multi-touch the storm – interactive sound visuals – subcycle labs from christian bannister on Vimeo.

What if you could mash, mangle, mush, and morph sounds with your fingers on a screen, watching the waveforms dance in response in three dimensions? That “what if” is expressed beautifully in a project by musician-developer Christian Bannister of Portland, Oregon, who works as Subcycle Labs.

The result is like being able to touch sound directly.

Three-dimensional forms morph and vibrate using visuals programmed in Processing, making architectural-organic shapes and spaces that really begin to “look” like sound. These forms can represent synthesis and effects parameters (Christian has done some work with the Massive synth from Native Instruments), or can allow navigation through loops using touch. Gestures remap offsets and duration for audio, scrub and slice, and apply granular resynthesis.

Controls use multiple touch points on a screen (apparently via Community Core Vision and reacTIVision), with sound from Logic, Reaktor, and Max/MSP, and auxiliary control with a joystick array and KORG KAOSS Pad.

Here’s what happens with a Massive bass line:

low frequency entity – subcycle labs from christian bannister on Vimeo.

It’s spectacular, gorgeous work, and I can’t wait to see more. It’s well worth reading through the whole description on the blog for more details, technical, musical, and artistic:

http://www.subcycle.org/

Take a weekend, and make something: that’s the challenge behind the Music Hack Day, which joins a growing phenomenon of events built around collective creation. (CDM held its own tangible interface hackday online, which I definitely hope to follow up soon!) Initiated by Dave Haynes of music sharing service Soundcloud, the Hack Day has already hit London. Many of the events were Web app-based and focused on consumption rather than creation of music, but we also saw a chordal synth plug-in and beer bottle percussion instrument.

The Berlin Hack Day, which wound up earlier today, offers still more projects focused on the creation side of music hacking. Having Ableton and Native Instruments as sponsors likely helped the mood. And as you’d expect from one of the world capitals of creative hacking, Berliners don’t disappoint.

Among the projects: a beautiful, elegant 3D sequencer, a fun bird-and-sky multitouch soundmaker with multitouch trackpad input, and a robotic xylophone controlled by monome. Someone even worked out a way to turn NI’s Maschine into a rhythm game, complete with Street Fighter sounds.

I’ve got some of my favorite projects here, but see also an eyewitness report (in English and Italian) at Audio News Room:
Just back from Music Hack Day Berlin
… and keep your eye on the wiki:
Berlin Hack Submissions

xylobot run by monome from robb on Vimeo.

Monomist Rob Böhnke and Ramsey Arnaoot created one of my favorite hackday projects so far: a monome-controlled robotic xylophone. The ingredients: one monome grid controller, one Java application for step sequencing to the output, one Arduino open source controller board, and one terrific xylophone “robot” made of an array of servos that strike the bars of the instrument. Oh, and some hot glue and wood, of course.

Project details

Debugging

Audio loop

Of course, what’s especially impressive is nailing this in just a weekend – imagine what they could do with more time and iterations.

Proof that musical visualizers don’t always have to be trippy, futuristic, Tron-like 3D landscapes (and that’s me speaking as a fan of such things), Gernot Poetsch instead chose a whimsical environment with clouds and cartoon birds, inspired by the graphic identity of Twitter. (No actual Twitter is involved, meaning you lose the, ahem, unreliable, buggy, unfiltered chat network but keep the cutesy happy sky! Works for me!)

The visuals are built in Quartz Composer, which via OSC transmits messages to synthesis language ChucK for noisemaking. The surprise is, the multitouch input is not a Lemur or an iPhone – it’s the new MacBook touchpad under Snow Leopard!

iLoveAcid is a beautiful-looking nodal sequencer by Jakob Penca which uses wireframe “tracks” to guide music playback through a sequencer, transmitting events to your soundmaker of choice via MIDI or OSC. By using curved timelines and connections, it’s a veritable model railroad of music, in which formations combine to form more complex structures instead of simply stepping across a grid. Despite appearances, it is so far only two-dimensional – but then, the z displacement could easily be assigned to some form of modulation. I’m really eager to see the video of this.

One ingredient: Processing, which makes it easier to write visual code and to connect to Java libraries.

