Lured by the siren song of modular synthesis and DIY electronics, but not sure how to navigate the piles of requisite knowledge – or uncertain what the trip down this rabbit hole might have in store?

For years, Tom Whitwell’s Music Thing was a beloved daily read, as that site and this one were among the early blog-format destinations for music tech. Tom moved on – something about a major day-gig at a paper called The Times, perhaps named after the font? – but that makes us all the more delighted to get a dispatch from him. In this guest column for CDM, he introduces one project, a brilliant FM radio sequencer, but also helps us catch up on reading on modular synthesis and electronics dating back to the origins of the technology. And he has a realistic look at what this will do to your life – all inspired by “pure enthusiasm,” as he puts it, “this is fun, you should try it.”

Hey, isn’t that what the drug dealer said in those just-say-no instructional videos we watched in the 80s? Coincidence, I’m sure. -PK

Since buying a Eurorack modular synth a year ago, I’ve spent a lot of time building DIY synth modules and reading about synths and the people who build them. (See reading list, below, if you’d like to do the same.)

The hardest part of DIY electronics is starting out. My first step was building a few guitar pedal kits and learning by reading the Beavis Audio site. Other people start with noisemaker kits like the Atari Punk Console or circuit bending. They all lead in the same direction — down a very deep rabbit hole. 

There’s a lot to buy – a kind of infrastructure you need before doing anything – soldering kit, a multimeter, and a stock of components. None of it costs much, but it’s hard and disconcerting to buy. Online megastores like Farnell or Mouser will stock 50 versions of every component. Get the part number wrong, and you accidentally order capacitors as small as grains of sand, or as large as golfballs. Smaller stores – in the UK, I use http://www.bitsbox.co.uk/ - are easier because they only stock common hobby-friendly parts. 

After making a few guitar pedals, I moved onto synth modules. They’re a great DIY platform. The infrastructure is all there, in terms of power supply, case, inputs, and outputs. Parts are cheap, there’s a healthy and helpful community, and a nice learning curve, from basic utility modules to mind-bendingly complex frequency shifters and vocoders. 

In a year, I’ve built:

• a super-simple, chiptuney oscillator
• a tiny spring reverb driver
• a stupidly-complicated and blinkenlights-covered Arduino-powered Euclidean beat sequencer
• a very useful Arduino MIDI clock
• and a simple but handy 8-step sequencer (see video, below)

For this project, I was inspired by this quote from Don Buchla, the legend of west coast synthesis: 

“My studio at that time was ten feet wide. It was so crowded in there we hauled the workbench out on the sidewalk on good days and set up my oscilloscope and worked out there. [John] Cage came by and for voltage control I had hooked up my keyboard to an FM module that I’d built, a little module that was an FM receiver and I could play stations on it because I had one of the first varactor tuned FMs. Cage, as you can imagine, was just enormously interested in the fact that I could tune each key to a station and then proceeded to play the radio” ( Source [PDF] )

Thirty years later, Don released the 272e module (see Matrixsynth on the announcement), a $1250, four-channel polyphonic FM Tuner. There’s also the ADDAC102, a very fancy stereo €270 Eurorack module [see Synthtopia, with a video]. I wanted something quick, cheap and easy that would let me follow in Don and John’s footsteps. After a lot of searching and a few dead ends, I found the wonderful video demo, below, of a battery-powered FM sequencer based on a €15 radio kit from Germany. 

Projects like this follow a predictable curve. There’s a burst of experimental excitement at the start; receiving the crucial part, building the circuit on breadboard and realizing that — YES! — it’s going to work. 

Then comes a period of frustration and tedium. Re-buying a crucial part you blew up. Fiddling with the circuit so it responds just how you want it. Transferring the breadboard layout to a piece of perfboard, or designing a PCB and waiting for it to be made in China. If you’re using an Arduino or other programmable controller, there’s a long period of writing code, battling feature creep, debugging. 

During this period, you have to really, really want the thing you’re making, dreaming of how cool it will be, how much fun you’ll have playing it and telling everyone about it. 

Tom's FM radio-sequencing module project, in all its glory.

Building music gear is more multidisciplinary than you might imagine. The interface and the feel is as important as the functionality. My Euclidean sequencer is a cool-looking thing, with a big LED matrix. It’s really useful – turning trains of pulses into Afro-Latin rhythms. But it’s fiddly and annoying to use. The FM Radio module could be 50% smaller – and size is important in any modular synth – but this time I wanted good big knobs for fine tuning the signals and control voltages. 

So, as the project continues, you’ll spend time designing a front panel, deciding how many knobs you need, removing ones you’ll never use. And along the way, you’re learning. This time round, I wanted to get the control just right – precise, stable tuning so that stations would stay locked. That meant experimentation and [asking for help on the MuffWiggler forum]. I also spent ages reading ham radio sites, trying to work out how to make a voltage-controlled Shortwave radio (I gave up). 
Eventually, the lacquer is dry on the panel, the parts are all in, debugging is complete and the module is working. The result: either elation and fun, or almost immediate maker’s remorse. It’s bad enough spending money on a piece of music gear that you never love. It’s really annoying spending time building one that you can’t then flip on eBay. 

So far, this FM module is pure fun, an injection of random audio in the heart of the system. Every time I turn it on, something else comes out – pirate dubstep stations, Turkish music, news reports and Bryan Adams. You can filter it, sequence it, use it as a noise source, or let it modulate oscillators or open filters. Listen:

Radio sequencer 2 by MusicThing

Photos of the module:

Reading List

Great online resources for learning about modular synths and the first golden age of experimental electronic music include: 

Ubuweb’s electronic music resources section 
Also at Ubuweb, several editions of Electronic Music Review, a beautifully-designed but short-lived journal boasting Robert Moog as Technical Editor. 

The Red Bull Music Academy includes long, detailed interviews with Don Buchla, Tom Oberheim, Peter Zinovieff of EMS, Robert Moog and Morton Subotnik.

Synapse magazine was a mid-70s journal of electronic music, where you’d find DIY projects from people like Serge Tcherepnin

Vasulka is a huge and rather poorly-organised archive of documents, interviews and transcripts, containing some gems.

