You’re not, in fact, a lonely bedroom musician with no friends. You’ve got friends. You’ve got collaborators. You’ve got audio and visual artists who want to play with your laptop with sync piped between you, and yet wireless synchronization for laptop performance has often been an elusive ideal. Here, in spectacular fashion, you can see it all come together over WiFi with Ableton Live, a projection-mapped coffeemaker, and everything from percolation sounds to the keypad sound effect from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

This just in from Barcelona – a new Max for Live plug-in is making laptops and coffee pots jam in harmony. A proper review is in order from CDM. (Well, once we find a few friends… by astounding coincidence, I’ll be surrounded by Ableton users – visual and audio – next week in Rome. I’ll make it happen.) But that’s no reason to deny you the pleasure of the video now. It’s the best part of waking up.

More: http://www.ooeevv.com/

Dig into humanity’s past, and alongside the earliest tools, you’ll find some of the earliest instruments. Designing objects for expression seems to be an essential part of civilization.

Martin Kaltenbrunner, a co-designer of the Reactable tangible music interface, is also a professor in Interface Culture at the Linz University of Arts in Austria. There, in the land of Mozart and Haydn, he works with students to explore what interface design is.

So, when I got to spend some time with Martin in New York in September, I was interested in more than just the flashy coolness of the Reactable, the futuristic table-with-blocks interface for music. We got a chance to talk about instrument design generally. The funny thing about the Reactable is that it is closer to the experience of working with a modular synthesizer and oscilloscope than anything else, with the sense of physical connections of sound to object you’d get from classic synths. It is something unique, truly, but that’s its pedigree.

Martin and I got to give a talk together at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, a terrific hub in which Austrian artists frequently are paired with New York-based folks, all in a lean, tall modern landmark building in Midtown. We also performed together, which for me was a real pleasure; Martin claims not to be a musician as such, but was good fun as an improvisation partner.

The next day, we headed to Manhattan music education center Dubspot, where Martin’s creation quickly attracted crowds of interested students and educators. Dubspot filmed our encounter for the video at top. Amusingly, the prominent synth sounds you hear at the beginning are not the Reactable, but our own MeeBlip open source synth, which I brought along to illustrate conventional tangible instrument design with switches and knobs. (If you’ve been impatiently waiting for news on the MeeBlip, believe me, I’m even more impatient – more announcements on that this week and next, following a production quality issue with a contractor that required us to reboot the run of new instruments.)

Reactable Live @ Dubspot! Interactive Sound Design Workshop Video Recap [Dubspot Blog]

YouTube commenters, that subtle and thoughtful bunch, are complaining that the tangible Reactable will set you back thousands of Euros. But at ACF and Dubspot, I was also equipped with the far more economical and portable alternative: Reactable Mobile runs on both Android and iOS. (I was pleasantly surprised to discover the app runs perfectly on a Galaxy Tab 10.1 from Samsung; I’m still a long, long way from being able to recommend buying an Android tablet, but if you’ve got one, I can certainly recommend this app.) Now, don’t get me wrong: the experience was nowhere near as fun as using the table. On the other hand, you can’t fit the table into a seat-back pocket on easyJet, and the savings in cash is proportional to the sacrifice in experience. What impresses me is that the design of the physical Reactable “flattens” so nicely onto the screen; I think it’s a user experience triumph that you can make that translation. And I was able to load up a few loops of my own music and jam along with the MeeBlip and Martin on the (real) Reactable.

Looking beyond the Reactable, Martin addressed these larger issues of tangible interface design at TEDx Vienna – a fitting locale for talking the history and future of music. His whole presentation, and a sweeping concept map of what he discussed, is available.

Martin Kaltenbrunner: Tangible Music

If you just want to get your Reactable on and can’t afford the table, see Reactable Mobile below. (Seen here on an iPad 2, but I’ve run successfully on the original iPad and the Galaxy Tab – the experience is more or less identical, thanks to portable code.)

