For anyone whose complaint about OSC aka OpenSoundControl is that it lacks broad hardware support, I have one word for you:

Unicorns.

OSC now runs on magical unicorns. (Would a unicorn not want high-resolution, human-readable messages encoded with time-stamps? I think they would. And because OSC is transport-independent, it can absolutely run on magical Unicorn Beams.)

No idea what this post is about? Don’t worry — I’ll have a talking unicorn narrate a proper, sophisticated, complete introduction to OSC for beginners soon. They’re magical, so they can make complex topics lucid to any audience.

Yesterday, I wrote, entirely tongue in cheek and not expecting anything to actually come of it:

I think maybe I’ll start running screaming headlines with things I want in them, if only for good luck. Tomorrow on CDM: “You Know What Annoys Me? The Fact That We Don’t Have Unicorns. Magic Unicorns. Who Speak OSC.”

Today, via Twitter, Max patcher and audiovisual Merlock Andrew Lovett-Barron of Toronto wrote to me:

@peterkirn I made you a unicorn that speaks OSC.

And here it is, for your enjoyment, in Max 5 patch format:

http://andrewlb.com/max/Oscicorn_for_CDM.maxpat

This is, of course, very silly. But it’s an excuse to pitch Andrew’s site, which has lots of patching and coding goodies and visual creations:

http://andrewlb.com/

And perhaps more importantly, OSC now has a mascot. That means t-shirts, plushies, costumes, the lot. Your job: what should the name of this unicorn be?

All MIDI has is an antiquated DIN cable. Oh, yeah, that and millions of compatible devices. We hope OSC support won’t be as rare as unicorns.

Side note: please don’t troll this post, tempting as that may be. It’ll make the unicorn cry.

A new, free software release for Novation’s Launchpad could make your device a lot more usable – and it shows how useful OSC can be for hardware, even if that isn’t OSC hardware. (Now, imagine what OSC-native hardware can do.)

There are plenty of misunderstandings about OSC and the monome out there. Among them, there’s the notion that OSC won’t work without “extra software,” or that the only reason to use OSC messages with something like Novation’s Launchpad grid controller would be to emulate a monome.

Here’s the secret: even if you still don’t know what OpenSoundControl is, the idea is to make messages readable.

Novation released the MIDI message mappings for its Launchpad — that’s a good thing! (See previous post.) But because of the utilitarian and somewhat arbitrary way in which MIDI describes devices, MIDI messages just aren’t terribly readable. For instance, one button is called 50h (in hex), or 80 (in decimal). Where’s 80? Uh…. yeah, no one knows. And simple grid devices like the Launchpad and monome illustrate just how abstract MIDI is. The Launchpad has an 8×8 grid of buttons. You might expect them to be numbered from 0,0 to 7,7, or 1,1 to 8,8. But that’s not actually possible in MIDI.

Will Crossland to the rescue. He’s been working on an OSC wrapper for the Launchpad in Max/MSP (easily ported to other environments if you like). This makes the Launchpad more usable and more logical. It’s just one of what I think could be plenty of efforts to use arrays of buttons on music controllers more fluidly and flexibly. That, in turn, could take the DIY musical ingenuity shown by the monome community to the next level.

Oh, and Will even has an open MIDI networking tool, also built in Max – relevant to the earlier discussion of the day.

http://www.chippanfire.com/SoccoChico/Software

Will’s full description follows.

I thought you might be interested in an OSC wrapper I have been making for the new Launchpad.

From the off, this IS NOT simply a way to make the Launchpad act like a Monome. Oh no. This is a wrapper for converting the MIDI communication provided by Novation into a more human readable (and memorable!) OSC formatted protocol. Additionally the wrapper incorporates a banking system that provides one layer of unaltered MIDI communication (for connection and use with Ableton Live, with all the expected features in-tact) and eight layers (switchable from the Launchpads surface) of OSC transmitting (and controlled) decoupled grid action.