Source Magazine was, back in California in 1967, a plush avant-garde journal. Many editions came with 10″ vinyl records, pages printed on transparencies or fur. John Cage was a guest editor, and the magazine carried experimental scores from composers like Steve Reich. Original copies sell for $500+, but the articles and scores have been collected in a book: 
Source: Music of the Avant-garde, 1966-1973 [Amazon]

What’s Next?

Tom is already on to the next build since he finished up the radio sequencer. This time, it’s a shift register sequencer. A what?

A 16-step random sequencer, something between the Wiard Noise Ring, the CGS Gated Comparator and Nav’s BITSY.

It takes random noise to fill up 4 x 4 step 4015 shift registers, shifted by a clock input. The shift registers are looped – either after 8 or 16 steps. 8 of the steps are fed into a DAC0800 analog/digital converter, which produces a 0-8 volt output.

See also the prototype:

There are times when something happens that reminds you why you make the sacrifices to do what you do. A real highlight of 2011 for me was Gwydion ap Dafydd appearing with the MeeBlip, our open source synthesizer, baked into a cookbook.

I knew Gwydion had gotten creative in making a housing for his MeeBlip kit, and I knew that it was a book. But then, he opened it up to reveal the MeeBlip’s controls popping out of a cookbook page, with I/O ports conveniently located on the side, and even the ability to remove the panel to get at the board. And then… the pig’s eye lit red to indicate MIDI messages and power, and I was floored.

Synth in a Book [Konkreet Labs, also here in Berlin]

I can share some good news from the MeeBlip project: we’re now shipping a US$39.95 MeeBlip micro kit, an ultra-compact variation of the MeeBlip. It’s in stock in Canada, in transit within 48 hours. I’m especially excited, because the MeeBlip micro is designed to allow MeeBlip users to surprise us. With pins for analog and digital input, you could connect any arbitrary number of controls in any layout. You could have one giant filter knob if you wanted, or turn it into a wearable project in a purse. Or you could just make a nice, little housing and control it via MIDI. (We now provide full MIDI control of all of the controls.) And we’re excited that it’s forty bucks, because it makes a kit highly accessible to hobbyists. A fully-assembled version will be available soon.

Meet the MeeBlip micro: Small, Hackable Project Synth, Shipping Now, $39.95

http://meeblip.noisepages.com/get-one/

We can’t wait to see what you do with it. We think the simplicity of the MeeBlip’s design, its low cost, and its straightforward MIDI operation could mean people will turn the micro into things we can’t yet imagine. (At least, that’s why we designed it that way!)

In 2012, we’ll again be offering MeeBlips in quantity that come with cases, and affordable MeeBlips (and now MeeBlip micros) that you can get pre-assembled, so the need to solder something together won’t keep your synth on a shelf. Now, with MIDI input in place, we’re ready to get back to MeeBlipping and playability. James Grahame has worked feverishly on the engineering of the current MeeBlip generation, and I look forward to us getting to share the work he did, and how he did it. He’s also been working on how to make the thing easier to manufacture and ship, so we’re ready to share that, too!

It’s also been fascinating to watch people use MIDI – and even iPads – to control the MeeBlip.

Gwydion’s MeeBlipBook (MeeBook?) made another surprise appearance (it sure as heck surprised me) in a teaser video for Lemur on the iPad. In case you missed it:

I had been playing the MeeBlip, when my keyboard or laptop weren’t handy, with the excellent Little MIDI Machine for iPad. I’m looking forward to playing with some other non-computer MIDI solutions, too, not just the iPad.

I’ve seen at least one Lemur template in the works, too; will link to those – and perhaps Pd patches and such – when they’re ready.

In the meantime, the fact that the MeeBlip is out in the world doing things and making sounds, and that we’re at last shipping them again, means I actually have a reason to be festive this holiday season. And, MeeBlip, what are you doing, New Year’s, New Year’s Eve?

meeblip.com

The first law of musical robotics: rock hard.

We’ve seen plenty of robotic musical experiments, but finding a robot that can seriously shred is another matter altogether. Meet the robotic string instrument, Poly-tangent, Automatic (multi-) Monochord – let’s just call her PAM. Built by Expressive Machines Musical Instruments, a group of University of Virginia PhD students and composers, PAM is capable of creating raucous musical performances like the one above, by composer and EMMI member Steven Kemper.

Musical robotics is cool, but it also hasn’t evolved much technologically in fifty years. It’s gotten cheaper and more accessible, but the fundamental design hasn’t changed – and that accessibility hasn’t translated into widespread use.

Now, the EMMI crew, in anticipation of a residency at Amsterdam’s famed STEIM research center, are hoping to take robotic music to the next level. MARIE is a project to put robotic music in a form that you can easily take on the road. They want to make the project open, so others can benefit, complete with schematics and code.

There are several aspects that make the MARIE project special beyond just road-ready design. The new instruments are intended to be more modular and controllable, to make the robotics as flexible as classic MIDI and analog modular gear has been. They also benefit from acoustic sound creation, controlling columns of air and physical strings instead of just digital or electrical models as on synths.

To fund their vision, the EMMI crew have started a Kickstarter project. You get something in return from your investment, including even training on robotics and good, old-fashioned instruments like the sax and bassoon. (That should put to rest any fears that these guys want a robot-only musical future.) Here’s how they describe their work:

MARIE are a set of virtuosic and expressive music robots that are portable, reliable, user-friendly, and fit within the dimension/weight limits for international checked baggage. In other words, these are music robots for touring musicians. The hope of EMMI and the EAR Duo is that the usability and portability of MARIE and similar music robots will finally push this powerful technology out of research labs and onto stages around the world. Within this aim, the entire project will be publicly documented online and the source code and hardware diagrams all provided as public knowledge for other enterprising musicians and technicians to construct similar robots.

EMMI-ers, I hope you keep CDM posted as you go. It looks like a very worthy project indeed.