And if you can afford the table, you rockstar, uh, can we be your friend?

http://www.reactable.com/products/mobile/
[the awesome table version]
Martin Kaltenbrunner website [with plenty of academic links]

Number stations, making their appearance in the post-war radio landscape, were shortwave radio stations of streams of symbols, mysterious to their listeners and apparently code. Here, the idea of lost and indecipherable broadcasts inspires a wonderfully-varied collection of reflective artists, in a free, Creative-Commons licensed compilation by PublicSpaces Lab. That Barcelona-based netlabel has been reliably curating some of the smartest, most forward-thinking music collections around. This time, the artists are impressive not only in their output but in their range of backgrounds and extra-musical sources of inspiration.

[PS025] Various Artists – Number Stations part II by PublicSpacesLab

The set, curated by Made by Robot (whose own, mechanical track lives up to the artist’s name), begins with an amiable and catchy vocal tune but then covers a wide gamut of constructed frequencies. Kieron James’ Preska Zero Zero helps the compilation hits its stride with grooving repetition of numbers. ambienteer and (monome creator) Tehn sit comfortably back to back with cool-but-cosy layers of samples, stretched and pitched like tents. % and ro have gently-swinging, sparse takes on the theme. Marcus Fischer, Dionysiac, Weather Balloons, and Swaying Smoke really sound like strange, intercepted transmissions. Grooveshysta’s cinematic montage of scenes and beats sets up the otherworldwly conclusion. Concrete Sound System (Primus Luta, appearing Saturday at our own Handmade Music) launches the whole list into outer space with a dense, alien-sounding raucous wall of sound.

So many compilations release artists but tell you nothing about them; here, PSL has produced a thoughtful PDF insert that reveals a lot about the artists and their approaches to production. It’s not so much a matter of recording on tool XX as it is beginning to understand what happened that made the sounds you hear happen. For me, at least, it gave me a different appreciation of what I got from my ears, like adding an additional dimension.

We definitely need a new genre name, as I don’t hear leftfield often, ambient doesn’t really describe everything here, and IDM is … well, just sort of over. Smart electronica? Or just … music? I’m open to suggestions.

Head to the blog post to download the compilation as an MP3 or FLAC. (See tips on how to listen to lossless FLAC from earlier today) The files are hosted by The Internet Archive thanks to their free license.

[PS025] VA – Number Stations part II

And check out part 1 of this series, featuring many of the same artists – and some other surprises.

[PS015] VA – Number Stations by PublicSpacesLab

[PS015] VA – Number Stations

(Note the low number of PSL releases – they are thoughtful about what they put out, rather than dumping too much stuff.)

The monome is coming to your town. Unlike tours organized by commercial product vendors, a grassroots effort by monome users pledges to share the music made with the monome and give back to a larger community.

It’s hard to explain the monome. It’s part tool, part lifestyle. And its openness comes in large part from the community of artists who use it, and embrace the controller’s sustainable production and unique design. In fact, it’s hard to explain just what a monome is: this USB-connected grid of light-up buttons is, by design, a blank canvas. It’s what the community has brought to that canvas that has made the monome a surprise revolution. That passion sometimes even makes it an object of ridicule – but let the monome artists show your their chops and love, and all but the coldest hearts melt.

Organizer Frank Rose shares some thoughts on the monome tour.

And since it is as much about the users and their music, we’ve got some music for you to hear. (If you’re using Chrome/Chromium, you can easily queue up all these tracks using the wonderful ExtensionFM – anyone have something similar on Firefox?)

The tour kicks off in Boston, but eventually leaves American shores for Canada, Austria, and Spain – and more dates around the world are in the works. (Got a lead on a venue in your town? Give a shout.)