The wrapper is based in MaxMSP, but uses it only for selecting MIDI IO ports, udp communication to the ‘localhost’ (via netsend/netreceive to make it Pd compatible) and a single [js] object with the actual handler/wrapper inside it. Oh, and there’s a local loopback function for testing you have the write MIDI IO selected for each Launchpad you hookup… The wrapper (theoretically, not that I own a fleet) supports up to six Launchpads, each uniquely addressable. If you get really greedy, the javascript could be altered to support more; it is just a 3d array of data elements at its core, currently limited to [6] in one dimension…. The limit of six is a reflection of the maximum number of control surfaces Ableton Live supports.

Specs at a glance:

– Supports up to 6 Launchpad devices, each individually addressable via OSC/MIDI
– Retention of the default MIDI mode for use with Ableton (via internal midi bus)
– 8 OSC mode ‘user banks’ (per device) where the Launchpad (well, technically the wrapper) sends/receives OSC using a markup similar to that used by another popular ‘grid’ device [though it does not directly support Monome markup, as row/col/frame etc messages are not used)
– user bank switching from the Launchpad via top row of buttons
– retains all data received on any bank (even if the Launchpad is not currently focused on it) and updates the surface accordingly when swiching banks

As the handler magic is ALL done via a single javascript file, ANYONE can edit the functionality in their favourite text editor. You then need only MaxRuntime to run the code inside. While this is not an ‘open-source’ solution by any stretch, it can at least be tailored to an individuals needs without spending any money. As the wrapper will communicate happily with Pure Data, an avenue exists for freeware development of OSC patches that use the Launchpad as an interface (via the wrapper).

The appropriate files (along with suitably concise/detailed) documentation can be downloaded from my website (http://www.chippanfire.com/SoccoChico/Software)

Finally, the OSC protocol I have used is fully detailed in the download. It is essentially an extended version of the basic subset (i.e. /press and /led) employed by the Monome. My intention is not provide a ‘Monome Emulator’; the similarity in protocol is both a courteous nod to the Monome creators, and logical progression. The Monome OSC protocol is clearly well thought and well suited to addressing a 2D grid so why reinvent the wheel? I’d expect any sensible grid based OSC controller to use a similar markup as the original is so well thought out…

I have added extensions that allow for the multiple device/multiple bank addressing, as well as some extra ‘data’ for the extended colour set available to the LEDs. If you want to use the wrapper with Monome apps you’ll have to get your hands dirty converting between the two OSC protocols (not that that would be too difficult). The lack of support for /row, /column etc messages is just one example of why this is technically an inferior device to the Monome; that said, i’d still be making a wrapper like this for the banking/multiple device features it enables if I had the budget to buy such a beautiful device…

p.s. Where I am saying OSC, at this stage I really mean ‘OSC formatted’. The implementation is limited to using the netsend/netreceive objects in Max (which perhaps limits their reception to Max/Pd?). I’m a bit too new to using OSC to say I am ‘definitely’ sending Full Packet Messages that could be picked up by any OSC client…. I’d be happy for someone with more know-how to take the final steps in making it truly OSC compliant…

I imagine this could generate plenty of feedback, so fire away.

Max For Live Sneak Peak from max4live on Vimeo.

Suddenly, I have an image of American Ableton hackers patching on their MacBook over Thanksgiving turkey.

After a long, long wait, a public beta of Max for Live is available. The software incorporates the full version of Max/MSP/Jitter – complete with visual output, video processing, and 3D capabilities – with the Live host. Max patches operate with all their usual capabilities as devices inside Live. User interface elements are available to give Max patches conventional Ableton device interfaces, and there are even pre-built elements for useful functions like frequency displays and MIDI patterns. Via the Live API, Max for Live patches are also able to control most elements of the Live interface.

Because of Max’s networking capabilities, Max for Live devices can also be used to route OpenSoundControl data into Live. That isn’t necessarily with the same ease as you might route MIDI, and there’s still no native support in the Live interface, but it is a step forward.

Our friend Michael at max4live.info has been busy documenting the new software. His overview video is at top, and for OSC coverage, see his tutorial [part 1 | part 2].