Project Page

The hardware controller for Native Instruments’ Maschine software drum machine has been adapted to other software, like Ableton Live. But this is surely the first time it’s been made into a game. Using Maschine’s MIDI output as a game control and sounds from Street Fighter, MaschineFighter is a simple, Simon-style rhythm game. Unlike Simon, though, there’s a twist – instead of rote patterns generated in advance, you face off against a friend and try to out-rhythm each other, battle style. I think it’s actually a pretty brilliant idea, and could become a new sensation for us electronic music nerds – not to mention, it’ll finally test our rhythm in a way electronic performance often does not. (Correction: It is Mac-only, making use of the PYMIDI Objective-C based library, which, since everything else that starts with “Py” usually means Python – a la jThings that mean Java – I assumed, incorrectly, was built on Python. But anyway, if you like the idea, carry on! And, actually, having a pure Objective-C CoreMIDI interface is also pretty awesome.)

Hoping for a video of this, too.

If you have a project that didn’t make this list, or if you add documentation after the fact, let us know.

Performance with Cubie from sadmb on Vimeo.

Music sequencing as a Rubik’s Cube-style game, or hypnotic, kinetic rotating wheels – your piano roll won’t know what hit it. New musical art is set to be performed in Argentina, but you can download both tools, free.

Computer interfaces for music date back decades now, but with ingrained notions of hardware sound sequencers, linear media like tape, and hundreds of years of notation in staves and bars, old habits can be hard to kick. Yet it seems that suddenly, a younger generation of audiovisual composers is exploding notions of how musical interface and sequence could work, fully embracing a virtual space in which they themselves have come of age.

Next month’s spectacular-looking 404 Festival could make anyone want to book a flight to Argentina. Two highlighted artists from this festival for me really embody the possibilities of new sequencing metaphors. Both are built in Java.

At top, Cubie by Sadam Fujioka of Japan is free, downloadable software that combines audiovisual performance and game in a rotating cube.

Cubie is a software instrument which provides innovative idea of musical performance, differs from existing musical performance system such as musical notation, DJ systems, DAW systems, etc… It has a novel concept incorporating a new interactive technique based on puzzle games. Music is represented from highly saturated colored letters on a 3D cube. Almost unlimited number of melodies and rhythms can be created from a combination of those letters, and it can be changed on real-time by operations based on puzzle game. Those playful operations push a performer to play repeatedly and get the skill of performing with Cubie. Cubie is free software and you can play just like sadmb do.

More information in both Japanese and English at sadmb site (with lots of other software, as well). Built in Java with the use of JSyn for synthesis.

http://sadmb.com/

If these cubes feel overly rigid to you, though, and you don’t like the mechanical repetition of these lines, enter the crazy, spinning world of Hiroshi Matoba.

Hiroshi Matoba: OVERBUG from antjeverena on Vimeo.

Overbug is a music-performance tool designed to compose Minimal and Dance Music.

Through looping and newly arranging sound patterns, called ‘Bugsounds’, the program creates complex, polyrhythmic sounds. Overbug differs from conventional linear controlled music sequencers, which arrange the sound into a linear timeline from left to right. In Overbug the sound arrangement of the repeating music loops is equal to the visual abstraction of circular actions which built the interface through circles.

I showed a very early sketch I was working on last year of a circle-based sequencer, also built in Processing, though (cough) my chops are nowhere near Hiroshi’s. I was more interested in using the circles to subdivide cycles, as in Indonesian music. Seeing this piece is a major kick in my pants to try to work on my project a bit more and go a different direction.

Here’s a demo video explaining how this works:

More information + free download (just updated this month):
http://www.dominofactory.net/Overbug/

If You’re in Argentina

Don’t miss a terrific-looking exhibition of Japanese works and the rest of the
http://www.404festival.com/
(info in Spanish + English)

These two works clearly belonged together, but I feel bad for not featuring any Latin American (or Argentinian, specifically) work — those of you associated with 404, if you’ve got hot tips, send them in.

Gestural Music Sequencer from Unearthed Music on Vimeo.

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!)

