There are a few spots in the world that are active hotspots for music tech geekery, and in San Francisco, it’s definitely all about Robotspeak. CNET’s Donald Bell – known to some of us back in the day as terrific IDM producer Chachi Jones – visits the store that once employed him. (This gives me extra-happy memories, because years ago I was fortunate enough to play an A/V set at Robotspeak alongside Donald and Daedalus.)

Donald explains more of why Robotspeak is cool on a CNET blog post:
Robotspeak: An electronic musician’s toy store

All of this gives me an idea. Austin has Switched On. Berlin has Schneidersladen. LA has Big City and Analog Haven. We need a tourist guide to the planet, don’t we?

So, we’d love to hear from you. What are your favorite music tech stores – places so special, you don’t just buy goods there, but actually would tell tourists to make a special trip in your town to visit them, places you’d hang out, places you know you’ll run into other musicians? Where are the seismic epicenters of music geekdom on Earth, whatever continent you may call home?

Fill out our survey and let us know [direct link]

Or answer below:

In a competitive show of virtuosity, artists at an event in San Francisco over the summer battled to show that live electronic and laptop performance can be physical. It’s dance music that makes the artist sweat, and not just the audience.

Hosted by the new Controllerism.com blog with San Francisco’s LoveTech and Slayer’s Club communities, the West Coast Championship Controller battle saw some fierce competition from some top names in live laptop music. The events itself was back on June 25, but this week, full video documentation has become available, so those of us who couldn’t be there can get a glimpse of what took place.

Event host Matt Moldover, himself a champion for the notion of “controllerism” in performance, shares with CDM his three favorite videos from the event, which we pass along here. That includes monome legend Daedelus (and the instrument’s creator, Brian Crabtree) with the hall of fame induction, Tim Thompson working with Kinect to amaze with the Space Palette, and Edison versus Rich DDT in the final. If that’s not enough for you, though, you can make your eyeballs fall out with the full set:

http://controllerism.com/battle/videos_2011.html
YouTube Playlist with all the vids

The winners, great artists, all:
Edison, champion
Rich DDT, 2nd place
Artful Codger (aka Tim Thompson), tied for 3rd with Sabotage (though Tim, a regular in these parts, deserves extra credit for a top-scoring final round and some serious audience love)

Other highlights: Ean Golden of djtechtools, another controllerism cheerleader, was on hand to perform and host, as was Future Mouse-Pet (Mochipet + Future Freddie + Joey Mousepad).

The event looks amazing, and there’s plenty of inspiration in the performances. I’m curious what readers think of “controllerism” as a moniker, and of doing battle-style events like this. (Both seem, to me, to advance the state of the art and help push performances, even if not all artists may work in a virtuosic way. But I’d love to hear what you think.)

And, as always, we’re keen to hear more about how you and artists you love play.

Congrats to Matt, Ean, Rich, and everybody who put together this event – and to the well-deserving winners!

controllerism.com/battle

Updated – here’s a “playshop” presentation starring Laura Escudé – “new music in the first part and the Wii + Kinect motion stuff happening in the later part.”

“Press play” … “button-mashing” … the very criticism of digital music is often directed at the button or switch, even as the cult hit monome spreads arrays of buttons like a virus.

Well, we’re still interested in what you can do with a button, so to fully focus you, we’re only giving you one button with which to play. The challenge of limiting interaction to one button has already spawned an explosion of entries from game designers, who have fought their way through intense competition for the legendary Gamma indie/experimental game competition. We’ll see the winners at the Game Developer Conference next week.

But we want to see what people can do with a single button and sound. Friday, March 12, sonic (and game-based, and other) objects involving a single button will converge at San Francisco’s Gray Area Foundation, in the midst of GDC.

The deadline is officially today, March 1, but as I follow up on entries, we’re extending that to Friday, March 5, by the end of the day NYC time. There are already some terrific-looking submissions, but we’re willing to entertain the possibility of more, at least for a few more days. (if you have something you want to share online but can’t ship, let us know that, too)

How to enter – simplified rules:

It doesn’t have to be a game. (But it could be.)

It does need to do something – make noise, make lights, move, or otherwise interact.

It needs to operate on its own. We have to be able to plug it in and have it function, without the addition of a computer, etc.

It needs to be shipped to California for March 10 arrival, to be ready for the opening Friday, March 12. It will then be shipped back to you.