Updated: Pricing has now been announced.
Max for Live is not included with Live 8 or even (perhaps surprisingly) Live Suite. It will be a US$299 / EUR249 download, available separately, on top of the cost of Live 8 or Live Suite 8. If you already own Max, you’ll have a set of crossgrades available:
1. You own Live. You can add Max for Live for US$99.
2. You don’t own Live, and want just Live. You can get that and Max for Live for US$449.
3. You don’t own Live, and want the whole Suite. Suite plus Max for Live crossgrade, US$699.

Total cost:
Max owners without Live: US$449-699
Live owners without Max: US$299 + cost of the upgrade to Live 8
Max + Live owners: US$99 + cost of the upgrade to Live 8

I think this could arguably be worth the investment, but given the discontinuation of support for developing VST, RTAS, and AU plug-ins in Max – a feature that was formerly free – I expect some resistance. Also, as previously announced, there is no known Max for Live “runtime,” meaning Max patch developers don’t really have a distribution outlet for work made in Max for Live, other than other Max for Live users.

Sign up for the public beta on Ableton’s site, and you’ll be able to grab the downloads (details below). You must be an Ableton Live 8 owner, though you don’t need to own Max 5:
http://www.ableton.com/maxforlive/beta

At the bottom of the page, you’ll have a direct link to download Live 8.1 (the official current build of Live is 8.0.9 otherwise), and a link to Cycling’s site to download Max. (Note: the Max link worked this morning, then promptly disappeared, so it’s possible they’re uploading an updated build is now back up.)

There are full instructions there. I was able to simply click a button and become a beta tester; hopefully you have the same experience. You’ll need to install two pieces of software, both Ableton Live 8.1 on the Live side and Max 5.1.

For the Python-based Live API, and the MIDI and OSC interfaces based on it, this should also come as good news. Live 8.1 should theoretically represent a more stable, feature-complete, fully documented version of the Live API under the hood in Live. That means even without Max for Live, it may be possible to, say, route an OSC input into Live as easily as a MIDI control surface.

If you’d like to join in with other people working on hacking Ableton Live and ask questions, try out our Noisepages group, which should now be functioning properly with a forum, wire, and networking features. More to come with this, with Max for Live, with OSC, with other tools, with… yeah, I’m glad I own a coffee maker.

http://noisepages.com/groups/ableton-hackers

Novation’s Launchpad, its affordable (<$200) "grid" controller, may have a big Ableton logo on it. But underneath, it's just a MIDI controller. Bi-colored LEDs, containing a red and green element for red, green, and amber output (amber = red+green), can be triggered using simple MIDI note and control messages. That means, whether you're looking forward to Max for Live or you're sequencing in a tracker or writing Processing sketches, you can use the Launchpad just like any other MIDI controller.

One of the things I thought was a major demerit for Akai was the fact that they failed to ship a MIDI implementation for the Akai APC40. MIDI implementations are the charts of MIDI messages we've had since the very first MIDI devices came out in the 80s. They're usually printed in the back pages of the manual, and even the cheapest gear has often had one.

Score: Novation 1, Akai 0. Novation has done the MIDI documentation, and then some. Its MIDI “Programmers Reference” is out even before the official Launchpad ship date. And rather than just doing a MIDI chart and assuming people know how to read it, they’ve taken the care to fully explain the way MIDI messages work, how to calculate the right messages, and how to really use this. Experts will have all the information they need, but newcomers will also find they can spend a little time and learn how to do what they want.

Launchpad Support with Downloads (see Programmer’s Reference at the bottom)
Via: Novation released Launchpad Programming Guide, and Protocol [Nezoomie's Zen Wave Blog - great read]

It’s listed as “for Max/MSP programmers,” but anyone using MIDI will want to have a look; that’s obviously relevant to far more than just Max. (In fact, there’s not a single mention of anything specific to Max in the document.)

What might people do with stuff like this? Well, as of just four hours ago, Matt DiFonzo lets us know he’s written a simple monome emulator. It’s even got a clever name:

nonome – monome emulator for Novation Launchpad

There’s some bad news mixed with the good. Even with something as simple as a grid of buttons, MIDI isn’t as friendly as it could be. I still would like to have a MIDI editor for the Launchpad so you can reassign buttons if you like — that’s a feature, incidentally, available on rival Ohm and Block hardware from Livid Instruments. Also, the documentation reveals that Launchpad uses “a low-speed version of USB,” which runs at a maximum of 400 messages per second, thus taking 200 milliseconds to update a Launchpad’s LEDs. (There are some workarounds, but they’re … more work. Clarification: Once you double up messages, though, you can get this to a more acceptable gap, and that’s for updating all the LEDs, not the latency of input messages.)