The ingredients:

• Processing, the free, multiplatform coding environment [site | cdmu tag | cdmo tag]
• controlP5, a lovely, light, quick-and-dirty library for UI controls
• Ableton Live – though you could substitute other software via MIDI, Live makes a nice, familiar interactive music engine

Lots more information on John Keston’s wonderful Audio Cookbook blog, which is fast becoming one of my favorite reads:

http://audiocookbook.org/category/gms/

And here’s a really lovely video that demonstrates what you can do with video. It uses a string of lights in a jar as the source. Yes, in a way, it’s almost like having a very focused random generator, but I think there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s an almost analog approach to seeing the source, and using that to organically create music.

GMS: Chromatic Currents Part II from Unearthed Music on Vimeo.

I have to observe, while this works reasonably well with MIDI, it reveals why standardizing on networked communication, as OSC does, makes more sense. In a world of software, “controller” can really mean anything you like. Control is increasingly about software talking to software – including when devices are involved, since they generally have a software layer of their own. Also, because sometimes it’s easier to code this with Processing than with Max, I can see some powerful uses of the Python-based Live API, which we expect to mature later this year. (Yes, the project called Live API seems to be in a holding pattern, but we may be able to work up a more complete, Live 8-ready alternative.)

By the way, our goal is to make noisepages a platform and collection of tools for people doing this sort of work (or anything creative with music and motion), even if you host your blog elsewhere. Stay tuned for the details on that.

Fritzcrate Project / lusidLearn Early Demo from Michael Schieben on Vimeo.

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.

Musical Resources

We also got some really helpful tips for working with the free, powerful, tri-platform synthesis tool SuperCollider:
Charles Martin wrote up an easy SC test script for receiving Trackmate messages (and also had the clever idea of using a floor tom)

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/

Get Involved

More documentation:
Tangible Interface Hackday: The Projects (So Far)
http://hackday.noisepages.com/

http://trackmate.sourceforge.net/
http://reactivision.sourceforge.net/

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).

Trackmate :: 5 ways to get started from adam kumpf on Vimeo.

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.

How to get involved:

• Building it: Parts + resources
• Join in: RSVP for the online shared event
• 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:

Global Hackdays: Experimenting with Cheap Tangible Interfaces, June 6

…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:

http://hackday.noisepages.com/

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.

Online form:

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.

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
• Sync settings

There are two grids, a “seed” sequencer that initializes a starting pattern, and a “playback” sequencer that provides feedback and control of the pattern that plays as the software runs. These two grids operate via principles of Cellular Automata, specifically the John Horton Conway Game of Life model, a evolutionary grid “game” that has been popular in computer music for its simplicity and the way it becomes animated in time. (The Game of Life is a “zero-player game,” which I suspect is probably the only truly fun way to play Monopoly.)

The playback sequencer is just a set of cells. To determine when each cell actually trigger events, you use a neat, color-coded trigger sequencer, which, as it sounds, is what calls MIDI events. Using the value sequencers for each color-coded swatch, you determine what that message is. In fact, if you wanted, you could use glitch-sequencer to control only effects parameters or envelopes instead of notes – or visuals, or anything that can be triggered by MIDI.

As you’ve got seeded grids doing their organic, unpredictable thing, you’ll likely want a little bit of control, too, and you have mechanisms for that. There’s a pattern length grid which determines pattern length in a more conventional way, plus a clock division setting for setting the master rhythmic division. There’s also a snapshot setting, which itself is presented as a grid so you can make little glitchy song arrangements by triggering different settings.

Where all of this gets fancy is the additional trigger settings. In addition to the MIDI event values, you get:

• Gate percentage for randomized probabilities
• Clock division
• Loop length
• Quantization for pitch (none, Ionian, Phrygian)

You can also manage the color-coded swatches as layers and mix their volume independently.

My one-line version of the manual: with that many parameters, screw around a bit and you’ll get something pretty unpredictable and glitchy.

This concept is related to other attempts to do similar, Game of Life-based sequencers, particularly Lazyfish’s Newschool for Reaktor, and (applied to an effect) Audio Damage’s Automaton. Because tiny implementation details can have a big impact on the resulting sound, though, it’s always nice having a new take on this, and I think Bret’s creation is unique in its ability to tightly control the sequence or completely screw things up with a lot of parameters.