Send submissions, as detailed as you can, to:
onebuttonobject@kokoromi.org

Party + Hack

Part of the beauty of the one-button limitation is that it encourages quick hardware hacks and simplified designs. It’s a design you can make even if you’re out of time. We’ll be having a party to finish off creations in NYC on Saturday afternoon, building last-minute creations for Handmade Music Monday night (details forthcoming) and the One Button Objects show in San Francisco. If you want to get your own little hackday going between now and then and join us online from your local hackerspace / studio (anywhere in the world), let us know in comments. Here are details for those of you near NYC – plus some music for everyone to listen to while you solder/code/build:

Handmade Game Objects Hackday + Party
SATURDAY OPEN HOURS @ 2PM – 6PM
L TRAIN – 915 WYCKOFF AVE ( SILENT BARN )

Map
Facebook

Babycastles teams up with Handmade Music Night for a hacking afternoon. Come make crazy new video game objects, art, and controllers with us! We’ll have a jungle of fun stuff like dentures and gloves (high five to play!), but you should bring some fun things too. No experience at all necessary! (Bring soldering irons, tools, etc. if you’ve got them.)

with music by CHEESE’N'BEER CHIP MUSIC COLLECTIVE MATINÉE

ADAMGETSAWESOME »>
http://myspace.com/adamgetsawesome
Adam uses a gameboy with LSDJ and a lot of alcohol! We assure you that his name is not just all talk, he does in fact “get awesome.”

Zen Albatross »>
http://8bitcollective.com/members/Zen+Albatross/
Zen Albatross make stuff with pixels, Game Boys and ancient spirit magick. He also blogs about art, airships, bleeps, bloops and other swell things.

Goatslacker »>
http://music.goatslacker.com/
Goatslacker is Florida’s Josh Perez who promises to fill you up with high octane chip music.

and curry by chef Syed Salahuddin

And yes, that music lineup includes Goatslacker, who did the MUSE covers in 8-bit. It’s the sort of high-energy music that goes well with trying to keep your brain on hardware hacking.

Seriously, if anyone wants to switch on a webcam or IRC chat while you work on your submission, let us know and we can co-hack internationally.

Last week, what was intended to be a day of posts wound up being several days of updates on events centered around music technology and DIY creation. Here’s a birds-eye view of what we covered, some of the events you can catch in person, and some of what these events reveal.

It’s worthwhile just putting these posts in one spot so you can easily mark your calendar – and you can see, even in this small slice, the amount and breadth of activity happening now.

At STEIM in Amsterdam, I’ll be talking about the state of DIY and open source technology for musicians and artists, and what that means for creative people — both the potential and some of the challenges. So I’d be curious to hear your thoughts before I begin waxing poetic. Readers here aren’t shy, so let us know your concerns in comments.

Now, here’s your guide and calendar to DIY. Tell us what we’ve missed. I’m hoping to devote a permanent spot on Noisepages to an events calendar; anyone with slick WordPress/BuddyPress-based solutions, give us a shout.

The best new inventions.

Don’t miss web-savvy hacks and creations from the music hackday, including an all-JavaScript clone of a popular Nintendo handheld music tool, online Web tools that make musician’s lives easier, and fantastic combinations of Android phones, web listening tools, online data, and physical objects. Meanwhile, if you want to start your own project but don’t know where to begin, Austin is a hotbed of new DIY kits.

February 17. Amsterdam, NL. (event)

Handmade Music kicks off in Amsterdam at the STEIM research center. The action starts at 8p. I’m making a stop there on my way to Stockholm, and hope to provide documentation next week for the rest of the world. Details.

February 19. Toronto, Canada. (event)

Handmade Music hits Toronto.

What they teach us: Why is it a “great time to make electronic music?” Toronto’s organizers point to the fact that makers are spoiler for choice of platform, with monome and Arduino on the hardware side, and ever-more-mature Max/MSP and Pure Data on the software side.

February 28. Austin, Texas USA. (event)

Austin shares all their latest musical inventions, plus resources for those wanting to work on making noises with the Arduino.

What they teach us: beginners can get in on these events, with the aid of newbie-friendly workshops and easygoing, noise-making parties. Oh yeah, and the advanced folks can create terrific, usable music hardware.

March 8. Brooklyn, NY USA.

Handmade Music starts a new series at Galapagos Art Space, between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. Details.

February 14, April 3, May 28. Porto, Portugal + worldwide. (call for works)

Digitopia seeks the best Max+Pd patches, dream ideas for musical inventions, and miniature music. I’ll be there in June 2010.

