What if a competition didn’t just encourage entrants to try to make a better product? What if it encouraged friendly rivalry between makers to produce entries that were also shared across the community?

That’s the idea behind Digitópia’s upcoming series of competitions, now entering its third year. Digitópia itself is based in Porto, Portugal, at the Casa da Musica. But even if Portugal isn’t exactly in your neighborhood, entrants and onlookers alike can benefit from shared, open sourced contributions.

In fact, even the prizes itself are open projects. The simple, anthropomorphic-looking controller above is a free project. It’s dead-simple, a combination of an IKEA salad bowl, a potentiometer, and ultrasonic distance sensors. But as a result, it’s also inexpensive, simple to use (particularly with the addition of Digitópia’s custom-developed software), and a flexible starting point for further work. (Actually, handling multiple ultrasonics is a bit tricky, too, relative to things like infrared, so that’s a particularly nice addition.)

First up: Max and Pd patchers, your pride is on the line.

Think your Max/MSP or Pure Data multimedia patch is the most original around? Prove it. An international competition will find the best patches, and all of them (whether made in Max or Pd) will be released under a free software license. A panel will judge the results, led by Pedro Rebelo, composer, digital artist and Director of Education at the School of Music and Sonic Arts, Queen’s University Belfast. New deadline: February 14. (That’s right, polish off your best patch, send it into battle, and then take your pumped-up sense of masculinity / femininity out for a fantastic Valentine’s Day dinner.)

There are other competitions, too. The third-annual Musical Miniatures Competition is looking for musical works or “gestures” of 15 seconds or less. (If you’ve ignored other calls for works, this one should leave you no excuse.) The sounds will be licensed under a Creative Commons license for freesound.org, adding to that communal repository of sounds. Bram de Jong, legendary developer and freesound.org guru, will judge the results. Deadline: May 28.

Produce the best sound or the best patch, and you get the controller above and accompanying software. But the for third competition, you get the futuristic controller of your dreams. You submit the idea, and Digitópia builds the results. The entrants are judged on “innovation, originality, feasibility and inclusive potential.” (Yes, it needs to be feasible in order for them to build it — no electronic music equivalents of The Homer.)

Oh, yes, and the Dreams Competition has me as the judge. Deadline: April 3. Keep a dream journal.

The beauty of all of this is that these are contests that give back. We’ll have sounds, patches, inventions, and hardware documentation for the prize and the entrants; stay tuned as that documentation becomes available.

Speaking of getting something out of this for yourself… don’t have any dream ideas? No good at Max and Pd patching? For an absurdly-cheap €15 for three whole days of seminars, Digitópia will teach you patching skills in these two tools. Jeez, for that price, you could afford a flight to beautiful Portugal and still come out ahead. No details on the new seminars for spring up yet, but I’ll put up a notice when they are. (I’m also teaching a seminar at Digitópia the first week of June.)

Digitópia Competitions 2010

Digitópia – Platform for the Development of Digital Music Communities

In Anaheim this week, the music manufacturer trade gather to show their wares. But 8pm – 4am Friday night, we party.

“Wham Bam Thank You NAMM” has become an annual tradition, an unofficial afterparty of sorts for the first two days of the trade show.

This year’s lineup: John Tejada, Richard Devine, Flashbulb, Deru, Laura Escude, Scott Pagano, CPU, DJ Kero, Acid Circus, Derek Michael, Baseck, Eezir, Trifonic, DJ G Ov, Moldover, Henry Strange, and myself, among others.

Escaping from the Anaheim Convention Center doldrums, the event is held in the lovely, artistically-blossoming Los Angeles downtown. The Downtown Independent is a gorgeous space with a movie theater and rooftop for full audiovisual-party immersion. This year, we have a couple of new features with which I’m assisting on behalf of CDM. There’s a VIP lounge / “industry room” which will be filled with music toys. You need a NAMM badge to get in, but inside you’ll find some unusual sonic toys you can’t find on the NAMM floor.