It is all built in Processing, the free, open-source Java-based coding environment. I’m hoping to get a scoop on some of the experience Bret had with timing and Java, so stay tuned. Processing coders, the MIDI library Bret used is themidibus. There’s a trick to getting MIDI working on the Mac thanks to the fact that Apple decided to stop supporting a standard Java API in their implementation (doh!), but once you hurdle that, you’ve got Mac + Windows + Linux support – and this could be ported to Android, too, with a little work.

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):

More photos from Collin Cunningham and our event co-host MAKE Magazine:

Hey, You! Yeah, You!

So, folks in automobile / railroad / Zeppelin distance of New York, we’d love to see what you’re working on, be it a Max/Pd patch, Processing sketch, circuit-bent instrument, DIY controller, sensor project, or wearable SweaterSynth. Definitely bring cables, and (if you’ve got one) a portable PA; otherwise plug into our PA and projector.

Next engagement: Thursday, April 16 (this coming Thursday).

Form below, or head directly to our form on Google Docs:
Handmade Music Call for Works: Form

Once a month, CDM goes from its virtual state to a sort of augmented reality existence in Brooklyn. (In Williamsburg, no less, which has itself been augmenting itself into neighborhoods formerly known as Bushwick.) Tonight is one of those times.

If you’re in Brooklyn, you should come enter our physical dimensions so you can:

• make your own NoiseToy with Loud Objects’ Tristan Perich, and take it home for the low, low price of ten clams. (Dollars, though I think clams are actually worth more at the moment. I’ll eat the clams.)
• witness strange, wonderful things happen in the areas of audiovisual virtual reality and free, new sequencers for Mac and PC
• watch me make a fantastic musical Processing sketch work, shipped over the Interwires from Spain!
• hang out with us and discuss our other projects that don’t work (because, really, that’s part of the process

TONIGHT = 7:30 pm (drop by late if you must) = Brooklyn, here

If you are separated from Brooklyn by time and space, fret not. I’m working on a site that will start to document these projects, and we’re extending our geographical dimensions so that these events start happening in other cities / countries / continents (perhaps among the all-Firefox crowd in Antarctica, where I gather they use Linux as they actually are penguins).

Also, a lot of these hardware and software projects are available for your consumption — sometimes free (as in beer and freedom), so we can all share the love.

For instance, learn about / acquire a Noise Toy on the Noise Toy site!
http://www.loudobjects.com/kit/

But it’s my belief that the future of CDM really depends on the interplay between physical and virtual reality in all sorts of dimensions. That is, so long as in the process I don’t become unstuck from time. I’ve watched Lost / Doctor Who, and that often ends badly.

This Thursday night, if you’re in NYC, you’ll want to be in Brooklyn – and around the world, stay tuned as always to CDM.

Handmade Music projects will again explode into the nerdster party in Brooklyn, with more ways to get involved worldwide. The science fair-meets-music lounge event hits Thursday night, and this time, you can walk home with your very own noisemakers – no musical or electronic experience required.

Tristan Perich, composer, sound artist, inventor, and 1-bit music maker will be onhand from Loud Objects to share the Noise Toy kit. He’ll walk you through making one, talk about how it works, and we’ll make a little racket.

And once we get a few of those kits made, you’ll be welcome to join in an impromptu Noise Toy Ensemble!

If you fancy higher-fi, digital music and virtual reality, we’ve got you covered, too, with a whole bunch of software projects.

• Noise Toy workshop with Loud Objects / Tristan Perich: Learn how this cheap kit can make glitchy sounds like Bzzzzrrrreeeeepehkhkhkhhhhhhhk! Workshop + kits – make one for free, $10 suggested donation to take it home!
• Force fields: Pulsantes is pulsating musical sequencer software with interconnected rings and force fields generating rhythms, created by Spanish artist Jaime Munarriz. (Jaime can’t be there, so I’m bringing his work!)
• Nintendo instruments and organic musical chemistry: glitchDS is a free cellular autamaton-based musical sequencer, ported from Nintendo DS to PC/Mac – this and other sound toys by Bret Truchan.
• Artificial musical realities: jReality is a Java library for creating real-time interactive audiovisual apps in 3D, with fully three-dimensional sound and visuals, motion tracking, stereo projection, and more. Peter Brinkmann shows off the work of the jReality project, including his own sound components.
• Wireless Sound Objects by Eric Beug are the equivalent of a wire-free modular synthesizer, for improvisation, performance, and education.
• Free business-card kits for exploring basic sound circuitry from PAiA didn’t ship in time for last month’s event, but they’re here now — get your free kit while they last, then draw your own sound controllers with pencils!