What they teach us: the twist here is making an open source hardware controller the prize, and sharing the how-to with the world. Plus, all the competition entries are required to be open source, meaning the competition itself generates tools for the community.

March 1 deadline; March 12 event. San Francisco + Worldwide.

One-button Game Objects challenges designers to make self-contained sonic and visual interactive art — all using just one button. If you can ship it to San Francisco, we can show it. And in March, we’ll be looking at other ways that just one button can make a musical interface. Call for works info.

What can you do with a button? What circuits can you bend? What software and hardware can you construct? Want to meet up with myself and fellow makers from the DIY music and visualist communities? I’m touring and looking for new works, we have one call for one-button objects that (if you can ship it) can come from anywhere in the world, plus upcoming events in New York, San Francisco, and — this month, Amsterdam at the planetary music tech hub that is STEIM.

STEIM + Handmade Music Amsterdam (Netherlands, February)

Handmade Music is beginning in Amsterdam. To kick things off, I’ll be visiting the legendary STEIM research center. The event will be open to anyone with inventions and self-built hardware and software you’d like to share. We’ll plug in and make a raucous noise. I’m really quite looking forward to meeting folks from this area.

When: Wednesday, February 17, 8p – ?
Where: Utrechtsedwarsstraat 134, Amsterdam
Cost: FREE
STEIM Hotspot Lab Event Page

I’ll also do a short presentation of some work TBD; more on this next week.

If you’re attending and want to share what you’re bringing in advance or make sure you see me, use the CDM contact form.

One-Button Objects Call (SF + World, March)

What can you do with one button? In an age of ever-more-complex touch interfaces, we’d like to imagine what a single, tangible, hardware button can mean for a design. To celebrate the arrival of their Gamma game event in San Francisco, art game collective Kokoromi is teaming up with Create Digital Music and Create Digital Motion to launch a call for ONE-BUTTON OBJECTS.

So, sorry monome — too many buttons (unless you want to make a one-button monome, that is). The one-button game objects will incorporate a single-button-centered design and inspiration from the world of gaming into unique creations. Read up more on our sister site:

Call for Works: One-Button Game Objects
Then send your submissions for the gallery show in San Francisco to onebuttonobject@kokoromi.org
(see also Kokoromi
Receipt deadline: March 1

If you’re in the NYC or San Francisco, we’re looking to do some informal hackdays to play with buttons, HID interfaces, Arduino and microcontroller platforms, and the like — we just need a hackerspace to host us. And if you’d like to do that elsewhere in the world, let us know and we’ll promote it.

And of course, be sure to attend Friday, March 12 at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts if you’re in the Bay Area or attending the Game Developer Conference.

Handmade Music Brooklyn Returns; Your Inventions, Live Artists Wanted (NYC, March)

Handmade Music in its hometown of New York is being rebooted. We’re launching new workshops, new hacking, and a new quarterly performance series at a proper performance venue, Galapagos.

That means we need you.

For the quarterly party, we’re continuing to look for people to bring in your own creations. If it runs on a netbook, if you have headphones you can bring, if it’s made out of wood and you can play it, if you can plug into a portable amp and make some noise, if it’s a circuit-bent toy with built-in speakers, it’s a welcome guest.

But we’re also looking for live artists in the greater New York area who incorporate DIY instruments, hardware, software (and even wearable interactive costumes, if you’ve got them) into your act. We’d like to hear who’s out there. We can’t invite everyone to play, but that’s all the more reason to hear about what people are doing.

If you have a project or act to consider, send them here:
Official 2010 Handmade Music NYC Call for Works

The first event is Monday, March 8. Doors open 7p, live acts start 8p.

dubSpot, the West Coast + East Coast music technology training center is doing an eight-city tour of the US to talk about Ableton Live 8 and the Akai APC40 controller. They’re enlisting some of my favorite people to do the workshops. I like the curriculum: it’s not just “here’s how to use Live,” but a real focus on music production, finishing actual music, and pushing the envelope with live visuals, onstage performance and controllers. We also have a $25 discount exclusively for CDM readers if you want to attend.

I want to thank dubSpot for helping sponsor CDM this month – their support makes possible our own free tutorial content and artist coverage slated for later in May.

The tour kicks off this week in San Francisco, but will travel to other US cities soon (dates to be announced; stay tuned).