Also in the spirit of going beyond NAMM, I’m moderating a panel on how people are using computers in performance, and how we can all make the future of music tech shinier, sooner. When you’re living in a cool-sounding year like “2010,” there’s really no excuse not to take matters into your own hands (oh, yeah, and maybe I want to make sure I’m on the same side as the evil robots when the bad s*** starts going down):

2010: It’s gonna be the future soon
A conversation on live electronic performance technique, and how to make music tech better

There’s no need to dream of futuristic, expressive live performance on computers. It’s here. And there’s no reason to wait for technology to improve: let’s talk about how to make it happen. Moderated by Create Digital Music’s PETER KIRN, this conversation with some of the artists at the edge of sound and live electronic music provides a glimpse into the ways people are working in 2010, and an open discussion about what we can do this year to extend our technique and make technology work better.

JUSTIN BORETA and edIT (Glitch Mob, etc.)
RICHARD DEVINE (Schematic/Warp), DSP mad scientist and composer
LAURA ESCUDE, violinist and music technologist
FLIPMU, the duo of Owen Vallis and Jordan Hochenbaum
MOLDOVER, Mojo controller creator, musical supervillian
DERU, composer and musician (Ghostly, etc.), recent Paris Opera Ballet score
BRIAN TRIFON (TRIFONIC), electronic musician and sound designer (Avatar)

and other guests

Hands-on "snap" demos of live rigs + topics of discussion:

Unusual interfaces, including graphical, touch, gestural, and multi-touch interfaces
Monome, Arduinome, MidiDuino and the Minicommand
Max/Max for Live, Reaktor, Pd, Processing, and other tools
Collaboration, synchronization, and open control
New Year’s Resolutions for making technology and performance practice better
…topics to be continued online
Followed by live performances kicking off a night-long party

Presented by Electronic Creatives, Dubspot and Create Digital Music

When: Friday, January 15, 2010, 8pm – 4am

Where: The Downtown Independent, downtownindependent.com

251 S. Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 [Map]

What: Wham Bam Thank You NAMM [official site/artist bios]

Cost: $20; $10 discounted (21+)

RSVP: droidbehavior@gmail.com Information: 213-915-6120 Facebook: Event page

Note on NAMM badges: the NAMM badge gets you into the “industry room” and a discount on admission, but you do NOT need a NAMM badge to get into this party! It is 21+, though – sorry about that.

View Larger Map

Major kudos to the wizards of Electronic Creatives who’ve been a huge part of making the whole evening happen (whereas I largely get to just show up). That includes in particular the talented violinist, composer, technologist, educator, and creative mind Laura Escudé, who has worked with everyone from Cirque du Soleil to Carmen Rizzo; I hope we get to introduce more of her work.

Electronic Creatives “produces events centered around Ableton Live and new music technology coupled with envelope-pushing performances.” (I’m going to try to make sure not to interpret that last phrase as “making my laptop crash onstage,” okay?)

edison…. new set up….! from edison on Vimeo.

The open source monome, ingeniously minimal as it is, is just an object. It’s the community that has formed around this hardware controller, a simple array of light-up buttons, that has made monome a cultural phenomenon, by pushing performance practice. Using grids of simple music events, they represent an ongoing transformation of DJing from the act of manipulating two records to composing with chunks of material.

On the Web, this has become something of a virtual slam between artists – more generous than competitive. One of my favorites to watch this year has been a gentleman by the name of Edison. He composes a strange poetry about his work in the Vimeo comments, so from here on out, I’ll let him speak for himself:

yo hoss!
so this is my new set up….
the monome is controlling ableton….
each button is a sound…..
the bottom right button is stop all noises….
introducing: the love…
a box of 16 arcade buttons…
made from an USB joystick….
it controls a looper and all effects…
on the far end is a native instruments audio kontrol 1…
(finally gotta audio interface!!!)
the big ass knob just sends the whole mix to an echo…
basically…
i have the melodic content run through a looper…
its is always recording…. so anything i play will repeat on a 2 bar loop
this is bypassable and erasable…..
all the drums are run through 4 effects….
all the melodic stuff is run though 8 effects… post looper…
and if all that aint nerdy enough for you….
then i aint trying hard enough….!
so to you and yours…… STING

From earlier this year, bottom.

