What is sound? What does it mean, and why does it matter? It’s never too fundamental, too basic a question to ask ourselves again when we make music. So, I’ll leave this trailer otherwise largely without comment, except to say, it’s well worth watching (or re-watching).

Touch the Sound, produced by German director Thomas Riedelsheimer in 2004, focuses on the work and world of nearly-deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie. See a trailer, below, and excerpt, above. Thanks to Morgan Hendry for the tip.

IMDB link

On this topic, and the inspiration for this link:
For a Deaf Artist, The Process of Sound Art, Transformed: Short Film

And I suspect there’s a reader out there who can tell us more about the experience of sound and music (and the technology thereof) for the hearing-impaired?

Updated: Watch the entire movie on Hulu, if you’re in the United States:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/200692/touch-the-sound

And there’s a TED talk, as well:

Sonic and musical inspiration are never far away, especially with a microphone in hand. For the latest example, Ableton Live meets a local playground.

Jason Richard, aka “bassling,” used field recordings in the park to compose a track. He writes:

I’ve been recording playgrounds and remixing the sounds in Ableton Live to create tracks. To help people understand what they’re hearing, I’ve been making short videos showing some of the process.

It’s an idea I’ve had in mind for a while and the centenary is deadline to work towards. I’m inspired by the Italian Futurists and Alan Lamb, who mentored me in 2006 as part of the Unsound Festival.

The playground is part of a series of videos of local playgrounds, intended to celebrate the 2012 centenary of Leeton in New South Wales, Australia. (That’s southeastern Australia, for the uninitiated.)

More information:
http://bassling.blogspot.com/

It’s really nice having the video to serve as a guide to the music, I think. So, what field recordings have inspired you? Let us know.

What makes rhythm human? Music technology has introduced machine rhythms, perfectly-calibrated to electronically-perfected grids, yet we know that natural playing is more organic. Or, that is, we know we have certain intuitive preferences. How do those preferences and rhythms really work? And what does that mean for music technology?

Fascinating new research investigates more deeply, using – you know, science!

Here’s the summary of the research itself:

Although human musical performances represent one of the most valuable achievements of mankind, the best musicians perform imperfectly. Musical rhythms are not entirely accurate and thus inevitably deviate from the ideal beat pattern. Nevertheless, computer generated perfect beat patterns are frequently devalued by listeners due to a perceived lack of human touch. Professional audio editing software therefore offers a humanizing feature which artificially generates rhythmic fluctuations. However, the built-in humanizing units are essentially random number generators producing only simple uncorrelated fluctuations. Here, for the first time, we establish long-range fluctuations as an inevitable natural companion of both simple and complex human rhythmic performances. Moreover, we demonstrate that listeners strongly prefer long-range correlated fluctuations in musical rhythms. Thus, the favorable fluctuation type for humanizing interbeat intervals coincides with the one generically inherent in human musical performances.

Hennig H, Fleischmann R, Fredebohm A, Hagmayer Y, Nagler J, et al. (2011) The Nature and Perception of Fluctuations in Human Musical Rhythms. [PLoS ONE 6(10): e26457]

Hear that? One of the most valuable achievements of mankind! (Uh, that makes me want to practice a bit more, as I’m not sure I’d necessarily describe my last gig that way!)

James Postlethwaite, who sends this in, accompanies his news tip with an articulate letter considering the value of the research, so I’ll include all of it here:

Whilst reading the latest issue of the journal Nature (No.7372, Vol.479) I was surprised to se a picture of a TR-808 in the Research Highlights section, featuring research of note in other journals.

The research was about the correlations of rhythmic imperfections in human drummers, which correlate over a longer time period than the random singular imperfections that are inserted by some computer programs. At least I think that’s what it was, as I’m not a mathematician.

I do note that the sample size used in the statistical analysis was only 39 subjects, though the results were of a decent significance. The audio files are available in the supporting files section, CDM has a large readership, t-tests are very simple to run… Just an idea.

It does though serve as a nice reminder that a lot of the tools that musicians use nowadays do have roots in academic research, going back to the days of the early synthesizer. It also reminds me of a comment from a friend who used to own a 909; that one of the charms of this machine was the unique imperfection in the rigidity of the sequencer.
I don’t know if this has been corroborated by other people.

