampling keyboard. Our friend Bohus Blahut covered this on Retro Thing, but I missed it during various travels. It’s worth repeating here for one reason and one reason alone: it should inspire you to paint the keys on your MIDI keyboard. (Speaking of which, anyone got some good tips for that? Sounds like a tutorial wants to happen there. Nothing worse than peeling painted keys.)

As a keyboard, otherwise, this is nothing special: basic sampling, which is fun, and the awe-inspiringly blippy power of the SK-1, but minus the fills. Check the full write-up on Retro Thing:

Kermit The Frog - SK-1 Sampling Keyboard

Now, back to painting your keyboards. I suggest purple keys, and a giant, manga-style illustration of Gonzo. Plus, of course, a big, fuzzy Camilla as a hood ornament.

Get back or the chicken gets it!

We’ve talked a lot on CDM about the future of instrument design. Here’s one for you. It’s entirely wireless. It’s touchless, but it uses sophisticated gesture tracking to translate motions into sound. Incredibly, it’s able to track the exact position of your body, wherever you are. It requires no electricity. No matter your skill level or experience, or even if you have any musical background whatsoever, you always sound exactly like your favorite guitarists. It only produces music you love; it doesn’t function with music you don’t.

Sophisticated new instrument from researchers at an academic institution? Straight out of the skunkworks at a major Asian electronics company? Nope. Just some people dressed up in embarrassing outfits waggling their fingers, actually.

Gnarly. Air Guitar Nation gets its wide US release in March 2007. Via Axehole.

(PS, I think you can cancel that whole New Interfaces for Musical Expression conference. This looks like a lot less work.)

Among the many “best of” lists spontaneously appearing on the CDM forums, contributors and readers have compiled a fantastic list of inspirational music videos from a variety of acts. One thing that strikes me is the breadth of aesthetics; whereas once electronica had very strong connotations (and the videos with it), these are really high-art experimental filmmaking with a range of styles. And they’re a pleasure to watch, too, like the fanciful Sigur Rós video pictured here. (Thanks, Jaymis!)

This dead-on send-up of British educational programming takes a look at the world of music and music-making, from that music you young people like so much (”the Bensons, or the Ombudsman”) to the “Harrington 1200″ music synth shown here, which you’ve probably never seen “because it costs almost a thousand pounds.” (Boy, would that you could get a Harrington for so little. Circuit benders and vintage synth collectors recently drove up the price to almost $50,000 on eBay.)

Enjoy!

Look Around You: Music [QuickTime video, DevilyDucky.com]

Over a hundred years ago, Thomas Edison first attempted to record sound and moving image in synchronization (a task that still challenges undergrad film students). The results were believed lost for many years, until the sound was recovered on a broken cylinder. Edison’s original experiment actually failed, but in the hands of legendary film and sound editor Walter Murch, these 17 seconds of film history are now restored realized more perfectly than even Edison could:

1895 Edison “Kinetophone” Test, shot by William Dickson [Internet Archive]

How would you sell guitar amp and effects software? In the fall, we watched IK Multimedia resort to the usual, sexist approach: hire a supermodel and make some pun on amp “modeling.”

Native Instruments is taking a different approach, showing different ways conventional amps can kill you. Not since the Spinal Tap drummers has on-screen rocker mortality been this high. I suppose that’s one way to deal with people’s fear of computers for music: remind them why they should be scared of everything else.

Oh, in other news, Guitar Rig 2 is hitting stores right now. (See past coverage. Rival AmpliTube 2 is due in stores in February. Waves GTR, the new entry from a respected plug-in developer, and Line6 TonePort, are also out. So if you’ve been waiting to pick up a computer guitar interface with amp models and effects, now could be the time, since the competition is thicker than ever. And now that you see what might happen to you if you don’t.

. . . well, at least they do thanks to the magical powers of special effects in online videos. Last summer, we saw Spin, a short film in which a DJ had to weigh the power of life and death. Now, in a film that’s less ambitious metaphysically but more so visually, a DJ appears to scratch vehicles traveling through a roundabout:

Scratch n Spin [Profade ad, via Cory at Boing Boing]

To all of this, I say: where are the digital DJs playing with the fabric of space and time? Where’s the Ms. Pinky setup used to vibrate and spin our neighboring galaxies? Er . . . then again, maybe I don’t want to have the fabric of space and time warping in a giant Max/MSP patch the next time I drive through a roundabout.

From Adrian Anders comes a video by a DJ Keltech — or, should I say, Sith Lord Darth Vader:

Vader, Scratch Lord [Google Video]

To quote Chris Rock’s character in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back:
“I think George Lucas is gonna sue somebody.”

Thanks, Adrian. Can’t fault the concept, though I’d like to see the bit where he employs his death grip. (Granted, that’s usually what I’d like to do to certain DJs . . .)

More videos and info at DJ Keltech’s site (warning: embedded music).