64 buttons…..
63 sounds….
1 stop button……
no quantize……
no loops…….

More:
myspace.com/bearless
edisoninvention.tumblr.com

damn hoss from edison on Vimeo.

What does it mean to truly democratize technology? When is DIY more than just the creation of an object? That’s the question asked by our friend Julià Carboneras, who curated the new Nerdeferences feature of the OFFF digital design conference in Portugal last week. DIY is more than just cool devices, argues Julià: it’s social hacking, too. He brought together myself, Instructables.com founder Eric Wilhelm, and musical inventor and artist Gijs Gieskes (who stole the show, showing some creations live onstage). But there was a bigger picture, too, that I wanted to share.

Julià wrote, in Catalan and English, an introduction to the idea for the conference catalog that I thought was really compelling. OFFF has allowed this text from their catalog to be reprinted here, and Julià has given us a Spanish translation, as well. (Spanish first, English second.)

I’m actually pleased that on CDM we have the chance to talk about radical DIY and open source ideas alongside more traditional commercial projects. In that way, you see design in a larger context. You can see the tools that allow people to be creative alongside one another. And my sense is that people do find ways to build business models and economic independence around notions of open source and DIY, which is vital in the capital-driven world in which we live. What draws together people, whether using commercial tools or building their own, is some desire for real independence instead of dependence, for expression and not just consumption.

I’ll let Julià take it away, though, because the issues he raises goes well beyond the insertion of some of these ideas (and some very nice, loud sounds) into a design conference. I know many of you working in communities and events elsewhere are thinking along similar lines.

(Photos here from the event itself; we expect to have additional video, too, soon. Let me know if you were there in Lisbon!)

NERDFERENCES [ESPAÑOL]

Desde sus inicios la llamada “democratización” de la tecnología ha estado limitada por demasiados factores para poder considerarla genuinamente democrática. A pesar de que realmente la caída de precios ha permitido un acceso más amplio a sofisticados dispositivos digitales, también ha determinado la manera de utilizarlos impuesta por sus fabricantes. Hoy en día, miles de usuarios están rompiendo estas limitaciones a través de la ética del DIY (háztelo tu mismo).

Desde que Reed Ghazala acuñó el término “circuit bending” en los años sesenta para referirse a la modificación de la circuitería de aparatos electrónicos para generar sonido, la influencia del movimiento DIY en la creación contemporánea ha sido obvia, y algunas de sus invenciones y descubrimientos se han convertido en recursos básicos en el arte digital actual, como el software Processing o las superficies de control Monome. Pero no podemos pensar en el circuit bending y en el software de código abierto como meras técnicas o dispositivos. La naturaleza de su propia existencia está fuertemente vinculada a ideologías que se asocian a movimientos sociales y políticos alternativos. Frecuentemente relacionado con el punk y los movimientos anticapitalistas, el DIY es, ante todo, una postura en contra de la producción en masa y las políticas de comercio multinacional. Pero lejos de usar técnicas de confrontación abiertas y directas, su beligerancia se expresa principalmente a través de estrategias de “copia y mejora”: algunos de los dispositivos más famosos que han nacido del DIY tienen sus orígenes en la reformulación o modificación de tecnologías ampliamente conocidas vendidas por multinacionales. En realidad, cuanto más popular es el producto, más atractivo es piratearlo.

A Gijs creation. Photo courtesy OFFF Festival.

Nerdference es un nuevo panel enfocado al DIY digital que se presenta en el festival OFFF: un movimiento social, ideológico y tecnológico bajo el cual pueden encontrarse múltiples formas conceptuales a través de disciplinas como el circuit bending, el software y hardware hacking, el desarrollo en código abierto, superficies de control de fabricación casera, entre otras muchas. Nerdference es una oportunidad única de dar una visibilidad física y una exposición offline a un fenómeno que vive mayoritariamente en internet. La red ha permitido desde el desarrollo de proyectos colaborativos tan grandes y conocidos como Linux a poder compartir con el resto del mundo dispositivos caseros realizados individualmente como hobby. Una red internacional de tecnologías de dormitorio que ha contribuido substancialmente en la evolución de las herramientas digitales usadas ampliamente en la creación con nuevos medios actual.