Finally, the piece in Nature magazine seemingly wasn’t written by a fan of electronic music, as it starts: ‘If you have endured much 1980′s pop music, you might agree that drum machines steal the soul from the beat. Their cold regularity is sometimes ‘humanized’ in the recording studio…’. Possibility of bias?

“Endured” 80s pop music? Yes, I’d say that counts as a bit of bias (just on the part of Nature). Imagine reading a story on bee populations, which began “Yeah, Bees. F*** bees.”

But the research itself looks solid and intriguing – and James is asking a variety of other interesting questions, so I’m going to open it up to discussion. Hope this is something we can follow up on. (Academics, attack!)

By the way, a quick search of Nature reveals that the journal regularly publishes material of interest to sound and music – worth noting, as there was a time when that wasn’t true. (Max Mathews was one of the first to help computer music break into the scientific mainstream.)
My search results
And, for example: Rhythmic synchronization tapping to an audio–visual metronome in budgerigars [hint: think tap tempo meets birds]

Updated: Nature wrote a quick blurb: Doctoring the beats
…though it seems from the excerpt that they either didn’t understand or tried to oversimplify the role of rhythmic variation in digitally-sequenced music. The study is, to me, more interesting.

Sometimes, images and video can say far more than words, and it’s best to stand back rather than ramble on. (Cough, ahem.)

From Björk this year has come two visions of how to make new instruments. The Biophilia software for iOS is an interactive rendition of the album. As apps, you have the curious separation of tracks into individual application icons, available as separate purchases or a bundle. But the effect is one we’ve traced for a while: the music becomes non-linear and interactive, blurring the line between recording as reproduction and dynamic instruments that can transform what you hear. Most notably, it also comes, via an update, with MIDI as observed by Synthtopia. MIDI allows you to then radically transform the output of what you get, and I agree that this is probably the first “album with MIDI output.” (The deeper question: are other sequencers in some sense someone else’s musical/compositional creation?)

In the Gameleste gamelan-celeste hybrid, you also have MIDI, here controlling an otherwise entirely acoustic instrument. (Create Acoustic Music!) Starting with a conventional celeste, the original instrument was “hacked” with hand-built bronze bars made by UK cymbalsmith Matt Nolan, then constructed into the finished instrument with MIDI by Icelandic organ builder Björgvin Tòmasson.

Videos via Shocklee.com.

The videos themselves to me represent the spectrum of possible choice in instrument design on a whole number of levels – MIDI even being one fascinating such level.

Biophilia software [iTunes link]

Excellent reading –
Extended behind-the-scenes look at the release with Damian Taylor at Sonic Scoop

Sydney-based duo Electrocado (Bill Day + Ryan Whare) have been busy making machines to make music – and banging things. In the video above, their inventive robotic percussionist, triggered via MIDI, plays tunes and rhythms. The CP1 (Creative Project 1) uses servos to control drum sticks (chopsticks, in fact) pivoting on rods, which can then strike metal, plastic, and drum skin surfaces. Playing a G# Minor scale on a xylophone along with drums, the robot responds here to MIDI patterns sent to it by Ableton Live.

You can read loads of commentary on the process of making it in a PDF paper:

“Aesthetic and Practical Applications for Robotics in Electronic Music: Further Development of CP1 MIDI Triggered Robot [all for the Bachelor of Audio at SAE Sydney]

These two aren’t just about building flashy hardware, though. They also have a full-length album debut out, with diverse, stuttering, danceable music. I like “psychedelic glitch trance electro” as the label; various other keywords could easily fit. (The opening track even recalls Akufen; keep listening for a gamut of other goodness.) Intricately composed, sometimes tending into tech-house, the record is as finely-tuned as the robotic machine.

I could ramble on, but it’s pay-what-you-like on Bandcamp, so have a listen:

The Hass Effect | http://electrocado.bandcamp.com/

We’re also treated to the delightfully-named track “The Lugubrious Frog,” complete with some froggy drawing timelapse. Artists, too contribute to the project.