Also, here’s a hint to Novation: use a Creative Commons license for that document. That way, your users will be free to document even more ingenious solutions and friendly guides. You win, and your users win. For instance, I have the illustration here, which I should be able to do for purposes of reporting on this story. But can I write my own how-to guide using your guide? Why not make it explicit to encourage me to do so? (They list the PDF as “proprietary,” though there’s no explicit license, and I think they just mean “proprietary” as in “what we’ve done on our hardware.”)

That’s a difference between open hardware and closed hardware, but I don’t even want to belabor the point — CC licenses are something a commercial company like Novation could easily use. In fact, if anyone at Novation or Ableton would like to talk to me about why I think it’s a good idea, I’d like to extend an open invitation. I’m no legal expert, but I can explain what it means to me as a user and developer, and connect you with some of the right people at Creative Commons and the CC-using community.

But those gripes aside, kudos to Novation for getting this documentation out here. I think it’s really good news for people experimenting with grid controllers. And we’ll be looking at how all of these tools, hardware and software, fit together, and how open source development can make them more powerful.

Patchers and coders and hackers: if you’re interested in working on interoperability between all this stuff, let us know.

It’s actually paradoxical to talk about music “made” on the monome. The monome, the open controller, is after all, a grid of buttons. It has no sound of its own. But as such, perhaps its design as a blank canvas – without any indication of how a single button may function, without a screenprinted logo or name – that allows computer musicians to project upon it whatever they wish. The monome, more than any other object designed since the emergence of computer performance, is emblematic of what digital music can be. It’s an empty digital grid, like viewing the world of music software under a microscope.

It’s also, therefore, possible for the monome to disappear, leaving behind a spectrum of what people are doing with music on computers. That was what was most striking to me about the music of the monomeet on Saturday in Princeton, NJ: it covered a range of techniques, from glitchy granulation to breakbeat rhythms derived from turntables. Listen to what

In the lineup: tehn (aka Brian Crabtree), the instrument’s creator, playing on the Max/MSP patch mlr that is partly responsible for the monome’s set, through Daedelus, Brian’s friend who helped raise awareness of the strange box of buttons around the world. There are also fantastic sounds from mtn (makingthenoise), picture in the photos here, Edison, ro, %, and altitude sickness.

Here’s what the live sets sounded like. Bet you you can’t hear the monome.

Latest tracks by monomeet

More photos from the event:

Part of the beauty of the iPhone from its launch date was the notion of a Mac you could fit in the palm of your hand. That makes it ironic that, for so many developers, mobile platforms in general have turned into a way to fragment software, to make it run fewer places instead of more. There’s something to be said for designing to a specific mobile device, but on the other hand, how many developers would want to restrict where their creations run? And particularly in music, isn’t the appeal of mobile creation the ability to have your tools work in more places? Maybe targeting just one gadget is the right choice for a given tool, but it shouldn’t be the only choice.

On the iPhone, the application Thump has plenty in common with a range of mobile music making tools. It’s simple but fun, a groove box with sequencing, subtractive synths, drums, and a set of basic effects, plus the ability to load your own samples and export songs.

Thump also demonstrates how simplifying sonic capabilities can produce musically-beautiful results, by focusing on the essentials and creating something with personality. Here’s a track by its creator showing off its sounds:
thump soundreel by mazbox

Well worth checking out the app on your platform of choice:
http://www.mrkbrz.com/thump/

What might not be immediately apparent is that under the hood, Thump makes use of the open source environment openFrameworks. As a result, the same code runs on iPhone, Mac, and Windows, as well as Linux. (It’s not distributed for Linux, but it could be. Hint, hint.) Creator Marek Bereza gives back, too – he ported the openFrameworks audio library to the iPhone, where it’s available to anyone.