Nerdference es un amplificador para una generación de artistas con voz propia. Una generación nacida con un portátil bajo el brazo; adolescentes que han aprendido a programar de forma autodidacta y se han convertido en hackers famosos; músicos que elaboran todo un proceso de producción, con suficiente imaginación y conocimientos técnicos como para crear desde sus propios instrumentos hasta sus redes de distribución musical; artistas que desarrollan su propio software y lo distribuyen libremente…

La primera edición de Nerdference en el OFFF Oeiras 09 tiene el honor de presentar a Eric Wilhem, Peter Kirn y Gijs Gieskes.

Eric Wilhem es el fundador de instructables.com, un web de referencia mundial donde todo aquel que quiera puede mostrar sus dispositivos caseros hechos por ellos mismos. Instructables.com es, tal como Wilhem declara, “el web de Muestra y Explica más grande del mundo”, y se ha convertido en la Biblia del DIY. En él se puede encontrar lo más inimaginable: desde como se diseñó y programó la propia web, a como customizar instrumentos musicales o como fabricarse uno mismo el detergente para lavar la ropa. Esta será una oportunidad única para disfrutar del amplio conocimiento de Eric sobre DIY.

Peter Kirn es el nombre que está detrás de createdigitalmusic.com, createdigitalmotion.com y
createdigitalmedia.com. Estos blogs son puntos de encuentro esenciales para artistas, programadores y VJs, y son una guía para conocer las últimas novedades tecnológicas y de DIY. Y por último, pero no menos importante, el artista holandés Gijs Gieskes nos mostrará como lleva el circuit bending al extremo en Nerdference. Aprenderemos como concibe, diseña y construye sus extraordinarios artefactos y software de modificación de navegadores web.

Julià Carboneras

NERDFERENCES [ENGLISH]

Since day one, the so-called “democratization” of technology has been constrained by too many determining factors as to be considered genuinely democratic. Although it’s true that the prices drop has improved a wider access to sophisticated digital devices, it also has determined the way of using them through the limitations set by their manufacturers. Today, thousands of users are breaking these limitations through the DIY (Do It Yourself) ethos.

Since Reed Ghazala coined the term “circuit bending” in the sixties to name the modification of electronic devices internal circuits to generate sound, the influence of the DIY movement in contemporary creation has been obvious, and some of its inventions and discoveries have become basic resources in today’s digital art, like the Processing software and the Monome control surface. But we can’t think of circuit bending or open source software as mere techniques or devices. Their most intimate nature, their existence itself, is strongly connected to an ideology that deals with alternative social and political issues. Often related to punk attitude and anti-capitalist movements, the DIY is, first of all, a stand against mass-production and mainstream trade politics. But far from openly confrontational techniques, its belligerence is mostly expressed through copy-and-improve strategies: some of the most famous devices born in the DIY scene have their origins on the re-formulation or modification of already existing and well-known technologies manufactured and sold by multinationals. Actually, the most popular the product, the most attractive the hacking.

Nerdference is a new panel at OFFF focused on the digital DIY: a social, ideological and technological movement whose multiple formal and conceptual traces can be found on disciplines like circuit bending, software and hardware hacking, open source development and homemade control surfaces, among many others. Nerdference is a unique opportunity to bring physical visibility and offline exposition to a phenomenon mostly living on the Internet. The net has been a determinant platform for the development of so big and well-known community projects as Linux or the worldwide sharing of self-made devices made out by individuals all over the planet. An international bedroom technologies network that has become a substantial issue in the evolution of digital tools massively used in today’s new media creation. Nerdference is an amplifier for a generation of artists with an already own voice. A generation born with a laptop in its hands; teenagers who learned how to program by their own and have become famous hackers; self-taught music producers with enough imagination and technical skills to build up their instruments and create their particular distribution networks; artists that develop original software and give it out to like-minded others.

Nerdference’s first edition at OFFF Oeiras ‘09 proudly features Eric Wilhem, Peter Kirn and Gijs Gieskes.