Fundraiser for MARIE, open music robots for touring musicians [STEIMblog]

Expressive Machines

MARIE: a virtuosic band of robots made by and for musicians [Kickstarter]

Keyboards have worked for centuries, but they restrict continuous expression and pitch. Touch is more flexible, but most readily-available touch controllers (like the iPad) lack pressure sensitivity. That leaves ribbon controllers. When do you don’t have quite what you want, you make your own.

Just ask Rasmus Nyåker of the Copenhagen Noise Lab. Rasmus writes us with copious details of his project, which he built just to get more enjoyment out of playing. It uses multiple ribbon controllers, aligned for easy access from the hands, with pressure sensitivity. He tells us how he built it and why. And if you want to build your own, he even shares parts sources.

(Side note: anyone remember M-Audio’s, nee Midiman, aborted Surface One?)

CDM exclusive: Demo of a DIY-midi-controller from Rasmus Nyåker on Vimeo.

I am pretty bored with keyboard-based synthesizers when it comes to my personal music. I find it uninspiring to use for synthesizer interaction. Been reading a lot lately about the ideas [synth pioneer Don] Buchla had in the 60s and 70s and arbitrary surfaces give me a thrill. Each sensor can control whatever I want. On my Snyderphonics Manta I am almost there – I don’t need ADSR [envelopes] as each key sends data depending on my movement that can control, for example, VCA [amplitude] or filter or both. I can use the same setup to slowly evolve and fade in chords while playing a fast melody with sharp transients and octave up using the same patch and at the same time. The sound creation moves from the machines onto my fingertips.

The Manta only supplies me with one continious controller per finger/zone/hexagon. It’s much like any polyphonic aftertouch keyboard in that way (I have a Roland A80 which is a marvellous controller as a keyboard). The Manta has two great things going for it, though: it is much more compact and I can route a separate CC-number from each of its hexagons. [Video examples of Rasmus playing the lovely Manta below.]

I am also a proud owner of two monomes [YouTube video of him playing these, too] — a walnut 128 and a GS64. Both are really splendid controllers for percision stuff like sequencing, arpeggiating, loop-control and stuff. It is a great way of getting to control multiple things at once that are buried in a computer-screen interface and the visual feedback is great. There’s a great community, too. It is, however, binary in its control: either you push a button or you don’t. In this sense, the Manta feels a lot more like an instrument.

The problem with both of these controllers is that they require a computer. I hate bringing a computer onstage, even if it is hidden underneath a table (My Nord Modular G2 is great, with multiple midi-CCs, and is usually my weapon of choice.) On top of that, I want to control more stuff with each of my fingers. So what do I do? Well, let’s build one.

I would like to add that the last musical device I built was an external filter I built on veroboard in 1994 when I was 14…

I researched on the Internet and found that the SpectraSymbol Softpot or Hotpot-positional sensors (ribbon-controllers) would be perfect for me. That’s one controller per finger. I also wanted something to sense pressure and found Force Sensing Resistors (FSRs) from Interlink Electronics that were 20″ long, but almost as wide as the ribbons and constructed so they can be cut down to size. I also needed something to convert the interaction with these to MIDI data. I found a good [MIDI data encoder] from Highly Liquid called MIDI-cpu. However, for the number of controls I wanted, I would need to daisy-chain two, so I looked around a bit more. Finally I decided on a Doepfer USB64, which works “off-the-shelf” and wouldn’t need much customization. I did a few sketches of the controller I had in mind in [Adobe] Illustrator.

I decided on using 4 inch / 10 cm hotpots for the device, as that would give enough length to play with while still being able to touch each end of the strips at the same time. Finally, I ordered all the sensors including FSRs from Sparkfun and a USB64 from Thomann.de. With the free application Front Panel Express from Schaeffer I designed the front panel and ordered it directly within the application. I made the design as a three layer sandwich each using a 1.5 mm-thick sheet of anodized aluminium. I made the top-layer with cutouts for just the sensing area of the sensors, and counter-sunk for M3 screw-heads. The middle layer has bigger cutouts, leaving room for the full sensors. And the bottom layer has holes for the sensor-connectors.

As expected, the electronics got here before the panels. So I breadboarded one of each sensor-type to the USB64 and checked that it worked.

I continued by soldering the cable onto the sensors, making a veroboard for distibuting power, ground, and connecting lots of resistors. And then I decided to hook up a setup of four strips (4 hotpots and 4 FSRs) taped onto a tabletop — mainly for trying it out before I got the front-panels.

After a few days of waiting, a guy from UPS showed up with a big package for me. I started immediately to mount everything, and hooked it up to the USB64.

I checked the results with the MIDI input from the Nord Modular G2 and saw that I had some fluctuating data from the hotpots. So I decided to drop the ground on them, and instead let the signal output run to ground too, but via a 10K ohm resistor. That gave me only half the CC-range, but cleared the fluctuations; having a big jump in data when touching the sensors gave me ability to make programs in the G2 for which touch can act like note on/off, and initial pressure sets velocity level. Now I can theoretically get note on/off, velocity, pressure and position Control Changes from each of the twelve sensor-strips.

I milled an enclosure out of some leftovers I had of countertop oak from which I’d built my studio desk. It is the first thing I’ve milled, and I did it by hand, so it will need some sanding and finishing.

The next step was cutting out holes for the connectors, which I did with a Dremel, and cutting down a piece of acryllic glass for the bottom. The picture shows how it looks right now; the woodwork isn’t finished yet and the front-panel-sandwich is just lying in its place without being held by anything other than gravity.

At this point, I’ve spent around US$650 on it and 10 hours on construction and troubleshooting, plus lots of time deciding on function and design aspects. [Ed.: Not bad. Projects like this can be much bigger time and money sinks than that!]

I’ve recorded some demos of my first go with it:

http://kufrec.com/temp/atonal.mp3

These are minor scale-tuned oscillators; pressure controls the amplitude of each osc/strip and position on the ribbon determines how much the oscilliator belonging to the strip on the left will frequency-modulate the current osc. I ran everything through an eight-tap delay, with a separate filter per tap (5bp, 2lp, 1hp, but in a randomized order) and then some reverb… It gets really chaotic when I push a couple of neighboring strips, as the number of FM-operators influencing each other increase. It will take some time before I get enough control to really play this controller properly. But it is the most fun and rewarding thing I’ve been using in ages. The synth is the Nord Modular G2.