Updated Marek notes in comments just what this means. The video below is, essentially, the same app. In place of the iPod screen, he has used a massive lattice of physical controls. A separate installation at the same show used a large touchscreen and simplified interface. And this really demonstrates what cross-platform means. Guy Kawasaki in the 80s mocked “ports” as a cheap wine. The idea is not to simply dump your code on a different platform and hope for the best – in fact, in this case, the changes from one platform to another were radical. The key is maximizing what’s essential, what really is not specific to a single device.

Physical Sequencer from Marek Bereza on Vimeo.

Creative Applications has a detailed write-up of the installation with more documentation.

If you’re interested in creating your own projects, oF has an elegant syntax based on Processing, but adapted to C/C++ coding paradigms and libraries.

I would recommend trying desktop development first as you’re learning, but when you do want to go mobile, setup is absurdly easy:

Setup instructions for iPhone

Having this as a foundation means more freedom for users and developers alike, the ability to run where you want, and a shared community of artists helping one another out. It does not mean sacrificing revenue, either – which is important, because revenue is often what enables (and encourages) developers to make new things. Here, we see a commercial mobile tool and distribution via the iTunes store, with free-as-in-beer distribution of desktop apps. But even the Free Software Foundation actually encourages charging for distribution – and to many people, the FSF is the most extreme example.

The bottom line is, you’re free to create what you want, where you want – and it doesn’t even have to have a price of free.

The use of openFrameworks is possible because the iPhone allows the execution of native code. Apple does not allow the Java virtual machine, which locks out many useful platforms and tools — including Processing. Naturally, that should not be the case with forthcoming non-Apple platforms based on Linux; more on that soon.

Thanks to Memo Akten for the tip — and for his exceptional documentation of iPhone openFrameworks development.

GPU-tiful and Cross-Platform

Updated Another framework I left out is the lovely libnui. The tagline says it all: “C++ API, multiplatform (Mac OS X, iPhone, Win32, Win64, Linux), 3D hardware accelerated GUI and more…”

On the iPhone, Intua’s elaborate Beatmaker software and David Wallin’s bleep!box have both been made with libnui. I want to single out bleep!box because of its UI – note how UI elements are simplified and scaled to the size of your fingertip. That’s something that, speaking of multiple platforms, could be equally important with touch hardware coming to Mac, Windows, and Linux platforms (some of it here already). I saw a huge fan of Windows tablets loving Propellerhead Reason on a tablet. He probably would be less enthused running Reason or Record on a touch interface; the UI elements are way too small.

bleep!box is also worth a look for the same reason as Thump: elegant UI, simple functions, and a lot of fun.

Pd, too

Pure Data, the open source patching cousin of Max/MSP, can also run on mobile devices. It’s currently powering the application RjDj, but because Pd is free, that could be just the beginning. In May, I wrote about the work being done by Hans-Christoph Steiner, who has been porting Pd even to ancient PDAs and iPods – including those, notably, without native floating-point capabilities (the kind of number crunching usually associated with sound).

Well, now Hans-Christoph is looking toward other, current-generation devices, too, kicking off with a workshop on making interactive sound on the iPhone using Pure Data. Here’s a taste:

OK, kids, you won’t believe how easy this is. Once you have Pure Data installed on your your iPhone or iPod-Touch, creating and uploading your own sound-processing and sound-generating patches is as trivial as copying a text file to your device! You’ll still need an Apple Developer License, but because Pd patches are treated as media files, they don’t have to go thru Apple’s elaborate code review — so, you can just dive right in, turning your phone into a pocket synth within minutes. In this 3-hour hands-on workshop, interactive sound whiz and Pure Data developer Hans-Christoph Steiner will lead you through all the steps.

Hans-Christoph will be talking Pd on the iPhone at a conference next month at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. That will also include Memo Akten and Zach Gage talking about openFrameworks. And for nearly-entirely open source hardware, there’s a tantalizing-looking workshop combining Android with Arduino, too.

http://artandcode.ning.com/

There’s quite a lot more to say about this, but I hope this whets your appetite.

And, of course, riding the train to Pittsburgh or your nearest university or open source workshop, now you’ll have Thump which which to make some thumping tracks on your iPhone.

jumping beans & .tape. from la bisogno on Vimeo.

