Hello, coming to you live from San Mateo and the Maker Faire hosted by Make Magazine. If you stopped by the CDM booth today, I hope you stick around a while. This site, for musicians, DJs, composers, and soundmakers, covers the audible side. Create Digital Motion covers VJing and live and interactive visuals (for an audience we like to call visualists). We cover store-bought hardware and software as well as DIY, and love having everyone from beginners to advanced readers around.

Here are some links to more information on some of what I was showing:

Sensors and MIDI: Working with sensors and physical inputs is what some term “physical computing.” We’ve covered lots of physical computing projects here on CDMusic.

I wrote up an introduction to MIDI for Make 07 which would be a good place to start if you’re relatively new to MIDI.

The MIDI sock monkey and infrared and touch sensors are powered by Lady Ada’s MIDIsense, as introduced here:
Sensors-to-MIDI with the MIDIsense Board. See also the Arduino board, which we’ve covered mostly on the motion side.

Barcode scanner to music converter, powered by Processing, a Java-based development language that makes programming friendly for artists. Check out the official Processing site, Processing Blogs aggregator, and Processing coverage on our sister site, Create Digital Motion.

Live visuals: The live video-processing “mirror” via the MacBook was built in Max/MSP/Jitter. Check out our ongoing Jitter coverage on CDMotion. Nope, no “source code” / source patch available yet — it’s a bit too messy, the reason you don’t see more open-sourced Max patches!

And totally off-subject: The keyboard I was using is a ReMOTE 37SL from Novation. Nothing to do with Maker or Maker Faire but very handy to have around … and well worthy of combining with other DIY hardware.

Talk about digital technology and music, and people are often skeptical: doesn’t technology get in the way of making music? But technology and music have always been interwined, and even for advanced composers, better understanding the technology of how acoustic instruments work is fundamental to realizing musical ideas. Unfortunately, orchestration books, despite their best intentions, can be disastrous for composers trying to understand instruments. Books by definition can’t include musical examples, and the texts themselves are often divorced from real practical information.

Now the good news: the Web could offer an antidote.

When the Web isn’t sucking away your time with utter silliness, it could be helping you brush up your musical chops. Here’s a roundup of useful resources, all of them completely free, for a variety of skill levels, whether you’re trying to learn to play with half-diminished chords or build yourself a DIY drum trigger for controlling software. And I’d love to assemble more of these if you’ve got some tips.

“MIDI is just for keyboardists.” Hearing generalizations like that must send shivers down the spines of the 1400+ members of the Yahoo Wind Controllers Group. They have enough to talk about to generate around 500 messages a month, chatting exclusively about MIDI and other digital wind instruments.

If that kind of traffic sounds overwhelming, and you’re still asking questions like “why would you want to do this, anyway?”, check out the related Wind Controller FAQ. In answer to the “why” question, here’s one good reason from the FAQ: “A wind controller can be used for alternative sounds that a musician cannot produce on their acoustic instruments.”

Looking at it from the opposite direction, why not? What could be more expressive than breath? Now’s a great time to go check out the FAQ and group, with Akai introducing new wind controller at NAMM (pictured). (Found via an aborted attempt to start a Google group on this topic.)

Looking for new wisdom and expertise on tools like the insanely deep Max/MSP/Jitter? (If you’re using Max, signs point to yes.) Cycling ‘74 relaunched their site a couple of weeks ago, incorporating a variety of features that make this an indispensible resource for users of Max and other products. Since late last month, the new site has gotten rolling fast. Collective intelligence, meet Max.

Welcome, Computer Music readers — feel free to drop me a line. Here’s a roundup of Max/MSP resources, as a companion to the feature story on Max I wrote for Computer Music Magazine. Max is a deep, deep program, but to get you started, I’ve lined up:

Unusual controllers for performance (tablets to game controllers)

Cool Max projects (flaming sound organs to musical punching bags)

Essential Max tools (my favorite add-ons and upgrades)

It’s everything you need to start making weird, futuristic music and art. Well, not quite everything, but enough to blow my mind, anyway. I’m planning more online tutorials and possibly another print follow-up soon, so stay tuned!

While we’re on the subject of free, here’s a massive collection of free VST plugins for Mac and Windows:

Rocketloop

It’s really great to see everything in one place; makes it much easier to navigate to what you need. Unlike some other sites, Rocketloop is perfect for window browsing. You’ll stumble across imaginative synths like the GTG Synths JP 7A shown below. (The author says it’s not an emulation, just something new.)

Found a favorite plugin on Rocketloop (or elsewhere)? Let us know!

Welcome, Keyboard Laptops Live and Computer Music Readers! Feel free to say hi and check out the rest of the site.

Photo: Vello Virkhaus with Red Hot Chili Peppers in London (thanks, Vello!)

Live visuals for keyboardists? Absolutely: if you’ve got MIDI chops, slick new tools can help you tickle projected imagery while you tickle the ivories. There’s just too much to say about VJing to fit into one story, so when I wrote up an introduction to live visuals for Keyboard Magazine’s Laptops Live special, I ran out of space fast. Here’s a quick roundup of some of the gear and tools you’ll need to pump out live visuals at your next gig.

CDM Sister Site: Incidentally, thanks to all of you who sent in thoughtful feedback about where VJ content belongs here at CDM, or on its own site. After careful consideration, I have decided to launch a new visual performance site towards the end of the year. But don’t worry: those of you who want to occasionally read VJ content will be able to follow the new site here on CDM, and thanks to a bunch of volunteer writers, I expect both sites to grow, not languish. More on that in December . . . now on with our VJ roundup.

To cap off today’s Korg Love Fest, let’s take a moment to remember gear of yesteryear . . . meaning, of course, just a few short years ago. Sure, the latest-and-greatest is always lovely, but I love the fact that Dan Phillips from Korg has an extensive site devoted to the Korg Wavestation (Dan’s photo below), OASYS PCI, and DP patch lists for gems from the Eventide DSP7000 to the Line6 Pod to the tc Fireworx. (I like Dan’s taste in gear.) And why not treat these like real musical instruments instead of just toys to show off. Real instruments take time.

Everything old isn’t always new again — David Battino wondered, rightfully so I think, if anyone really needs a Korg M1 plugin. Yet, there’s something comforting in the knowledge that choice of tools really doesn’t matter when you’re happy making music. And low-budget tools can indeed be had.

Now, does anyone know where I could pick up a used OASYS PCI?

Gameboy guru Gijs Geikes rocks LSDJ with workshop participants, and even the mysterious interface of this tracker-style instrument for Nintendo systems can capture audiences’ imagination. Gijs has just posted some photos of his workshops in action, complete with sample MP3s and (best of all) some great tips for making sounds with LSDJ. Click the “Instruments” menu on the right for synthesis ideas and more.

LittleSoundDJ Workshop Photos, MP3s, Tutorials [Gijs Geikes]

LittleSoundDJ [Main site]

And yes, that’s my friend Bubblyfish at one of the workshops, so LSDJ’s “rival” Gameboy app Nanoloop makes an appearance, too. And what’s with the PSP? Emulation, baby. Though I’m sticking with my vintage Gameboys at about 3% of the price of the Sony.

More news soon as I resume a normal broadcast schedule this week . . .