Today, CDM is proud to announce a new feature to keep us competitive with fast-moving music technology coverage on the Web. It’s called “Industry Clipboard Connection,” and it allows us to fully connect you with the latest industry news by giving you complete, un-edited press release content, pasted up to the minute. And we kick it off with what I think is a really game-changing product that could change the relationship of vocalists to bands forever. Be sure to read the full press release for the complete details. Seriously. I think you’ll want to read to the end.

Sweetwater announces today the innovative Virtual Frontman plug-in:

(Fort Wayne, Ind.) - New addition to Sweetwater’s plug-in family brings true character to any vocalist -

Sweetwater’s Reasearch & Development Department, creators of such popular tools as the Talent plug-in, Guitar Racket, Minute Audio, and the Octavisor, has announced their latest addition to the Sweetwater family of professional music and audio tools, Virtual Frontman.

Virtual Frontman is a Mac- and Windows-compatible plug-in that supports Audio Units, MAS, VST, RTAS, Direct X, TDM, and 120-volt plug-in formats. The plug-in uses sophisticated proprietary runway modeling techniques to encode the vocal and behavioral characteristics of the world’s most iconoclastic rock frontmen onto any vocalist’s performance. According to Mark Hutchins, Sweetwater’s Assistant Director of Cable Ties, and the near-genius behind the idea of Virtual Frontman, “I’ve suffered for years with the uni-dimensional performances of the singers in my bands. I was looking for a simple, efficient plug-in tool that would allow you to add real excitement and charisma to a band’s vocals.”

This has been making the blog-o-rounds, but if you haven’t seen it, the Yellow Drum Machine is a brilliant musical robot — brilliantly musical, and brilliantly simply technologically. (There’s something to be said for elegant design.) It rolls around, looks for objects nearby, bangs on them, and samples that sound. (Hmm, it’s like a little robotic equivalent of me around my apartment.) As seen on MAKE.

The specs are terrific:

• Cost to build: $120
• Time to build: 20 hours
• Actuators / output devices: 6 geared motors in total, 2 speakers, sound sampler
• Control method: autonomous (very)
• CPU: Picaxe 28
• Operating system: Picaxe basic
• Power source: 4 AA batteries
• Programming language: Picaxe basic
• Sensors / input devices: SRF05, microphone
• Target environment: where ever there is something to play on

By “fritsl” — fritsl, if you’re out there (or anyone else), want to let us in on who you are?

Previously:

Robots on CDM

Robot Drummers, Compared: Like Musicians, Robots are Better When They Listen

Robot Drummer Responds to Human Playing; How They Did It (speaking of which, Gil and company at Georgia Tech, perhaps it’s time for a Haile Mobile?)

Got something cool like this and can get to San Francisco in April? I hope you’re entering our competition!

The Keepon Robot — a bopping yellow bot — was easily the technological darling of 2007. It sent even the most skeptical, hardened technomage into spurts of giggles. So, we’re giving you more: take note, because you, too, could learn to dance to the electrical sounds in the club if this robot can. (Thanks, Mandy, for all the links!)

And yes, Carnegie Mellon is advertising how cool they are in these videos. In these days of geek chic — and with involvement on various projects just beginning with the Keepon — I can’t really argue. (I wasn’t paid to say that, really. They didn’t give me an honorary doctorate, or, uh, a week of free tuition or something.)

There’s a side narrative with recent grad Dr. Daniel Wilson on the battle of man vs. machine, which is reasonably amusing. Here’s the Keepon bit:

Eric Singer, creator of musical robots and maestro of LEMUR, the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, has unveiled a new wireless sensor-to-MIDI interface. It’s quite a bit pricier than the non-wireless MIDI models at US$495, but the payoff is a complete kit for wireless performance that promises to be resistant to both latency and interference. The receiver can be connected via either USB or MIDI, and the sensor unit has 20 inputs which you can mix and match as up to 10 analog ins and 20 digital ins. Put the sensor/transmitter unit wherever you like, then transmit data wirelessly to the receiver — so the sensors could be strapped to a dancer while a computer or synth receives the data elsewhere.

I hope to have a hands-on demo soon, but in the meantime, here are the specs — just in case that wireless project can’t wait any longer.

Don’t get too excited. Gibson Guitar is not, in fact, introducing a fully robotic guitar. Or a creepy robot doll that plays a guitar. Nor are they shipping you a handsome (male/female/your choice) robot assistant who will follow you around and tune your guitar for you. Too bad. But they are launching a robotic, self-tuning guitar on December 7. And most importantly, it comes in a limited-edition frost blue paint retro-robotic job, which even as a non-guitarist, I have to admit is super hot. So, what’s robotic about it? Its tuning system:

In addition to its automated tuning and alternate/open tuning functions, the Gibson Robot Guitar offers a unique Intonation function, which guides even the most tweak-phobic player through the simple steps of achieving perfect intonation on this revolutionary instrument. No tools or external tuners or other gadgets are needed other than a small screwdriver and the Robot Guitar’s own Master Control Knob (MCK). The guitar itself “talks you through” the entire process, resulting in a correctly intonated guitar in a fraction of the time it takes even a professional guitar tech to do the same job.

Just in case mastering the subtleties of playing a Theremin isn’t hard enough for you, you’re in luck: you can master the subtleties of building a robot that has to then master the subtleties of playing the Theremin.