What might a jar full of Mexican jumping beans sound like if composing their own ambient music? Scott Worley points us to a musical experiment by his labelmate Daniel Romero aka .tape, on netlabel yo.yo.pang!.
.tape programmed a sound environment in the free multimedia patching environment Pd (Pure Data). Contact microphones listen for the beans to jump, then use Pd’s onset detection (an analysis for transients) to trigger the sounds. Daniel reports the technique is “easy, but wholly effective.”

I’ll say – the music winds up being quite lovely, and rather than having a boring software-based random event generator, there’s something mesmerizing about watching the beans. You can download a free MP3/OGG file of the track, as well (and it sounds as though more projects may be coming):

pet-o-matic [asociación cultural la bisogno]

Descripción original en Español:

empezamos esta serie con la picante unión entre el músico Daniel Romero (aka .tape. ) y Pancho, Emiliano y Marcos, tres frijoles saltarines mexicanos

Sonidos y programación por .tape. secuenciación en directo por los 3 frijoles saltarines mexicanos micrófono de contacto + un “onset detection” en pd para disparar los sonidos. fácil pero rotundamente efectivo.

In other Pd news, the creators of the RjDj interactive/generative iPhone music app, which employs Pd patches, will be holding another sprint. This one will be located in London October 2-4.

It’s a strange and wonderful sampling instrument and live rig, capable of mangling and remixing live, synced to tempo. It’s proof that live computer performance doesn’t have to be in only one tool, or use one technique. It’s a ready-to-play, affordable instrument you can pick up and use. It’s a Reaktor patch gurus can pick apart and learn from, along with other resources from one of Reaktor’s masters. It’s a new blog and an opportunity to talk about live performance. It’s an EP release.

It’s actually all of these things – a tool, but more than a tool. The Finger, a US$79 / EUR 69 instrument, is a product, first and foremost, created by master live electronic performer and hacker Tim Exile. Tim is such a dedicated Reaktor user that he once managed to give himself a repetitive stress injury from connecting patch cords. (Not recommended.) You can run this thing out of the box using the free Kore Player, or get in deeper with a full version of Kore, or get into the patch itself with a copy of Reaktor 5 (also included in Komplete 5 and 6). It’s quite a product, too. I could try to explain it, but I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as Tim does in the video.

I’m not sure I agree with the marketing material’s claim that this is “a new type of live performance and remix effect.” In fact, Reaktor, Max/MSP, and other tools have led to all sorts of similar, original performance tools. Unlike going into a gig with just an Ableton Live set (something I’m doing in, literally, fifteen minutes), having a custom tool means focusing on performance techniques. And “new” hardly matters – Tim is a ninja at working with Reaktor’s deep sound DSP layer, Core (not to be confused with Kore). Whether it’s new or not, this is the ultimate patch from one of Reaktor’s masters. Along with Reaktor creator Stephan Schmitt’s Spark, it’s proof that sound packs from NI – or anyone else for that matter – don’t have to be limited to stock presets.

More than that, though, The Finger is connected to a music release by Tim, and is already triggering discussion of live performance and sound design – issues that go beyond any one tool. Tim has started a new blog to talk about his own take on live performance, starting with more info on his EP and some tracks you can hear:

http://thenowwave.blogspot.com/

Other folks I know have picked up The Finger and started to play with it, including the underlying Reaktor patch. Most notably, see Richard Devine transform The Finger from a Sound-Like-Tim-Exile machine into a Richard-Devine-Sonic-Insanity-Generator. (See, just because you use someone else’s tool doesn’t have to mean you need to sound like them.) With Max for Live coming, hackers getting smarter and slicker with open source tools like Processing, ChucK, SoundCollider, and Pd, and techno-literacy again on the rise – more connected than ever by these Interwebs – I think we could be in store for a really wonderful age of creativity, in which people make part of the craft of music making the craft of tool making, as well. Designing a tool, after all, is designing a system, in the same way that composition (in any medium) is about designing a system. Finally, instead of keeping that to ourselves, we can actually share the whole process.