Documenting process via Instructables. Photo (CC) Anna Fuster / Tartanna.

Erik Wilhelm is the founder of instructables.com, a world reference site where anyone can show his / her self-made devices and applications. instructables.com is, as Wilhelm himself declares, “the world’s biggest show and tell website”, and it has become the bible for the DIY believers. It covers almost every imaginable topic: from designing and programming the site’s pages themselves to customizing musical instruments and creating your own washing powder. This will be a unique opportunity to enjoy Erik’s broad knowledge of the DIY industries.

Peter Kirn is the man behind createdigitalmusic.com, createdigitalmedia.com and createdigitalmotion.com. These blogs are essential meeting points for artists, programmers and Vj’s, and extremely useful guides to check today’s DIY state of the art.

Last but not least, Dutch artist Gijs Gieskes will show his extreme take on circuit bending at Nerdference. We’ll be able to learn how he conceives, designs and constructs his amazing artifacts and web browsers modification software.

Julià Carboneras

More resources:

Instructables.com

Trackmate Tangible Controller: A terrific example of documenting a tangible music interface project via Instructables (which in turn this group linked back to their Sourceforge page, a case of using the right tool for the right job)

Gijs Gieskes

Links from my presentation:

Adobe Rants Produces Unexpected Glitch Art
(proof that having tools that don’t always work perfectly, or that can be pushed past the point at which they function properly, can make them more powerful)

TUIO + reacTIVision: a protocol and open source vision library for touch, tangible interfaces

opensoundcontrol.org: a means of making devices and software more intelligent, more expressive, and more connected in a way that benefits artists and musicians

Save that Old PDA: Run Reware, Play Pd Musical Creations, Android (OFFF, NYC) – a way to harnass open source software to make supposedly “disposable” devices powerful again

handmademusic.noisepages.com: an opportunity to work on this stuff with other people, live, in person – and a call to extend this around the world, beyond Brooklyn, has already resulted in a number of cities in the US, plus London, Berlin, and Porto, Portugal

http://paia.com a source of DIY kits, including solder-free, business-card-sized kits that can be used to teach kids about electronics and sound early

Finally, here’s my presentation via SlideShare, complete with (some) of the embedded videos:

Want to interact with your computer musically using physical objects and other fancy-schmancy, science-fiction-y interfaces? Don’t want to rely on Microsoft or wait until 2019? You’re in luck. It’s like Christmas for DIYers and interactive futurists.

Enter LusidOSC, a set of protocols, libraries, and useful code, and Trackmate, a clever and cheap-to-build system for tangible interfaces. Together, you’ve just got a bunch of tools to help you start playing with blocks — erm, experiencing new spatial interfaces.

• LusidOSC, the library maps “spatial input devices” – really, any tangible devices or sensors in the real world – to applications, like live music or live visuals. It uses the network-savvy OpenSoundControl protocol. The library is available now for Processing, with Java, Python, Flash, and C++ in the works.
• LusidOSC, the apps/code: a set of Processing utilities to get you started includes a basic example app, command launcher, playlist mixer, and a MIDI sequencer. You can build on these for your own Processing apps.
• Your own input device: Tags? Sensors? Markers? Regions? Fingertips? If it’s in physical space, you can map it via LusidOSC. Or, if you want a place to start, try:
• Trackmate: A project of MIT’s Tangible Media Group, Trackmate lets you affix tags to any objects you want and use them as an interface.

LusidOSC is just the protocol; it’s physical applications like Trackmate that get really interesting. In these economically-challenged times, Trackmate gives you tangible interfaces for next to nothing. All you need is a computer (Mac, Windows, or Linux), and a camera (even a webcam will do). Print out randomly-generated tags in the free and open source software, stick them on stuff you want to use, and go to town.

You can make your own Trackmate surfaces out of hardwood or plexiglass for as little as $40 in parts. There’s even a Processing-based simulator app so you can experiment without the physical objects. (Good for troubleshooting on the bus or plane, I imagine.)

Trackmate is just one project, though; LusidOSC promises to support other interface ideas, too.