Yet more music, in the form of earlier EPs:

Thanks to Bill for sending this along; you’ll find his site worth a look, as well:
http://www.mrbillstunes.com/

Brilliant work, mates. We’ll be watching.

If you have any questions about their work, ask them here and perhaps we can do a follow-up interview.

Music made by machines need not turn its back on traditional musical skill – least of all when you literally strap the machines on the back of a master musician. In a fusion of Brazilian tradition and modern wireless, wearable sensor technology, Kyle McDonald shares with us a project that makes drums into an interactive suit.

Kyle has plenty to say, including all the details on how to do this in case it inspires a project of your own, so I’ll let him take it away:

The project is a wireless drum suit that I built with Lucas Werthein for a popular Brazilian musician named Carlinhos Brown.

Brown wanted to try something experimental — which is relevant because it’s probably one of the first alternative interfaces anyone
in this city has ever seen. Salvador might be one of the biggest open air-festivals ever, but it’s full of traditional music and the local
pop music (“axé”). Nothing but the usual guitars and drums, and some Bahian + Brazilian instruments.

The system is based on a multilayer, laser-cut design we developed:

It uses acrylic, metal, rubber, and piezos to create a really solid module that feels nice to the touch. I’ve always been annoyed with the
force required to hit something like an [M-Audio] Trigger Finger or an Akai pad, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that if you build your own, you can really get that bottom end to be super sensitive. They probably just pull it up in commercial devices to avoid triggering from
shaking, or cross talk.

The pads run to the brain via 1/8″ cables. The brain is about the size of an Arduino Mega + 1 9V battery, and also laser-cut acrylic:

The Arduino Mega is then connected to a MIDI shield from Sparkfun, which goes to a CME WIDI wireless MIDI device that was surprisingly more robust than the more expensive Kenton MIDI device we tried.

I had a ton of fun making this, and we’re planning on open-sourcing the design for the pads so other people can build them.

It’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere. For some of us, there’s little need to remind us of snow and ice. But if you fancy adding some frozen sounds to your music, we have both free samples and expert recording tips to help get your cold on.

Frank Bry, a master sound designer, apparently has plenty of access to snow in his home of Idaho, but that hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm for the white, fluffy stuff. He’s devoted an entire library to Ultimate Snow with some 300 locations. You can read an interview with him on the superb field recording site Sonic Terrain:

Recording Snow Sounds: An Exclusive Interview with Frank Bry

Now he’s back at it again, turning his attention to capturing the sound of snow falling from giant fir trees, as they shed the weight of the snowfall. He employs patience, ingenuity, and some serious recording gear. The results from the end of November:
Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow (also via Sonic Terrain)

Snow Falling Off Trees 2010 by therecordist

If you prefer to use snow and ice for more directly musical purposes, the good folks at sample house Tonehammer have a massive collection of wintry wonders to give away. The 2009 edition is back as a mass-download (WAV/Kontakt/SFZ), and 2010 brings a new sample each day through December 25, advent calendar-style. It’s like a big box of Turkish Delight.

2009 includes drums made from snow sounds, and percussion produced by throwing stones on ice. There are other, non-precipitation entries, too, including a Gnomish Choir (Helium Choir) and toy glockenspiel.

The Bedroom Producers Blog can get you connected with this and many other freebies:

Gnomehammer Samples Free Until December 25th!

And if all of this has made you feel a chill, warm up with a free Windows VST warmth/saturation plug-in from the same site.

What if blowing tunes on beer bottles was raised to the level of musical science?

Through even the mundane medium of packaging, design can transform the everyday. DJ and designer Matt Braun of Philadelphia, collaborating with Chris Mufalli, use labels to tune the level of beer remaining in the bottle for musical results. Pitches are printed on the labels, allowing you to exactly match the liquid inside to a pitch you want, and join along with your fellow imbibers for a performance.

It’s not just a label that’s different. Ridges on the sides of the bottles make them double as Guiro-style percussion. The neck was adjusted for ergonomics. Even the wooden box becomes a tongue drum.

It’s all decidedly non-digital, group fun – Create Beer Music? (Actually, technically, they’re printing with digital tech, the quantization of liquid to discrete equal-tempered pitches is a digital process by definition, and you hold it with your fingers. So there.)