Sounds really like atonal trash, but even a simple FM patch gives a huge range of sound:

http://kufrec.com/temp/tonal.mp3

A more tonal thing now — sine oscillators, 2 per strip, tuned apart in intervals within a minor scale, for a total of 24 oscillators. Position controls amplitude and pressure controls the speed of a dedicated LFO (12 in total) and its amount of amplitude modulation. It is all transposable using a keyboard so I get more range. G2 again.

Lastly, I made an mp3 of a Karplus-Strong patch [physically-modeled string impulse] driven by the controller:

Position controls rate of an LFO sending impulses to a physical modelled string. Pressure controls amplitude.
http://kufrec.com/temp/karplus.mp3

Sources for parts:
Sensors:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php

Midi-encoders [as in processing, not knobs - Ed.]:
http://highlyliquid.com/midi-controllers/midi-cpu/
http://www.doepfer.de/usb64.htm

Front-panels:
http://www.schaeffer-ag.de/index.php?L=1

You hear the repeated chorus: music in the digital age has become meaningless and valueless, like turning on water from a tap in the middle of Rome. But, quietly, a movement is stirring that is reclaiming the value of music. Armed with nothing more sophisticated than markers, paper, collage materials, and imagination, they send mixes of music like grade school Valentines. Heck, they even use the mail. It makes the album more personal than it was even in its golden, mass-produced age.

Many of the practitioners in this case are returning to the cassette and mix tape. But I was also interested in handcrafting cases for demos, for your own music, and for mixes of Creative Commons-licensed and netlabel materials. Instead of just swapping behind our avatars and usernames on SoundCloud, it returns us to the glee of playing with markers and exchanging face-to-face.

If you’re in New York, we’ll be making our own musical packaging and then swapping records, starting with a 4:00 pm workshop on this Sunday 10/10/10 at the Lower East Side’s cozy (and tapas- and drink-stocked) Culturefix NY:

RSVP + location + Facebook; stay for the party, live music, and swap at 7p

But wherever you are, perhaps this Sunday you can make some handmade music.

Here’s a look at some of the work being done, via a Flickr group entitled “Handmade Mixes,” in a Flickr slideshow:

Group founder Samantha Saturday talks to CDM about her techniques, and gives us some crafting tips. Keeping it simple makes this manageable, too, in case you’re planning a handmade, limited edition-run of your next EP.

Tips for materials:

For collaging works I always keep a shoebox of paper scraps and snippets from newspapers, magazines, flyers, basically anything that can be glued or taped down. Keeping all your supplies close at hand is a huge help. Personally I make all my cases completely from scratch, but sometimes starting out with a pre-made CD sleeve and building on top of it is a great way to start.

My best advice is to keep the process fun and to not put too much pressure on yourself to make something totally awesome. If you just let it happen it will be awesome no matter what. There is no right or wrong way to do it.

What to bring to a workshop: (including ours on Sunday!)

Bring mixes specifically for the event and some paper, magazines, glue, snippets, or what have you to share with the workshop.

I talked to Sam about some other ideas, too…

Tell us what you’ve been making.

All of the works I have made are either for friends or for mix trades organized in different places around the internet, such as blogs and Swap-bot [an online-organized swap meet]. For every mix I make, I also create a collaged, cut & paste cover. Some are simpler than others, but I always try to make something nice to house all this great music.

In general I put so much effort and time into making individual covers for every mix because I feel that with the digital age music is starting to lose some of it’s specialness. There’s something about having album artwork to accompany the music you’re listening to. Now you don’t really get that with digital downloads and I miss that. I think it’s the same for a lot of the people who are so dedicated to creating unique artwork.

Who are some of the other people you’ve found working in this medium?

Jane Boston (Stab Heart zine) and Bianca Jagoe (Goodnight Little Spoon) are the first that come to mind. They are both pretty big swappers in the online and mail art community. I’ve sent to and received mixes from both of them and I adore the love they put forth in their creations.

Additionally some of the people that have really stood out to me are Richard Gallon [Flickr] and Evey in Orbit [Flickr. Richard creates really well-crafted covers for his cassettes. On the other hand Evey has a much more cut-and paste approach to it. Even though their techniques are very different I love the range that can be expressed because it's such an open medium.

I created the Flickr group Handmade Mixes for people to share their handmade covers, since it seems like every other mix group is mostly computer-generated works. Most of the people who contribute are people I invited, but a few other people are popping up here and there, which is so exciting! Everyone in the group does a great job and it's really inspirational to see that there are lots of people out there who make their own covers, too.

Introduce us to one of your favorite mixes.

My mix "We're the Heirs to the Glimmering World" is definitely one of my favorite mixes that I've made, both because of the music and the cover art. Usually if I'm feeling a little down I will make a mix to focus my mind on something else and that was definitely the case with this mix. It's one of the most elaborate covers I've made.

You mention on one of the Flickr images that some of these mixes came from getting together for an in-person swap.

[That's] Mix Share Swap hosted by Bianca Jagoe of Goodnight Little Spoon. I found out about the swap from Jane Boston’s blog. If you keep your eye out, there are a lot of mix swaps like this around the blogosphere. Anyone could sign up, then you were assigned two random people you would send to from the list and you received mixes from two different people. It’s a great way to share music and connect with other people.

Any thoughts on how you translate the personality of a music mix to the visuals on the handmade packaging? (It’s an age-old question, of how to make something visual out of the auditory and ephemeral.)

When I make a mix the music, of course, always comes to mind first. After, and sometimes during, compiling a mix you listen to it and different themes or a general feel to the music will come forward and I think that’s where ideas for the packaging first start to form.

Everyone has their own aesthetic and although it sounds cliché it’s definitely about putting together what feels right. Sometimes the cover doesn’t necessarily tie in directly with the music, but generally I think there is something in the sub-conscience that drives the creation. Also, the handmaking process is a lot different than say, someone creates a cover on a computer. You’re connecting with the mix on a tactile level and that alone comes through in the visuals.