Sarah Angliss, a human Thereminist in the UK, sends us this video of a creepy doll robot playing the Theremin. (If you’re prone to the jeebilies, you may not want to watch. Sarah writes, “I’ve posted my latest jam with Clara 2.0, the theremin playing robot doll, on YouTube. Hope you enjoy watching her talents (or lack of them).” (Technical details after the jump.)

Our friend Ranjit promises this week he’ll bring his Theremin-playing bots to Handmade Music, so if you’re in the NYC area and free this Thursday, you can meet them in person. If not, here they are on YouTube playing “Crazy”. Ranjit describes thusly:

ROBOT BAND! LEV the thereminbot and his newly-built pal thumpbot play “Crazy” with help from a 20-year-old MT32 synthesizer. OK, Lev’s a bit out of tune, but hey, ROBOTS. A tribute to The Ether & Aether Experiment’s marvelous performance.

I don’t know. I’m nervous. I think we’d better whip up some Theremin Laws of Robotics quickly. (Wait — on second thought, those conflicting laws don’t work out very well, do they?)

More technical details on how Sarah pulled off her creeptacularly brilliant robo-Thereminist:

Ranjit Bhatnagar, aka Moon Milk Labs, sends this crazy video of his robotic Theremin playing away on Patsy. (After the jump, Theremins playing Crazy, the song.)

See also the Moonmilk YouTube page for more. Yes, the robot struggles a bit with the Theremin … but then again, so do I.

We’ll be getting up close and personal with this bot this Saturday at the Etsy Halloween party, along with me working on some ghostly video-controlled music and various other oddities and surprises. And we’re just one part of a whole, wild Halloween fiesta courtesy Etsy Labs and friends. Come out if you’re free, and if you’re in other parts of the world, expect some project details soon. (Not to mention our big CDM holiday this weekend, which is the Circuit Bending Challenge, on Sunday.)

Come As You Aren’t: Etsy Labs Halloween Party [Storque @ Etsy.com]

Ranjit had a really lifelike robot that played violin beautifully, but I made the mistake of giving it a Voigt-Kampff test and it’s been a little, erm, odd ever since. Think that’s Crazy? This is:

The Keepon is a cute, yellow robot that dances to music you may have seen bopping on YouTube. It shows how subtle changes could make robotics friendlier in the near future.

Foremost among those changes: show a little skin. By wrapping the robot’s armature with soft, rubber skin, the Keepon is both squeezable and more lifelike. (After all, how many people / pets / creature friends do you know who don’t have a skeleton and skin? Yes, you with the pet beetle, you’re an exception.)

Second, and earning the Keepon YouTube fame and glory, the BeatBots know how to shake their groove thing. Like smart puppeteers, the Keepon’s designers have kept motions simple but expressive: turning, nodding, rocking, and bobbing, the Keepon’s motions themselves are realistic, and convey attention. Those decisions were conceived to let the Keepon interact with children, but all people respond well to attention as emotional connection. Our friend Keith Lang of Plasq was recently musing on the importance of attention and eyes on his blog, as a way of contemplating software UI design. Looking into your eyes is powerful is the short version of that; big-eyed Anime characters, puppy dogs, and glaring looks from enemies all grow out of that.

Talking about it is one thing; here’s the robot in action with its creators, dancing to Spoon:

Of course, to make that work, the Keepon needs a good sense of rhythm — better than, say, that erratically flopping fish you got at the local convenience store as a gag gift. To do that, the Keepon’s creators are using music/multimedia software Max/MSP to prototype their “architecture for rhythmic social interaction.” It’s not the first time we’ve seen people programming robotic rhythmic interactions in Max: Georgian robot Haile drums in response to a human player using Max-programmed interactions.

Hey, you’re not listening any more, are you? You’re still watching that video over and over again. This is important! This is rhythmic social interaction! Though I guess if you are still distracted, the magic works.

Keepon on Tour: The Keepon has gigs in Denmark and Korea this week, followed by a set of LA appearances next month in association with Wired Magazine. They’ll even be doing a benefit concert for Creative Commons with Spoon. Details at the Keepon site:
Keepon & the Beatbots

Previously:
Robot Drummers, Compared: Like Musicians, Robots are Better When They Listen

So, you’re really hot patching synths in Reaktor. You’ve done some interactive music in Max/MSP. You think you’re really awesome. Fine. Go up against 5VOLTCORE and their knife-stabbing robot. They stake more than a reputation on this — they tempt fate and put their hand in the way of an evil robotic arm with a blade:

5VOLTCORE site (Thanks, Anton and the Pd list.)

I shudder to think what the debugging process was like. Pd (aka Pure Data, Max/MSP’s open-source cousin) is best known for music and synth applications, and to a lesser extent, interactive visual art. But the fact that it can also run a robot’s knife play demonstrates just how versatile and essentially application-agnostic these tools are.

Lest you think there’s no musical application all this mayhem, the folks of 5VOLTCORE have found equally destructive ways of creating music — like circuit bending graphics cards:

We mount cables stripped of isolation on an audio amplifier and use these to create short circuits and faulty currents on the chips of the graphic card of a computer. The intrusion of the amplified music signal in the graphic card causes the computer to get electrical impulses on parts of the hardware that are not designed to receive them. Instead of clean 0’s and 1’s, electricity generated by analog music hits the pins - and the computer tries to interpret it. A visual stream reacting in real-time to the music is generated. We then expand the possibilities of deconstruction with the help of tools like hammers and drill machines…