Presented by createdigitalmusic.com with our friends at music trend-setters XLR8R.com, DIY bible makezine.com, and self-made marketplace Etsy.com

Hosted by artists’ facility and happening location 3rd Ward

7:30pm, Thursday, March 19 – FREE!
3rd Ward is located at 195 Morgan Ave., at the corner of Stagg St., in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
(near the Grand St L train)
Directions
RSVP: handmade@3rdward.com

More on the projects – and many of these are available online, so I’m still working on ways of holding virtual Handmade Music parties, too.

Noise Toy Kits

with Tristan Perich (Loud Objects)

Bzzzzrrrreeeeepehkhkhkhhhhhhhk! Build your own Noise Toy with this kit from electronic noise group the Loud Objects. Plug in your headphones and glitch out, or jack into an amp
and play it as an instrument. These kits come with a custom-printed circuit board, a noise generating microchip from their live performances, two buttons for modulating the sound, headphone jack and battery.

We’re asking for $10 parts if they keep the toy, and they’re welcome to just make them for free if they want.

We’ll jack in noise toys to the mixer for the end of the evening to make a Noise Toy Group Performance! Stick around (maybe have a couple of beers if that helps your Noise Toy technique).

Wireless Sound Objects

by Eric Beug

Wireless Sound Objects are like the modules of a modular synthesizer, exploded into individual physical objects that provide an engaging way to experience unique, collaborative, musical process. They exist as a variety of objects that either make sound or control the sound that other objects are making. These objects can interface with a computer, with other existing music hardware or be used as a stand alone system. They can be used for performance, recording composition, improvisation, and education.

Wireless Sound Objects

jReality: Virtual-Reality Audiovisuals

Sound for the jReality environment by Peter Brinkmann

jReality is a Java library for creating real-time interactive audiovisual applications with three-dimensional computer graphics and spatialized audio. Applications written for jReality will run unchanged on software and hardware platforms ranging from desktop machines with a single screen and stereo speakers to immersive virtual environments with motion tracking, multiple screens with 3D stereo projection, and multi-channel audio. I would like to present an overview of the capabilities of jReality as well as a discussion of its design, with an emphasis on audio.

jReality: http://www.jreality.de/

VisorLab: http://math.sci.ccny.cuny.edu/pages?name=VisorLab

GlitchDS to Roland TR-606 Sync Using Nintendo DS Trigger Mod from LifeInABox Productions on Vimeo.

glitchDS Comes to the PC + Mac

by Bret Truchan

This is Bret. ( I made glitchDS, repeaterDS, cellsDS, and Quotile-Sequencer). I’ve nearly complete with a cellular automaton MIDI sequencer written in Processing for the PC and Mac. It’s modeled after glitchDS. Same look, similar controls, etc. I made it mostly for myself but I’ll be releasing it free very soon. I read about your Handmade Music night and think it’s going to be great fun.

I’m bringing a netbook loaded with the new sequencer and a MachineDrum.

Pulsantes

by Jaime Munarriz

Pulsantes is a Processing work in progress. Simple pulsating objects generate rythms within their inner structure, visible by their coloured rings, and they are interconnected, sending messages to each other.

At the moment, messages stop/start other pulsantes. I’ve tried an slaving relationship, with a dominant imposing his own tempo to others when they move nearby.

The background acts as a force field. One idea, implemented at some of the sketches, is to alter the way the pulsantes react to this forces, being atracted or repelled. The performer can change this, converting the environment into an instrument. I plan to include wind, explosions, that you can control when performing with this system.

Check out this project (among others):
http://tagmagic.wordpress.com/