8-bit and robots and odd Max and Reaktor patches and custom visual software and visualizations of data packets and sound made from plants and mutant trumpets and gloves for DJing and laptop music – we’ve got quite a lineup here in New York this week.

Friday night, a live audiovisual lineup from the worlds of createdigitalmusic.com / createdigitalmotion.com invades the HOPE conference, aka Hackers on Planet Earth, the three day-long convergence of tech hacking. $10, open to all, 11-2a Friday July 18 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York. It’s a live digital, technological variety show in a doomed NYC landmark hotel with an audience of famous and infamous hackers. (Think Kevin Mitnick and MythBusters’ Adam Savage and Steven Levy, all in one place.)

Facebook event page; also on Going.com

Here’s a look at the performers and projects. If you can’t be in New York, this should give you a little taste of the range of work people are doing here and in our community in general, and I hope to have more coverage after the event.

Michael Una performing at SYNC Fest 08 from Michael Una on Vimeo.
Robot drummer from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Michael Una’s live-looping, robot-drumming, circuit-bending experience

CDM contributor, Circuit Bending Challenge coordinator and sage of all things DIY and sound art Michael joins the ensemble with robotic assistance:

I will be using custom-built interface devices, acoustic and circuit-bent instruments, and a robot drummer to create a rhythmic, textured and melodic sonic experience on the fly.

http://una-love.com

(Hey, does anyone know why Renee and Michael’s site is being blocked by Google? Was it the beat bike or the prayer wheel? What gives?)

We hear a lot about remix culture, but what does it actually mean – and does it mean anything? The founders of RemixAmerica.com hope to promote video mash-up as political discourse, by feeding Web denizens clips historical and new and remix, videocasting, and discussion tools. They’re lucky enough to have Sanford and Son and People for the American Way pioneer Norman Lear at their helm, too. We’ve got the story over on Create Digital Motion:

A New Online Community Focuses on Political Video Mashing; Here’s America Gone Psychedelic

I do want to point specifically to the video from Emergency Broadcast Network co-founder Brian Kane, particularly because of the musical score, by out-there electronic maestro David Last of Brooklyn. It’s a remade look at America’s 200th birthday, via animator Vincent Collins, and it illustrates just how important the sound of the remix can be.

Well, that and pulsing pink psychedelic Americana is just the thing for the after-4th of July week and election season here in the US. A good watch, all around.

I believe digital culture is about more than just remixes, and that buzzwords sometimes get ahead of the actual work. But part of what brings back the power of sampling is a return to its roots in political discussion – whatever your point of view may be, making some noise. Got other examples? Got a trippier animated film than the one above? Call them out in comments.

Don’t forget, if you’ve lost track of our visualist sister site, you can subscribe to Create Digital Motion’s feed.

Ben Rogerson and the blokes at Future Publishing / musicradar.com in the UK got a nice piece of swag: a Pilsner, to be specific. Thank UK distributor Focusrite for this one (which I assume means the brew has not yet graced Ableton’s office here in NYC.)

They did miss the obvious opportunity to offer an Ableton Live Lite. Or perhaps a liqueur called Ableton Evil (that t-shirt remaining the best Ableton swag ever). “Lively up yourself” I guess appeals to UK audiences. I would have called it Live Lager.

That got me thinking – what other music technology beverages can we make up here? Reaktor already sounds a bit like some kind of energy drink. FL Studio aka Fruity Loops could clearly be a sweet, bubbly soda. Someone could stake out organic tea – maybe MetaSynth. Thoughts?

Ableton Live beer: the ultimate live performance tool [musicradar.com]

We’re celebrating 48 hours of DIY stuff here as we get ready for Handmade Music tomorrow night in Brooklyn! Thingamagoops are the friendly, optical emitter antennaed electronic creatures. Whether your cat / significant other / fan base would describe them as a sweet-sounding instrument, they do make a lot of noise and look cute in the process. Optical sensors onboard mean you can reposition the lights for some fun.

They were fun to begin with. But in kit form, you’ve got even more good times as you assemble them / find an odd case to put them in.