LusidOSC at Sourceforge, the work of “many research institutions and companies.” (Which, I wonder?)
Trackmate at Sourceforge, a project of the MIT Media Lab Tangible Media Group

Alternatives: TUIO, the protocol used in the Bjork-endorsed Reactable project marches forward, as well. And as both projects are open source, there could be some cross-pollination. I hear a revised TUIO is coming, and in the meantime, LusidOSC acts as a gateway to TUIO.

I ask you: what is the foundation for rhythmic electronic music? I suggest that the humble step-sequencer is the backbone of many of today’s musical genres and memetic evolutions. To have electronic rhythm, you need to start with a clock and go from there, dividing it into fractions and multiples. Then start assigning sounds to those divisions and you’re pretty much there- techno is happening.

I’ve been working on prototyping a sequencer-synth and in doing research, I’ve come across numerous projects that tackle this idea with great enthusiasm. Because a sequencer can drive any type of electronics, projects tend to fall into two categories: audio, or visual. Additionally, I’m seeing two main drivers for the sequence itself: the nimble arduino, and the CMOS 4017 Decade counter IC. I’ll survey here some of the finished projects to give an idea of what’s possible. Come with me, won’t you, on an exploration of the world of DIY sequencers.

First up, a few excellent audio sequencers:

basic arduino sequencer from nikolaosh on Vimeo.

This “basic arduino sequencer” by Nikolaosh is undeniably fun. Looks like four potentiometers controlling software synth parameters, with the Arduino doing the sequencing as well. Basic, but effective nonetheless. You can see more details and grab the code here.

BeatSequencer 1.0 from Kamil Garbacz on Vimeo.

This “Beatsequencer” by Kamil Garbacz also uses Arduino to drive a matrix of LEDs. Looks like the top row indicates the position of the step, while the bottom 3 rows indicate on/off status for the beep assigned to that row. A matrix of switches turns each step on and off, 808-style. It’s a very compact design with a minimal interface, but it seems to work.

cigarduino punk console from frogstar on Vimeo.

This “Cigarduino Punk Console” from frogstar has a lot of great elements- nice pulsewave synthesis from the Arduino and a fun cigar-box case. It’s a little light on the LEDs though- don’t we all like our sequencers to have big banks of LEDs pusling through their paces?

In the 4017 category, we’ve got this nice little box from Note!. It nicely marries the Atari Punk console to the 4017 running as a 4-step sequencer. Good glitchy tones get put through their paces.

This sequencer from 9volts really opens up the possibilities here- he’s using the 4017 synched to a drum sampler, triggering circuit-bent devices and controlling gating and filtering. That’s what I’m talkin’ about right there.

Visual sequences:

PAN PC + 555 + 4017 from h.cosas on Vimeo.

This experiment from h.cosas uses the 4017 to drive an LCD display with interesting results. Dig those color bars!

This LED pattern sequencer by WootsPC is very nice to look at- this should give you an idea of what can be done with a basic sequencer, some LEDs, and an eye for animation.

What I take away from all of these projects is the idea that a sequencer can drive pretty much anything, and the most fun and interesting projects lie not in the sequencer itself, but in what is driven by the sequencer.

I’d really like to see someone who combines these LED animations with a good sounding, nicely-interfaced sequenced synth that’s syncable to MIDI clock input, but I think I might have to build that one myself- I’m working on my own like-minded project, and I’ve realized I’ve got a ways to go before I’ll be satisfied with the results. In case you’re curious, here’s my little project as of two weeks ago. I’ve made some modifications since then, but you get the basic idea.

Is anyone else working on a sequencer project? Please post it in the comments and tell us what how it’s coming along.

Very often, computers and music gear greedily consume whole corners of the room. Here’s a tidy alternative, modest in space consumption as well as in cost.

So, what’s so wonderful about DIY creations by our friend Sasa Djuric (aka fibra)? It isn’t just that his stands are recycled from monitor stand parts. It’s not just because the free ReBirth for Windows and an Asus netbook make for a wonderfully affordable computer music station. It’s not even that his cases for the x0xb0x 303 clone and a MIDIbox project are beautifully executed, or that magnets on the stands more effectively support those gadgets and place them in an ergonomic position.

