Something as simple as remapping a single knob can give you new musical ideas. So expand that to entire gestures and live video input, and you can help push your performance in new directions and out of old habits. That’s why it’s always great to see projects like the Gestural Music Sequencer.
Built entirely in free tools – tools fairly friendly even to non-coders – the GMS lets composer and musician John Keston explore new ideas through gestures captured in a video stream. It’s easier to see than to talk about, so check out the just-completed documentary short by Josh Klos, with the aid of Julie Kistler and Brian Smith. (And yes, documentation makes a huge difference; we’d love to see more of this stuff!)
Knobs and faders can be rigid. Fancy multitouch devices can be expensive. But for the cost of a webcam and some spare materials, you can build computer interfaces with objects around the house, thanks to the power of open source software.
In just one day, a group of artists in the CDM community, from Austria and Germany to New York to Australia, got quite a lot working with tangible interfaces. At top, Michael Schieben and Christophe Stoll experimented with using soda bottles to control software like Future Audio Workshop’s lovely Circle. (Ableton Live works, too – as does any MIDI software.) As Precious Forever, these guys are responsible for some of the best UIs in music software, from FAW to recent Native Instruments designs, so it’s lovely to see them experimenting with this idea.
As you add more people to the mix, you get ideas you might otherwise never have imagined, from a game involving blocks of the Tokyo skyline to an interface built into floor toms.
We also got a lot of real-world data on what works, what needs work, and what causes trouble for beginners, which we’ll be documenting. (Adam and Martin from the Trackmate and reacTIVision projects, respectively, were both tuned in to see progress and provided lots of help – and are also collecting that data to improve their own documentation and libraries.) More commentary on all these side benefits, as well as a discussion with visitors from Argentina on the scene around the world, at Create Digital Motion.
And for connecting Trackmate to MIDI and working with Processing, lots of tips are available on Michael Schieben’s noisepages blog: http://fritzcrate.noisepages.com/
So, what’s next? You can join discussion and brainstorming for how to proceed, and how to get in on another hackday (formal or ongoing), even if you missed the first. Stop by the Tangible and Multi-Touch Interface group on noisepages: Tangible + Multi-Touch noisepages Group
Our noisepages community is still in “alpha” state, but it’s usable – we’ve just fixed avatar uploading, which was the biggest problem. We’ll have more features, functionality, and improvements down the line, as well as more extensive documentation for how to get started. But if you’re a bleeding edge sort of person, join up free and give us some advice on what you’d like out of it.
I look forward to more work on these projects. Stay tuned for more, including some additional documentation (I’m developing some stuff around my own project).
The folks reading this site comprise an incredible worldwide community of creative musicians and technologists. So it’s always fantastic when we get to connect. Here’s our first experiment in doing just that with a one-day project starter to share. The theme: tangible interfaces.
The knob/potentiometer – when you get enough of them, plugged into the right things, in the hands of the right people – has given us some wonderful music. (Heck, see also the string.) Simple inventions + lots of people + creativity + experimentation = brilliant output.
Computer interfaces that make use of physical objects for input are nothing new. But what is new is easier tools for making use of them, plus emerging communities of people who are new to the idea bringing fresh ideas. So, as opposed to our usual behind-the-computer isolation, we’re going to get folks together for the first in a series of experiments in virtual, shared hacking.
June 6 (and in the days around it), we’ll have a shared online event, plus an in-person event in NYC at the wonderful New Work City, working with projects based on the simple-and-cheap, open-source Trackmate hardware+software, a tangible interface you can build for as little as US$50 in parts, including the essential webcam.
What you need: some cheap parts, a webcam, a computer, some objects to track, and some inclination – the tracking software is even already built for you.
What you can do: Apply stickers to track the physical objects, and turn any tangible real-world stuff into a musical interface. (Some coding or patching experience is recommended for connecting your interface to tools like Max or Pd or SuperCollider to make sounds, or for translating to MIDI for other tools.)
For musicians, I could imagine some really interesting possibilities. You can compose a wide variety of music and synthesized sound using nothing but a mouse as input; add a physical input with multiple points, and you lierally open more dimensions.
NYC: Some space left at the in-person event in NYC – RSVP required – plus a party in the evening. Other in-person events may get organized in other cities; stay tuned.