In the meantime, let’s watch those videos, on Reaktor, The Finger, and more.

Richard Devine takes on The Finger:

Native Instruments The Finger vs Richard Devine from Richard Devine on Vimeo.

Tim Exile performing in Reaktor:

Tim shows his Reaktor-based setup – not just The Finger, but beyond:

Related tools:

Updated based on feedback in comments See also…

Sugar Bytes Artillery2, which focuses more on effects – and offers a whopping amount of effects variety, from step-sequenced buffer scratchers to vocoding. As with The Finger, the idea is to map effects to keys.

Rekkerd notes that Sugar Bytes has just discounted Artillery2 to 50% through October. Devoted loop manglers will buy both. I’m going to wait for a Richard Devine video in which he routes Artillery2, Lucifer, and The Finger together in one chain, then randomizes all the settings – your move, Richard.

The Lucifer plug-in is now discontinued, but Devine Machine offer a range of related looper/performance tools – from the practical tools to the manglers.

The basic ideas here I think are worth copying: making use of the keyboard to control things live rather than having modulation all running automatically, routing different effects together for mangled results, and loop recording and effects that are synced it time are all useful concepts to combine. I’d love to see people push those concepts in various directions, and the exact combination of ingredients you want is likely to be personal, so it’s well-suited to DIY concoctions, too.

GPS Beatmap from Jesse Stiles on Vimeo.

“Locative art,” the idea that somehow location will feed into music and visuals, has eluded culture. We have the technology, in the form of sophisticated databases of location information and highly accurate, publicly-available GPS satellites. But it’s one of those solutions in search of a problem, and begs the question, why?

That is, until you unleash a nearly 6-liter V8 Ford LTD Crown Victoria on the legendary Bonneville Salt Flats, and your driving gets translated to music. Now it makes sense. And sweeping through the salty dust in one of America’s greatest action-car-chase cars of all time, manipulating music on a Max/MSP software patch, all becomes right with the world. (That’s how it is in my head, anyway.)

The planet is your control surface.

Such is the project sent by co-creator Jesse Stiles, who worked with Rich Pell (and editor/documentarian Olivia Robinson) under the name Face Removal Services to perform this vehicular musical production. (Thank, as well, The Center for Land Use Interpretation / GPS Expo 2006. PS – I think we now know what to do with all those clunkers Americans are turning in for Cash for Clunkers.)

Now, this covers only X and Y axis. I think we need to add the Z-axis, for base jumpers. (I had a dream last night in which I was hang gliding from the rim of the Grand Canyon to the Colorado River below, a reminder that the Earth – and computer interfaces – do not have to be flat.)

Showcasing amazing projects is a good thing. But we know that no creation emerges fully-formed. They start from nothing, with lots of mistakes along the way. You get help and ideas from other people. And you need time.

So this month’s Handmade Music in Brooklyn we’re declaring an Open Lab. Got a kit lying on your shelf, waiting to get made? Got a half-finished project that needs fixing? Just want to hang around some musical and visual DIYers and see what they’re up to? And just need a few hours to make some progress? That’s the idea.

Software projects, hardware projects, gear hacking, circuit bending, coding, patching in Reaktor or Pd or Max – it’s all welcome.

We also have a very special guest this month in the form of Morgan Packard, a talented multi-instrumentalist and computer musician (video at top, with live visuals by superDraw creator Joshue Ott). At 7:30p, Morgan will show off his free Ripple musical environment, built on the powerful open source SuperCollider code-for-sound platform. It’s a great chance to see what SuperCollider can do, how a scratch-built environment can open up musical possibilities, and what you can do with Ripple yourself.

Full details: Handmade Music Brooklyn: Open Lab, Featuring Morgan Packard’s Musical Code [handmademusic@noisepages]

Facebook Event Page

The whole event runs 6:00p-11:00p at 3rd Ward Brooklyn. As always, it’s completely free. Be sure to bring your projects and the tools you’ll need; we can provide power, a PA, space, and other folks to hang out with. And we can help give you an excuse to set aside a few hours of time.

We’ll also be taking notes on how the setup works, as we know this may be something other Handmade Music events want to try in your neck of the woods.