So far, this has been used in a microbrew, but the duo are looking for a partner. I’d love to have this at our next Handmade Music, if any of you are in the bottling business.

Tuned Pale Ale [2d3d5d.com - project site]
Found via the wonderful, whimsical design blog etre, maintained by a usability and design consultancy
Thanks to Johan Strandell / 40hz for the tip.

The Tuned Pale Ale are just one of a number of unique designs from Matt Braun, all emphasizing making the ephemeral world of sound more physical.

Matt’s site is a smörgåsbord of design concepts, many involving creative uses of lasercutters and 3D forms. There are “tuned gig buckets” for busking similar to the beer bottles, useful tools for DJs using 45s, and wooden drums made from digital images of the sounds of other drums, producing “generations” of instruments in which the sound of one gives form to the shape of another.

Two of my favorites are pictured here. Custom-made shirts use user-modifiable CAD illustrations to produce wearable art made from analysis of any sound file – below, Michael Jackson’s P.Y.T. becomes a pink tee. Another project in early development explores making skeletal three-dimensional forms from the structure of musical harmonies.

I look forward to seeing how these projects evolve; Matt’s looking for collaborators.

http://2d3d5d.com/

No comment on this one just yet; I’ll have to pick my jaw up off the floor. Amidst a sea of new robotic percussion, this Wii-remote-controlled, Max/MSP-based mini-ensemble of wooden African percussion is musical, expressive, and downright stunning. I love the mechanical (literally and musically) grooves, and with a single human controlling it live, it’s true to the one-man-band history of these sorts of instruments. “One human, three machines, rhythm,” says the video description. I hope to do some research and share more soon, but I can’t resist sharing the results now.

Thanks to Patrick Flanagan for the tip on his work. Patrick predicts that “this is the beginning of steamfunk.”

Note: please see comments for more on what’s happening; Patrick is using robotics to effectively augment his own personal performance and improvisation, allowing him to play multiple instruments at once. He is actually playing in one of the available modes, however, and has some nice reflections on what he’s doing. I’ll follow up with more details – as I said, wanted to give you a peek at the video first. So, before you jump to conclusions, ask about what’s unclear or what you’d like to know. We’ve got the artist here to discuss.

A lot of the music tech industry involves incremental improvements and fairly routine hardware. Amidst the crowd, certain devices are special. They might not even appear so to a general audience, but they have a special place in someone’s music making.

For whatever reason, some Roland percussion controllers fit in that category. As electronic musicians ponder how to make live performance work, the handful with adept percussion skills can pick up one of these boxes and play hard.

So, while it was overlooked by most folks, I think one of the stars of the new gear announced this week at NAMM may well prove to be the Octapad SPD-30. It’s a long-awaited improvement on the SPD-20. (As it happens, I was just talking to an SPD-20 owner about how he wanted a new version.) Specs on the new model:

• Updated triggers, based on the current-gen V-Drums. These really are quite amazing, in the ballpark of the kind of response you get from high-end, custom hardware, but in a pretty affordable box.
• New phrase looping features that turn this into a real performance instrument. The previous Octapad worked as a controller and a sound source, but now it can be a self-contained performance tool, which could also nicely complement a laptop setup. And as you can see in the demo, it can loop effects changes as well as notes, getting you into Korg KAOSS category — only with a serious percussion instrument.
• USB for MIDI, backup connectivity. Standard on newer Roland hardware, but new to the Octapad.

I normally hate demos, but the Roland rep demoing the SPD-30 was great:

And this is in addition to layering features and drum trigger inputs familiar from the Octapad. It all makes me want to practice my percussion chops. Also, unlike the original Octapad – and updated from the most recent SPD-20 – you get a bunch of internal sounds on this instrument, too. Now, that said, I’m not a seasoned Octapad/SPD owner, so I’ll be curious to hear from SPD-20 (or earlier) models if this addresses what you wanted out of a newer year — or not. Be honest and tell us what you really thi– uh, okay, judging by recent comments, that shouldn’t be a problem.

It’s easy to complain about the iterative nature of gear shown at NAMM, but some hardware is worth revising over time.

Pricing: Already seeing US$699 from a couple of outlets.

SPD-30 Product Info [Roland]