More inspiration:

Check out Sam’s Flickr: Handmade album
and the Handmade Mixes group on Flickr (which I hope will also apply to original music, CC-licensed music)

All images courtesy Samantha Saturday.

Below, some of Sam’s favorites from her group.

Handcrafted CD covers for records and mixes, meditative music made in game engines, handheld chip music creations, analog light synths and drone labs, VL-Tone classical music, and more surprises are coming to New York on Sunday, October 10. (Austin, Texas gets its own event, making noisemakers and ring modulators.)

We promise music you can dance to, music you can’t, and tapas (at least in NYC).

And on October 10, a little secret will finally be revealed to Manhattan and the world.

If you’re a citizen of The Internet, we’ve got lots of sounds and creations to explore here on The Web from the comfort of Your Home – scroll on below. There are even great projects you can build anywhere in the world.

For New Yorkers, the lineup on Sunday:

• Immersive music made with game engines, featuring foci + loci (Tamara Yadao + Chris Burke) doing strange and wonderful things with the likes of Halo and Little Bit Planet.
• Drone labs and analog light synths by master electronic sonic maker Peter Edwards, Casperelectronics.
• Classical music on Casio VL-Tone in a cameo by the amazing Annabelle Cazes.
• Chip music by PULSEWAVE, hosted by Peter Swimm. UPDATED – confirmed Rhinostrich +
  exilefaker
• Make + trade handmade CDs (see our separate article, posting tonight). Bring your music or Creative Commons-licensed / public domain mixes.
• A surprise. Or more. At least one.

October 10, completely free
4pm, FREE workshop on handmade music mixes – RSVP | Facebook
7-11pm, party, live music performances, general noisemaking (Facebook)

Presented by CULTUREfix, our new favorite home on the Lower East Side, complete with fantastic tapas, drinks, and drool-worthy electronics

Location

Here’s a first look at the projects, starting with a live performance I’m told gives us a loose sense of foci + loci — hoping to see even more Sunday.

foci + loci – Front Room Gallery June 2010 from glomag on Vimeo.

Drone Lab V2

From Austin – Three Projects You Can Build

That’s right, you’re not from Texas? Texas wants you anyway. Even if you’re nowhere near the Lone Star State, here are three projects you can build/buy — and yes, we’ll need to compile a full guide to all these great projects.

If you are in Austin, Texas, don’t miss the event Sunday, October 10. (We’ll have to Skype from NYC to Austin!)

Handmade Music Austin #12

The projects…

Ring Modulator, Mickey Delp’s great-sounding project, also available as a US$45 kit ($75 assembled)

Ring Modulator
Original prototype with schematics

SimSam, an $8, beginner-friendly noisemaker (complete with specs, the lot).

PicoPaso, a Forrest Mims Atari Punk Synth-inspired stepped tone generator. Schematics + purchase info at Bleep Labs.

Open source software has proven itself in technological, economic, and cultural terms – it’s simply a matter of reality. This site runs atop free software nginx, WordPress, MySQL, and (Red Hat Enterprise) Linux; in music, we have Csound, SuperCollider, Pd, Ardour, JACK, Processing, and so on. Csound has even appeared on karaoke machines. These tools run alongside and interoperate with commercial, closed-source solutions. They’re a part of our technological ecosystem, both in general-purpose computing and in music and visuals.

But what about hardware? Facing scarcity and fabrication, hardware combines all of the challenges of software with new problems. And unlike software, open source hardware lacks clear licenses and definitions.

There’s clearly a role open source hardware could play in music. There are already components, like USB chipsets, that are available in open source form that can benefit music projects. And while true open source hardware has been rare or available only in limited runs, there have been hardware projects with open source components. Most notably, the fully open source software that powers the monome has been instrumental in facilitating the passionate community around that device. Here’s what the monome project proclaims on its official site:

we believe that open source is commercially viable and mutually beneficial for our collective and the consumer. in opening our software we eliminate wasteful, redundant coding for ourselves by incorporating proven libraries and frameworks. we in turn provide these same benefits to others who wish to incorporate our development efforts into their projects. we believe distributed development leads to more stable software and more creative application design. we believe open applications provide more flexibility for users to adapt tools to their specific needs, encourage creative use of software and hardware, and produce a greater diversity output from users.

But even given the monome manifesto above, music gear embracing open source hardware has been relatively scarce – even more so if you apply the definition adopted by many advocates. (The monome, for its part, would not meet a number of the criteria of open source hardware drafted for the summit.)

This Thursday in New York, on the eve of Maker Faire, the Open Hardware Summit promises to break new ground. It features a packed schedule of thinkers from NASA to Texas Instruments to the Arduino project, and the introduction of a first working definition of open source hardware.

I spoke to project co-chairs Alicia Gibb and Ayah Bdeir about the origins and goals of the event, and some of the unique challenges of doing open source hardware.

At the same time, I couldn’t help but notice the absence of music and audio figures on the program. That to me suggests that this discussion is not less relevant, but more so – if there is a disconnect between musical creators working with these ideas and the rest of the community, it’s worth exploring why that is, given that musical expression is such a fundamental part of our culture. More on that at the end, as we don’t yet have a good catalog of active, available projects for open source music.

CDM: Can you tell us how this project, and the Summit, came about?

Alicia: About 7 months ago, in January Peter [Semmelhack, of BUG Labs] said to me, “Hey, I’ve been getting a lot of people from hardware companies calling me and asking for advice. We have learned a lot of lessons in producing hardware and others shouldn’t have to make those same mistakes. Is there a way we could get all kinds of people who work with open source hardware together and all share information, a conference or summit – like an Open Hardware Summit or something.” And I replied to him – “Peter, this is going to be epic, consider it done.” I began working and thinking of key players to involve on this Open Hardware Summit.