What’s wonderful to me is that these designs relate the scale of those music-making objects to human hands. You just want to put your fingers on these devices and make some music.

From the Flickr set, Sasa explains:

This universal stand was part of the monitor once. I attached a piece of thick still and and 2 neodymium magnets recycled from hard drive.

[on the now-free-as-in-beer software running on the Asus netbook] …yes, in the name of good old times. ReBirth was my very first step in music making. I couldn`t even imagine I`ll build myself clones of all those machines. :)

He tells CDM:

I used 2 stands that are leftovers from monitors that are installed into an info kiosk. One is bigger than other which is allows me to cascade few machines. This was a really quick project as I used what I had laying around. Thick piece of steel is wood joint. Magnets are from a hard drive; the
tin plates glued on the eee and other machines are cutout from CDROM drive case, rubber comes from a blood pressure meter…
pretty much everything is recycled. :)
Besides the x0xb0x and eee you recognized, you can also see a ClockBox – MIDI clock generator (midibox project).

Really beautiful work – economic use of materials, clever design, and it could let you put a drum machine in your kitchen so you can cook music and food for a brilliant evening.

More on the elements of this project:
The x0xb0x is a fully open-source 303 bassline clone
The clockbox is a project based on the Midibox platform (see site, blog)
The Liliputing blog has great netbook coverage
ReBirth lives on as freeware at the ReBirth Museum. This is Windows, but if you don’t want to swap Windows onto your netbook, you can run it in WINE on Linux. (have to try that myself!)
Flickr set

All photos by Sasa Djuric, used by permission.

You buy a box. You unwrap the box. You plug it in. You read the manual to learn what it does. Or you bring a box home, and meanwhile a community of people – possibly including you – works to imagine new possibilities for what the box can do and share them with each other. It’s clear that the idea of open hardware (free hardware?) has a lot of potential. But it’s a matter of finding products that realize that vision. And today alone, I’ve got a lot of good news on that front.

There’s some wonderfully good news for fans of DIY music tech. And the homebrewed, open, hackable tools often outshine commercially-available options. For developers, they’re a change to hack on something, but they serve as end-user products, too. The GorF step sequencer and minicommand — the latter tough to describe but a sort of do-everything magical box o’ MIDI — are each nearing shipment, complete with preorders. And the folks at BUG Labs have added sound capabilities, which is already turning into some interesting prototypes of alternative mobile music devices.

Back-to-Basics, DIY Step Sequencer Kit

The GorF step sequencer appeared in a video demo a few weeks ago. But if you were intrigued by the YouTube rendition of GorF, the time to get your own is nearing. PCBs have arrived and, in a DIY Valentine’s Day present, there’s a poll about interest.

Black Box Performer

GorF is impressive, and I like its elegant, simple step interface. But the tool that’s been really blowing my mind is the minicommand. At first, it looks like just a simple, compact controller – nice knobs, and a screen you can customize. That’s all well and good. But the minicommand is better understood as a do-everything, magical black box. Programmable with the Arduino environment, the minicommand can become a controller, an arpeggiator, a Euclidian polyrhythm maker… out of the box, it’ll already have a ton of firmware tools, alone. Maker wesen writes:

- standard midi controller firmware
- machinedrum notes (hook up a keyboard to the machinedrum). The device has an additional MIDI IN for that kind of purposes
- monomachine firmware (revert to kit, etc…)
- supatrigga for the machinedrum
- genetic patch mutation firmware for machiinedrum and monomachine
- polyrhythmic sequencer (with MIDI CLOCK slave or master function)
- arpeggiator
- much more…

It’s like what a lot of people do with Max or AudioMulch patches, but in a hardware box, with tight timing, that you can either plug into your computer or into hardware synths. It’s like MIDI hardware for the year 2009. You might wind up just using it as a reliable clock source for your software with hardware controls, or you might drive hardware with it, or you might control visuals – it’ll become whatever you like.

Oh, and by the way, while the Akai APC is cool, I’d love to see an ultra-compact setup with one of the minicommands and perhaps a Faderfox or two. Time to dust off your 5-pin MIDI cables, huh?