The kits come with groovy labels, eyes and mouths a la Mr. Potato-Head (well, in sticker form), and all the knobs and parts and things you need to make it work. A kit will set you back US$55. If you can’t be bothered to find an enclosure but still want to have some assembly, the enclosure-included version is US$66.

ThingamaKIT Product Page

And for an example build not by the Bleep Labs folks, MAKE shows off the build process:

ThingamaKIT build photos [MAKE: Blog]

I hope we’ll see more of this kind of kit in muso land soon.

But here’s why appropriated enclosures are enviro-friendly and fun – from Flickr, an example of an enclosure rescued from an old desktop intercom by Bleep Labs creator Dr. Bleep.

View Larger Map

A reminder to those in the NYC area: CDM again joins up with Etsy.com and Make Magazine for Handmade Music night, a relaxed meet-and-greet of music technologists and people who make noise with things they’ve made. Currently expected:

• Chiptune / game music stuff, including Peter Swimm’s littlepiggytracker setup, Harsid4U SID (a la Commodore 64) synth
• Wii control (I’m bringing a Balance Board)
• Gian Pablo Villamil’s DIY synths, including the brand-new Mutation Synth. (See the previous Rhythmic Synth causing all manner of havoc with Nancy Garcia at the helm, playing with Thurstom Moore at NY’s No Fun Festival. An instrument that may actually inspire fear.)
• New handmade instruments from Ranjit, maker of all kinds of wonderfulness (like robotic Theremins and ironing board instruments, in past episodes of this event)
• A new addition – Roger TSAI and team’s “Groovy Hands” gestural glove for DJing, seen in videos here!

Come join us on the Facebook event page, and drop an rsvp@etsy.com email, but the event is free:

Handmade Music @ Facebook

Gestural DJing Preview

Designer/DJ Roger has created a set of interactive gloves for DJing that I really enjoy, not least because they have a great sense of humor. He built them as part of an NYU ITP class project in collaboration with Tommy TSENG and Eric Chiu.

Groovy Hand Project Site

Here are some videos of the gestures he can produce:

Last month, I was lucky enough to head to a gathering of music and visual artists at the studio of artist Duncan Laurie in Jamestown, Rhode Island, accompanied by performances in Providence and Boston. Among the cast: Richard Devine, Josh Kay (Phoenicia/Schematic), Steve Nalepa, Todd Thille (Synesthete), Vidvox’s David Lublin, Josh Randall (Robotkid/Harmonix), Aerostatic, Brian Kane (former Emergency Broadcast Network), and Ooah (Glitch Mob).

And then there were the rocks and coconuts. Duncan Laurie and electrical engineer Gordon Salisbury have been sonifying natural signal sources, hooking up vintage radionics equipment and connecting rocks and bananas and such to signals. Richard and Josh brought along part of their formidable collection of modular equipment, and a great crackling, screaming analog racket resulted.

Fans of vintage gear, big knobs, and audiovisual mayhem will surely be jealous. (Photos above courtesy Todd Thille, Arrow.)

mind-meld.org

Flickr set 

Here’s co-organizer Todd Thille (aka Synesthete) describing the full event.

Mind Meld 2008 – Event Wrap by Todd Thille

Todd writes: The weekend of Friday the 13th marked the 3rd annual Mind Meld gathering at Duncan Laurie’s Jamestown, Rhode Island studio. An incredible assortment of audio and video artists were assembled, ostensibly to relax, but with so much talent in one place, a show or two is inevitable.

The middle child of audio technology, neither as hip as vinyl or as modern as the MP3, the cassette lives on in a massive online shrine called the C-90 Project. Odds are, if you’ve ever seen a blank cassette, it’s stored in here or soon will be. We saw its colorful compact novelties back in 2005. Now, the site has grown and added features, including bi-lingual discussions in both English and Russian, plus organization by format (compact cassette, the standard size, as well as microcassette and minicassette) and brand. If you want to add to this collection, they welcome participants. History will thank you.

A couple of the odder selections here. Weirdly, I remember seeing both back in their day. (Hey, I guess TDK decided to add some Latino flair to their tape line.)