Separately, in March, Ayah brought many excellent minds together at the Opening Hardware Workshop sponsored by Eyebeam and CC, it was such an impressive collection, to begin forming a definition of what open source hardware entails. (In the first video on the Eyebeam project site, Ayah explains a bit about how that event was brought together.) The definition that you have come across is the definition that was spurred from that workshop. It was there that I began talking to a couple people about the conference and Chris Anderson [Wired] said “Have you thought about doing it around … Maker Faire?”

Sherry Huss, Dale Dougherty and Becky Stern [all of Make] all sat down to chat with me and loved the idea of having it the day before Maker Faire, they invited me along to scope out the space and treated me as family. They got NYSCI on board as our venue sponsor for the New York Hall of Science. They were absolutely instrumental in getting the Summit off the ground. Ayah mentioned that with her new fellowship at Creative Commons, one of the things they wanted to do was a conference around Open Hardware. Becky told her she should come talk to me – and really, the rest is history

I do have to say it is such an honor to plan this with Ayah, I read her work as a grad student and as Peter texted me after our first meeting with all the key players in the Summit, “I think the fact that the first Open Hardware Summit is being chaired by women is a terrific signal”. I feel very fortunate to have a job that allows me to make my dreams happen, and CEO who truly has his heart in the right place when it comes to open source. Peter’s ability to be a successful business man while not forgetting the importance of sharing, giving back, and maintaining transparency in open source projects has been inspirational to me.

Ayah and I are the co-chairs of the Summit. However as we plan more and more we hope to bring on other volunteers for help. The other key players that we consider catalysts to this event are: Bug Labs, Creative Commons, littleBits, MAKE, Maker Faire, NYSCI, and Eyebeam.

littleBits intro from ayah bdeir on Vimeo.

Ayah, can you talk a little about your background in this, particularly since Opening Hardware was a project you created at Eyebeam?

Ayah: From my end, i have been working on Open hardware for my own project littleBits (www.littleBits.cc) with advisor John Wilbanks of Creative Commons for a while. Our talks were so interesting that we decided to host a small workshop in March where we would invited interested hardware makers and have a discussion between the open hardware community and creative commons to better understand the issues and licensing options. In the workshop we saw that a license would not be the way to go but rather a community-approved set of norms or definition might work best. Ed.: As noted in comments, littleBits is not yet available for purchase, but “design files, schematics and instructions will be online when we are done manufacturing.” -PK

Who is actively involved in that community effort?

Ayah: The Opening Hardware workshop was organized by me, with eyebeam, ted ullrich and celine assaf, and sponsored by CC. we then set up a mailing list and hosted discussions on the definition, where a bunch of us were actively involved in the drafting (dave mellis prodding people to hash out the version 0.1 draft and Windell did most of the writing for the current (0.3) draft (adopting from the DFSG and the OSI OSS definition)). Although lots of people contributed both comments and text including: Arduino, Adafruit, Buglabs, MakerBot, Chumby as well as Jonathan Kuniholm (Open Prosthetics), Chris Anderson (Wired), Mako Hill (OLPC, Wikipedia), Jon Philips (Qi), Shigeru Kobayashi (Gainer), Becky Stern (Make) and Thinh Nguyen and John Wilbanks (CC) and us (littleBits, Eyebeam), Parallax, Sparkfun, Lilypad.

What drove this effort; what made it come about?

It seemed like so many of us that were interested in porting the open source movement to hardware were struggling with adapting it, and its restrictions and specificities. We believe it is such a worthwile movement to fuel creativity in the world that we really wanted to share it with others.

The most common question I hear asked is by creators, who are concerned that people will simply set up cheap manufacture to clone products, undercutting costs and reducing their ability to invest in support and further development. Is there anything in this definition that would protect against this?

Ayah: From David Mellis, Arduino:

I think the best strategy is to provide good products at a reasonable price, offer good customer service, and establish a brand that people trust. We do mention in the introduction that you can’t imply your products are supported or or sanctioned by another manufacture or use someone else’s trademarks – both intended to help protect a company’s brand and reputation.

Ed.: Okay, there’s quite a lot more to discuss here, I know – so consider this the beginning of this conversation, not the end. I think what David suggests is one compelling answer, but I hope we do have a larger discussion of the issues here, as this a significantly multi-dimensional question. -PK

What’s essential to this definition in your view and what’s up for discussion? For instance, some (though not all) makers believe that some sort of non-commercial
restriction is needed to prevent cloning, but that’s explicitly forbidden in this draft. Is it possible that a future definition might include other tiers, like Creative Commons’ non-commercial license for creative works? Or is that anathema to the definition of open source hardware?

Ayah: We’re trying to define open-source hardware (not create a license). We mostly think non-commercial clauses are antithesis to open source. However, some want a really idealistic application for open source to hardware, but others, (like me) think it’s ok if different companies and individuals have different flavors so that the movement can gain the most traction and people can find their own ways to be sustainable.

What will the role of the hardware summit be?

Ayah: The summit will be a venue to share and discuss issues, problems and solutions in open hardware. This is also an opportunity for us to bring Creative Commons into the discussion with the community.

There will be a very deliberate attempt to remain practical and not too academic/theoretical, and we want to get work done in terms of the movement. We are also hoping to get more comments before the summit and be able to release version 1.0 of the definition to the world!

Where does Creative Commons fit in?

Ayah: CC committed, albeit in an early stage to support the open hardware movement, which can be seen by their awarding me of a fellowship to support the field and focus on open hardware. Even if it will not be throught creating licenses for us, they are interested in being involved in the discussion, and have been very generous supporters.

Are there any usable license models now that someone could look at? Definitions aside, is there a sense of best-practices for someone who has a hardware design now and wants to take the plunge?

Ayah: Again, from David Mellis:

I would recommend people share whatever they feel comfortable with. Open-source hardware doesn’t make sense for all companies or all products, and everyone should decide what makes sense for their own situation. On the other hand, we believe in the value of open-source as applied to hardware in the ways stated in the definition, and so we would encourage its use where possible.

If people want to get involved in the discussion, what’s he best way to do that?

www.openhardwaresummit.org/forum

What are some of the highlights of what you have scheduled for Thursday? What can people expect to hear?