If you’re interested in preordering yourself, you can get on the (limited) first production run by placing an order at:
http://ruinwesen.com/preorder

US$275/EUR220 including shipping.

Hack-a-Pod: BUGsound

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the folks at BUG Labs have added a sound input/output module to their hot-swappable, LEGO-esque modular mobile gadgets. The BUG is basically a modular computer that runs an open source OS and Java stack and is pretty intelligent about talking to sensors and the Web. As readers have noted, it’s not cheap, but I think it’s best understood as a prototyping device. As such, it has some competition from even devices like Google’s Android, but with a key difference: you have total control over the OS and the hardware you plug in. So, Android may also have GPS, but it doesn’t have audio input, or the ability to connect sensors or servos via bare wires, and you probably don’t want to take your 2-year-contract phone and strap it to a mobile robot.

Why prototype mobile devices? Because it becomes possible to imagine just how interesting mobile gadgets in the future could be. Instead of passive devices for consuming approved content (cough, iTunes), they become open-ended, handheld computers that do whatever you like.

And that could mean you could also prototype musical instruments with the flexibility of computers, instead of the closed-box, commercial options we have now.

BUGsound Available Today

BUGsound isn’t quite high-fidelity: the internal speaker is a simple mono speaker, though at least it makes noise, and there’s a simple, built-in electret condenser mic. But it can drive headphones, it has stereo input and output, controllable gain, and even automatic gain control. Where it gets interesting is that you can combine these features with other modules, like the accelerometer or GPS, for mashed-up gadgets. And there are some simple DSP-based sound functions on the board, too.

I’m finally blocking aside some time to work with BUGsound myself, but there’s already a cool demo app from the community called Phunky. It mixes three sound files using accelerometer data. This also demonstrates why we need to get more robust sound-crunching capabilities going (Pd, perhaps) so the applications can get more interesting.

I’m really excited about all three projects. You know where to stay tuned for more. And by the way, we might just have some new ways of covering these kinds of projects and helping folks collaborate … soon.

It’s a bit trippy as you make your way through the opening of this video, which features a spooky song and, awesomely, a hooded man who has replaced his face with a certain hit open source controller. (“Darling, wake up, you’re shouting the names of Max/MSP patches again in your sleep!” / “I was dreaming – and I saw that man again. The man with the Monome for a face! He said – he said there’s something I must do. Where’s my MacBook?”)

Ahem. Get past that bit, and your reward is some deliciously sharp Monome virtuosity from Primus Luta:

For the pilot episode of the PEMF (Personal Electro-Magnetic Field) Sessions I go to work on The Roots "Criminal" Remix called "Break the Law." It’s a more dub than step take on the song featuring a firsthand look at the process of creation using the Heads Instruments. Specifically looking at the nsMpLR, strgs and prcs.

It’s a remix here, but naturally you could apply this to any production technique. It’s amazing how freeing the simple process of mapping musical elements to a grid of buttons can be. That would tend to confirm my suspicion that, somewhere at its soul, the Monome is a HyperMPC – an MPC with a lot more buttons, extended by everything a computer can do.

Tool of choice in this case: the wildly underrated modular patching environment / music host, Plogue Bidule.

Good stuff. If this is just the pilot episode, I can’t wait to see what’s coming. (But does Primus Luta get off the island? And is he one of the final Cylons?)

Primus Luta’s site: http://avanturb.com/

Monome official site (yep, CDM aka me will be heading to welcome them to their new Catskills barn!)

Along similar lines, a New Yorker story this week looks at Monome user Flying Lotus, and “Steven Ellison’s atomization of hip-hop.” What better to work on your atomization than the ultimate minimalist digital grid of pads? (Interestingly, he uses a lowly M-Audio Trigger Finger alongside for more conventional pads. Saying this “brings back the physical gesture of the drum” seems a stretch. I’d say it brings back the physical gesture of the Poke, recalling a time when primitive Man sat around poking his significant other – ah, yes, in fact, that’s a tradition I generally keep alive.)

Previous Monoming on CDM