Project C-90. An Ultimate Audiotape Guide. (indeed … it’s even bigger than you think)

Create Digital Music Night at ETSY LABS from Etsy on Vimeo.

Handmade marketplace Etsy.com, DIY "mook"/blog Make, and createdigitalmusic.com again team up for another Handmade Music Night at Brooklyn’s Etsy Labs! For an idea of what it’s about (or perhaps inspiration for starting something similar in your corner of the world), see the video above.

On tap:

Chiptune gaming systems for music, strange alternative MIDI controllers and sound-mangling custom software, repurposed vintage synthesizer chips made famous by the Commodore 64, digital visuals, a musical Nintendo Wii balance board, and wireless sensing controllers…

And more.

Where/when:

7/8/08 - 7pm onward (free!)
Etsy Labs
325 Gold St., 3rd floor
Brooklyn, NY (Map)

You can rsvp to rsvp@etsy.com to give us an idea of who’s coming.

Bring your stuff!

As always, we welcome projects in various states of completion! So bring in your DIY software / hardware / circuit bending / chiptune / hacking / patching creations and share them with a friendly, relaxed crowd of fellow geeks!

If you want to give us some advance warning / do a short performance, you can fill out our summer "call for works" form (assuming you haven’t already). (See previous story and scroll down; direct Google Docs link. If you have trouble with the Google Docs form, try our contact form.)

Elsewhere:

Handmade Music Night returns! - 7/8/08 [makezine.com]

Handmade Music Night Featured on Current TV [Etsy's The Storque]

Perhaps fueled by YouTube comepetition, robotic instruments are looking more and more impressive. What I’d most like to see: a robotic battle of the bands. The latest creation comes to us from the all-robot band The Trons, based in New Zealand. They have cute names, and I bet the ‘bots are more fun to date than some, ahem, real drummers my friends have gotten involved with…

The crew:

Ham (vox and rhythm guitar), Wiggy (single string lead guitar), Swamp (drums), Fifi (keyboards, one hand working!)

Hmmm, basically true of my keyboard playing, as well. And here’s their blurb:

The Trons are a completely self playing robotic junk band! They are made mostly from old computer and mechanical parts and play original songs using an array of old amps and instruments. They now have five gigs under their belt and have just completed Hamilton’s Ignition Fringe Festival.

They even did an “interview” in NZ (speaking as a sometimes-music journalist, there are times when you might prefer to speak to robots):

MM: How did you get together and what made you want to start a band?
TT: This old photocopy card vender machine turned up and was going to the dump. And there was this pile of meccano and an old guitar. We just put three and three together.

Who are some of your inspirations? Do you look up to some of the pioneers of electronic music, such as the Juno 6 or the Commodore 64?
Definitely the ZX81. Clive Sinclair and 1K of RAM! You gotta have limitations to make good music. We can’t keep away from 3D Monster Maze too.

Hamilton, NZ’s Mammoth Live Events Guide Interviews The Trons
http://www.myspace.com/thtrons

Thanks to NZ’s Frank “flunki” for the tip!

Previous robotic musicians on CDM:
Yellow Drum Machine Robot Creator: You, Too, Can Make Your Own Robots
Robot Drum Machine Roams, Samples, Bangs On Stuff
Video: Robotic Theremins, Ready To Replace a Human Near You
Robots Can Be Friendly, Groovin’: Max-Powered Keepon and Beatbots
Robot Drummers, Compared: Like Musicians, Robots are Better When They Listen
Robot Drummer Responds to Human Playing; How They Did It

Helene Berg is a cellist. She’s also an animator, video artist/filmmaker, and does yoga and water-aerobics. So when she plays cello, it’s fitting she might play more than just any old cello. Enter the lasercello, an augmented rendition of the traditional instrument designed by Jonas Ericsson of the Stockholm design agency No Picnic.

Documentation is scant, but Helene writes us with this video to give you an idea:

I think it beats having just a laser harp.

Her links:
www.helene-berg.com
www.myspace.com/heleneberg