Everything is a highlight for Thursday! The response and interest to the summit has been so incredible that we really tried to pack the best in. The panels are particularly going to be interesting, with such great participants from various fields, we expect to get lots of great questions and answers.
TOne of our most important goals for the Summit is to keep the event very action-driven and solution-driven. This means talking about best practices, advice on how to better make open hardware, and staying away from the theoretical jargon and bikeshedding. We expect there to be a lot of young makers and companies starting out in open hardware, so the more specific/real-world experiences and advice we can give them the better! Another particular highlight we are selfishly hoping for is to hash out the Open Hardware definition and take it from version 0.3 to version 1.0!

Since we’re talking to a music/sound (and on motion, visual) audience, anything likely to be specifically relevant to them?

The sprint talks will be specifically interesting to them. The speakers are showing their projects, in space research, art, design and education. We think it will be particularly interesting eye candy for your audience, as well as have a lot of value in terms of relating to the speakers and the problems/opportunities they face with their work.

(CDM) Call for Open Source Music Hardware

My read of the situation is that this is the beginning (or even a prelude) rather than the end of the story. So that means, since there really isn’t much, if any, representation of audio and music platforms at the summit (unless you count Arduino, or a possible cameo by a x0xb0x), maybe it’s time to do a tally of those platforms.

What projects do you consider “open source hardware” for music? Are there any you’ve seen recently, or use actively?

What would you want in an open source hardware platform?

And do you have a project you’ve considered for an open source license yourself?

I’ve actually seen a few projects recently that I’m excited about, either available now or coming soon, so I’ll be covering those, but at the risk of proposing a list that’s incomplete, I’ll leave them out for now and listen to what you think.

The Summit…

http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/

For this book review, we welcome guest writer Andy Farnell, who himself has a terrific book on interactive sound design and free modular patching environment Pure Data, entitled Designing Sound. It began as a review of a book on using free software – but it could be, more than that, a chance to fight procrastination. And while this runs the gamut, including graphics and design and not just sound, that could be even more relevant to those of us who need to delve into those other areas for our creative work. -Ed.

We all have a stack of things to get round to one day. Building a website. Making a video. Writing a book or recording an album. Allow me to share with you ten days that will transform your list of could do, would do, always going to do… into a list of exciting projects you’ve started.

That’s how long it took me to flick through Daniel James’ “Crafting Digital Media”, a light-reading compendium of software wisdom published by APress and weighing in at just under 400 pages.

It takes two of the major excuses for procrastination, “I don’t understand the interface, so I’m waiting for someone to show me.” and “I don’t have the money to buy the latest software”, and stomps them in the face with a giant boot.

There are roughly eight topics, or chunks of knowledge covered.

The first is about photography, with demonstrations in F-Spot, GThumb and GIMP — all the free tools you need to transfer, manipulate, and polish high-quality digital images.

Every software package in the book is a free, open source product that can be legally downloaded and used. These are not shareware or limited trial programs, but full versions of powerful, standards compatible applications — all modern free software with reliable, polished interfaces and powerful features. The book also comes with a CD containing Ubuntu 9.04.

The second chapter concerns illustration and font design. This is a whistle stop tour of modern scalable vector graphics tools and techniques, touching on Inkscape, FontForge, and GIMP again, showing you how to import, export, convert and edit high quality multi-layered scalable graphics.

Next comes 2D animation, where KToon and Synfig are demonstrated, showing the basic concepts of frame sequencing and tweening. And naturally, 3D modelling follows, with a look at Blender, the immensely-powerful 3D object design and rendering package with auxiliary game engine.

Although each section covers a complete production concept, it isn’t tiring or exhaustive. Just enough guidance is given to launch the program, explore the features, introduce the key concepts and leave you to play. If you actually follow along with the software examples, it’s a truly exciting journey, as you go to sleep each night with your head exploding with possibilities.

The art of publishing is the next adventure, with explorations of page layout, document structure, creating PDFs, posters, books and flyers. Subjects like fonts, typography, kerning and color processes are explained through examples with the Scribus application.

As a musician, you might be wondering where the audio tools are. The book doesn’t disappoint. There’s something for even experienced users in this compendium of tools spanning three chapters. Packages such as Mixx, Hydrogen, Jack, Seq24, Alsa Modular, Audacity, Ardour, and JAMin are explored in the context of all the common tasks like podcasting, recording, sequencing, effecting, compressing and mastering, EQ, CD production, and creating your own streaming server.

As an old fart who has just discovered YouTube, I found the next section on video editing to be very helpful since I’ve just started to explore making video tutorials. The now comical proliferation of incompatible video formats and codecs, a depressing indictment of the failure of standards, are cut through in short order. Daniel lays down the basics of formats and their conversion using AVIdemux, cropping and resizing while preserving high quality, and basic editing using Kino and the Open Movie Editor. A quick treatment of audio sync, titles and effects wraps up the section nicely.

Web development is the last chapter on software packages. Arguably there are so many choices for Web2.0 site design that it’s hard to justify any particular one. This book opts for solid and proven Drupal, along with a tour of the industry standard Apache web server, MySQL back-end, and Icecast media server to give a user-driven internet radio station as the chapter example.

Each of these topics is an entire profession in itself, about which shelves of books could be written, so don’t expect to become much of an an expert in any. What “Crafting Digital Media” does is open the door and get you started producing content very quickly. From there the opportunities are up to you.

As well as gently throwing in up-to-date anecdotal knowledge and asides from his encyclopaedic knowledge of modern media software, Daniel ties together the various threads into a whole that leaves you feeling empowered to start any new digital production project.

Let’s face it, the key to most pieces of software is a few simple steps, a few core commands, that seem so easy once you know them that you want to kick yourself for not trying sooner. Getting over that initial barrier is what this book offers.