The artists doing the instruction are some folks whose work I particularly enjoy:

• Jon Margulies, author of Ableton Live 7 Power among other things, and the person doing the Live 8 curriculum here in NY. And like me, Jon is a secret Medievalist (he’s played early music at Spoleto).
• Moldover, “Moldy” to his friends, co-founded the Warper series in NYC and the new LoveTech party in SF, and has become notorious for hacking Novation keyboards and espousing controllerism.
• Christopher Willits is an utterly brilliant guitarist capable of morphing the instrument into all kinds of sounds, for those of you who don’t know his work. And he’s been doing a lovely series of tutorials for our friends at XLR8R TV.

… plus a powerful roster of artists: Funkaid for Africa, Dub Mission, Jason Short, Dub Gabriel, and Barry Cole.

The workshop is $125 for one day or $225 for both. If you are lucky enough to hail from sunny San Francisco, dubSpot is also offering a $25 CDM discount if you head to their site via this link:

http://www.dubspot.com/pages/abletontour.jsp?aff_ref=CDM

But we’ll have more for the rest of the world, too – I’m playing with the Warper crew on the sidewalk in front of dubSpot NY in June, and we’re working on a way of doing a live stream to the CDM planet from there. Stay tuned.

At long last, the Yamaha Tenori-On, the unusual sampling/sequencing instrument bestrewn in light-up buttons, is getting its worldwide release.

And it’s going to be an amazing party.

Launch cities:

• Frankfurt and Berlin, Germany
• Paris, France
• Montreal, Quebec
• New York, NY
• San Francisco, CA
• (most appropriately) Tokyo, Japan

The tour kicks of in Frankfurt first on March 12, then hits the other towns April 8 – 25, finishing where the Tenori-On was born: Tokyo.

Launch artists:

• Toshio Iwai, the man from whose brain the Tenori-On sprang
• Jim O’Rourke, composer/improvisor/producer extraordinaire (perhaps best known for his association with Sonic Youth)
• Atom Heart, aka Senor Coconut aka Atom Heart aka various other things
• Pole, the DJ and electronic artist great
• To Rococo Rot, German post-rocker trio
• Robert Lippok, who counts “set designer” among his credits and co-founded To Rococo Rot
• Sutekh, who spans electronica to noise collage, and mate Safety Scissors, the San Fran contingent
• Andi Toma of Mouse on Mars fame
• The Books, representing New York and generally All Things Awesome — I need to put them on continuous loop on Winamp just so they wind up on the top of my Last.fm profile, where they belong
• I am Robot and Proud, Toronto electronic soloist, toured with Mum and Caribou, and an all-around great computer man
• Nathan Michel, experimental electronicist and DAT politics collaborator. Oh, and Nathan just got his PhD in music composition from Princeton last year, meaning he’s yet another person who finished his PhD before I did. Dr. Michel, congrats.

TENORI-ON Global Launch Event

I’ll be covering NYC, of course, with an awesome lineup (Toshio Iwai / Robert Lippok / Pole / Sutekh / I am Robot and Proud / Nathan Michel / Safety Scissors). But I’d love to pick up some of these other cities and do global team coverage. If you’re interested, drop a line.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Do I know when you’ll actually be able to buy it?

No.

Do I know where?

No.

Do I know how much it will cost?

No. I’m hoping less than the initial UK launch when it goes global, as that was the hope. In the UK, it costs GBP599, which, when you translate to the ridiculously weak dollar is, um, a lot.

Is this better or worse than the Monome?

They’re different. Stop trying to compare them. Get both.

If you’re going to San Francisco (or, like, live there), come hang with some fellow laptop and electronic musicians at a special Macworld edition of the Backlit Lounge electronica party, which has been featured regularly on the CDMusic forums. I’ll be playing a featured set myself, and it looks like a great lineup. It’s the most logical place for CDMusic readers to meet up during Macworld week — especially since it’s free to all, even without an expo pass. Maybe I’ll bring a flag.

If you plan on coming, say hi in comments or email me directly. (I may just check out early, since I have to lead a day-long presentation Friday!)

And if you want to play yourself, I think the organizers are still accepting more players; head to the Myspace page below.

Macworld goers, this is very close to the Moscone Center.

Backlit Lounge SF
San Francisco’s Laptop/Electronica Lounge
January 10, 6 pm to 2 am
Rx Gallery
132 Eddy Street, San Francisco [Map]

Information, friend adds, photos, video, and those interested in performing:
backlitloungesf @ Myspace

Video series on the event, so you can relive Backlit Lounges vicariously (pour yourself a beer or two):
Backlit Lounge @ revver

See also the visual salon with workshops and VJ jam on Thursday night.