On Create Digital Motion I’ve written a more detailed explanation of the event, why we’re doing it, and how to get involved:
…and I’ve been adding to a blog on this project and future hackdays, which will be updated with more resources, ideas, tests, and tutorials leading up to, during, and after our first-ever global hackday:
By the way, apologies for completely botching our livestream of Handmade Music this week. Lesson learned: you need a reliably fast network to avoid total failure. New Work City is set up as an online-connected office, and they have a plenty-fast network, and if you follow me on Twitter I’ll be testing it the week of June 1. Readers have watched CDM experiment and learn by trial-and-error, though, and I always appreciate your support.
Also, this is not to be confused with Hack-A-Day, one of my all-time favorite places on the Internet. But let’s make every day a hackday.
For those of you longing to mutate beats like so many promiscuous Petri Disk bacteria, programmer Bret Truchan is a kindred spirit. Bret has created a series of instant experimental classics for the Nintendo DS: glitchDS, a cellular automaton music sequencer, repeaterDS, a visual sample mangler, and cellDS, a grid-based sequencer you can script in Lua.
The Nintendo DS is portable and cute, but it’s not normally open to running software without the Nintendo Seal of Quality. (Insert snickers here.) To run Bret’s software, you need specialized hardware that fools the DS into running software. The DS isn’t entirely stable when it comes to things like timing, either, and it doesn’t have the flexibility of computers.
Enter the netbook. The netbook is nearly as portable, completely open to running whatever you like on Windows or Linux, and boasts easy USB connectivity, a big screen, and … well, you know, all the things you like about laptops. When it comes to musical productivity, much as I love the DS, the netbook has a whole lot going for it, and still has that added ultra-portability that makes you feel you can make music anywhere.
Bret recently made the jump to desktop software with Quotile, a step sequencer you can live-code for mighty morphing beats. Quotile is cool, but for many, glitchDS was the star. Now you can run glitchDS anywhere – just the job for a laptop you were going to retire, or that new netbook.
Not Sequencing, Glitch Sequencing
Glitch-sequencer is a sequencer, so it needs to either talk to a software synth or external hardware. Bret likes to hook it up to his machinedrum and monomachine. Our own Handmade Music event was the (unofficial) first public outing of the software, and included an HP netbook and the machinedrum, which makes for a sweet, mobile combination.
Bret’s mobile rig in action at Handmade Music. Photo: Jason Schorr.
Despite the appearance of a grid and sequences of levels, this isn’t an app that works like a conventional sequencer. Here’s the basic breakdown:
Cellular Automata via a seed + playback grid
Trigger and value sequencers to determine which MIDI events the organically-generated mutations produce
Pattern length, clock division settings for setting metric values
Wonderful things happen when you invite lovers of noise together in a room. Musicians and non-musicians, electronics geeks and first-timers, folks pick up a soldering iron — often for the first time — and cause utter mayhem. So we again had a fantastic time at Handmade Music last month. I’ve just gotten the photos in, so decided to share.
We’re looking for folks to bring stuff to Handmade Music on 4/16 – see the bottom of the article and give us a shout if you have software or hardware creations to share. They don’t even have to work, entirely – this is the place to find people to help give advice, so we like even partly-functioning inventions.
Even if you live far, far from Brooklyn (like back in Old Amsterdam), the featured March projects are within reach:
Loud Objects Noise Toy was the star of the evening. Lesley Flanigan and Tristan Perich of Loud Objects — superstar composers and sound artists themselves — were onhand as patient teachers and guides in the ways of Noise.
glitchDS on PC and Mac: The DS homebrew creator Bret Truchan delighted with not only his mobile gaming creations, but a netbook running a new PC cellular automaton MIDI sequencer, ported to Processing. More on that soon. (See the image captured by Make Magazine’s Collin Cunningham.)
Pulsantes I got Jaime Munarriz’ strange Processing + Pd pulsating rhythmic toys working on a PC – thanks, Jaime, for the virtual contribution!
jReality Peter Brinkmann demonstrated the sonic capabilities of audiovisual virtual reality framework jReality. Intense stuff – you don’t even need to use Cartesian coordinates. Elliptical, baby!
Networked Objects: Eric Beug brought by his DIY wireless synth modules and an iPhone for control. This progress is under development, so I hope it makes a repeat visit.
By the way, in case you wondered what happens when a bunch of people play all their newly-built Noise Toys at once? It sounds something like … this (and sorry, my digicam mic was entirely incapable of capturing the resulting sonic chaos):
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