The book would be a fantastic companion to new users of Ubuntu Studio, Pure:Dyne or 64Studio distributions, though several of the packages are multi-platform, so are available for Mac and Windows too. Ed.: Indeed, a large number of the tools are cross-platform – GIMP, FontForge, and Inkscape run on Mac and Windows, and Ardour on Mac. But then again, if you’ve got a Mac or PC, this is a great time to explore Linux a bit as a second OS, and all this software is available to you. Graphics software should even run acceptably virtualized. -PK

Title: Crafting Digital Media
Author: Daniel James
Publisher: Apress
Year: 2009
ISBN: 9781430218876
Price: $29 (RRP:$40)

Record giant Universal Music Group is cutting prices on the CD, as analysts clamor for still-lower prices. But as for actual records – the kind made of vinyl – odder and odder innovations flourish. If the CD is dying, the vinyl record is an undead, sexually-alluring vampire.

Two recent releases not only treat the record as “delivery mechanism,” but also tools for playing the record.

The late hip hop great J Dilla (aka Jay Dee) gets a well-deserved tribute from his label Stones Throw, complete with some fantastic, unreleased instrumentals (“Safety Dance”, “Sycamore”, “Bars & Twists,” and remastered cuts for Mos Def, Q-Tip and Busta Rhymes). But, working in collaboration with Serato, this release also takes note of the people actually buying records these days: DJs. There are beautiful, donut-themed slipmats. (As far as I’m concerned, anything featuring donuts earns automatic bonus points. Mmmmm… donuts.) The records themselves, meanwhile, are dual-sided. When you want to hear the record, play it face up. When you want to use DJ software, flip it for Serato control tone. (Officially, that works with Serato Scratch Live DJ, but it’ll also work with the open-source Mixxx and Deckadance apps, too.)

It’s a fascinating idea: make the record itself friendly to vinyl and digital turntablists. Of course, if you’re a digital DJ, I imagine you already have the control records you need, but — you still get those tasty donut slipmats. And it is a reminder (as if you needed one) that DJs are keeping the record format alive. Massive CD sales may have been the domain of the mass market, but vinyl demonstrates how powerful niches and the long tail can be.

J DILLA DONUT SHOP (SERATO/STONES THROW) 2 DISCS, 2 SLIPMATS & DILLA BEATS

What’s that? No space for turntables? (Believe me, I feel you.) How about a record whose sleeve becomes a DIY turntable, spun with a pencil?

That’s the idea of a direct mail piece created by sound design studio Griffiths, Gibson, and Ramsay Productions (GGRP). Originally intended just as an attention-getter for creative directors, the concept has caught the imagination of bloggers, and those who got them wanted extras for their kids. (It takes me back to all the strange, cheap, disposable records we were handed as kids during what was supposed to be the last days of vinyl.)

The basic apparatus works just like a conventional record player: spin the record (using a pencil in this case instead of a rotating turntable), and a needle transduces the sound (here, amplified by the cardboard housing). I really like the cover on the record, too.

Links:
GREY SPINS VINYL HITS FOR GGRP [Marketing Mag Canada, via GGRP's own excellent Making Noise blog]

And from one of my favorite design blogs, the eco-centered Inhabit:
Album Sleeve Transforms Into a Cardboard Record Player!

For their part, Inhabit notes the value of cardboard as construction material and the green-minded reuse of packaging.

It’s an idea that would be great fun to build upon. The only thing that’s missing, that I can see, is an easy DIY way of producing the records. (Lasercutter trick, maybe?) Adding a piezo element to amplify the signal could be a thought, too.

Another how-to on a handmade paper+needle configuration (suggested only for playing records you really don’t want to save), in a video on WonderHowTo (also via Inhabit):

And some more pics of the two designs mentioned here:

Computers and computer software can have as much or even more longevity than traditional music hardware – that is, if elements like copy protection don’t intervene first. As a postscript to the discussion last week, prompted by a new software release for the Apple II, here’s a report from our friend Bill Van Loo. He was able to make a productive little workstation out of an old iBook (500Mhz), with access to Reaktor Session instruments and an Apple electric piano now gone.

Bill has been doing a project a week all year, working towards the goal of 52 projects at the end of 2010, so consider this an excuse to peek into his studio and get some inspiration and ideas for projects:

http://www.chromedecay.org/

What’s interesting to me is how productive the results were. But that means there’s a real failure caused by arcane copy protection. And much as we complain about dongles, the dongle worked – it was software/online challenge-response that was the failure point. (Before dongle advocates at developers rejoice, uh, guys, if you add online activation to your dongle as some of you have recently done, you’ve just killed your advantage.)

I don’t think it’s realistic for developers to always provide 100% backwards compatibility. But it’s clear that developers aren’t doing a great job of gracefully bringing products to the end of their life cycle. If a product is to be discontinued, why not do what Propellerhead did with their popular ReBirth instrument and provide it free? Open source licensing isn’t always the answer, as it adds additional legal work and presumes that someone wants all this old source code, which very often, they don’t. But at least by providing a free download, perhaps a very specific license that makes it free to trade the binary file, people don’t lose access to software they use in their music.

Bill’s comments, plus a link to the full story – well worth reading if you’re considering doing something similar yourself:

As it happens, I went through my own version of this (resurrecting old technology to get usable instruments back) and documented it on my blog, as part of my ongoing “52 things” (a “project-a-week” series).

A few years ago, I replaced my trusty titanium PowerBook with a shiny new Intel MacBook. That brought lots of increased power, but it also meant losing some things I really liked as a result of moving from the PowerPC-based PowerBook to the Intel-based MacBook. My favorite Rhodes electric piano sound came from Logic’s EVP73 plugin, which didn’t run on Intel Macs. One of my other favorite sound sources was Reaktor Session, which I loved for its Vierring ensemble, among others.

What it came down to, for me, is that it was worth getting back those capabilities. I learned, along the way, that the dongle-based copy protection schemes (much as I disliked them at the time) of Logic and Max/MSP allowed me to get them up and running extremely quickly.

In contrast to dongle-based copy protection, the challenge/response authorization system of Native Instruments actually made it much more difficult (relatively speaking) to get Reaktor Session installed & going. NI’s customer support got me set up quickly, but having to rely on that to get software working makes it more fragile in terms of dependencies.

5/52: iBook instrument station