09.03.2010 – Boston, MA
09.04.2010 – NYC, NY
09.06.2010 – Daytona, FL
09.07.2010 – Houston, TX
09.11.2010 – Boulder, CO
09.12.2010 – Denver, CO
09.13.2010 – Sante Fe, NM
09.15.2010 – San Diego, CA
09.16.2010 – Fullerton, CA
09.17.2010 – Los Angeles, CA
09.18.2010 – Santa Cruz, CA
09.19.2010 – San Francisco, CA
09.21.2010 – Portland, OR
09.22.2010 – Seattle, WA
09.24.2010 – Toronto, ON
10.01.2010 – Edmonton, AB
10.16.2010 – Linz, Austria
11.05.2010 – Barcelona, Spain

Each city has a different lineup (which to me is part of the appeal), and dates are changing, so keep your eyes on their site for the latest:

http://monometour.com/

There are workshop/build days in Boulder and Santa Fe, as well.

The tour also will be accompanied by a compilation 2-disc, 33-track, international music release, all made with monome and initially available only at the tour stops – so go hear some live music.

Frank Rose shares more details with CDM:

We created a compilation that will be available exclusively at tour dates and if there’s any left over, I’ll sell them on the website. Proceeds will go to the performing artists. Any profit afterwards, in the community spirit, will be given away to some deserving charity. 33 songs on 2 discs, featuring only monome community members including Daedelus and Edison.

Schpligidy (Tanner Christiansen) brought up the idea of putting together a tour in April. Tanner got busy, and I took up the role of energizer and got the ball rolling. People signed up to play, others volunteered to organize events in their town. I don’t have alot of experience booking shows so I went forward, as I do with most things, just winging it. It’s worked out fairly well, with some bumps.

The goal is really just to tour and have fun. I think the result, for me anyways, is that I’ll actually meet some of these folks I’ve only talked to online. Of course, we all want to share our own personal creations with a greater audience. The monome is just a thread that all of us have in common. It’s used more as a vehicle for the tour rather than a mechanism for proselytizing.

I’ll get to catch up with the NYC lineup: Portable Sunsets, Makingthenoise, NO SIR E, The Alpha Nerd, Watson, %, Galapagoose, Cigarette Operahouse.

Hear the music…

Note that TheAlphaNerd’s music is all available free, via a Creative Commons license.

Jittery Fingers by TheAlphaNerd

Watson – Fields at Home by watson

MicrowavedBulletsDon’tKillAliens PeopleDo by _raja_

Go to sleep slowly (short mix) by noiseflowr

Noiseflowr also has a remix of the lovely Caribou Sun track:
Caribou – Sun (noiseflowr organistic mix) by noiseflowr

More tracks, for listening exclusively on SoundCloud:
http://soundcloud.com/pauk/electric-jazzmine

http://soundcloud.com/cigarette-operahouse/double-queen

And for access to everything in the monome community:
http://monome.org/

My own President Obama is this week off making his pitch for why Chicago should host the Olympic Games. Correction. Oops. I need to read the news. Chicago was eliminated first. But look out – our friends at Antipop (slogan: “antipop music for a pop music”) are using a different tool in their arsenal: music.

Watch the video for some fun gear spotting, plus one vintage arcade cabinet. I could point out stuff I see, but that’d spoil the fun. Shout out in comments.

There’s definitely a commercial gloss on this, but it’s nicely executed, and felt so absurdly Olympic to me that I actually couldn’t help but smile listening. (In fairness, either Chicago or Madrid ought to be able to do better than New York did with 2012; I recall dignitaries in traffic while rowers paced the polluter waters of Flushing Meadows. Yipes.)

Here you go, probably the most commercial music we’ll ever run on CDM:

Makes me want to, like, train or something.

Updated: From comments, I like these alternative suggestions by safd in place of “anti” pop:

superpop, poppypop, hippop, popcore, purelypop, universapop

Popcore is something I need to work on. It was worth posting this for that word alone.

Background: “Antipop is the Antonio Escobar music production personal studio, one of the most awarded Spanish producer and composer.” [sic]

Update: Superpop or antipop, the song alone couldn’t melt the hearts of the Olympic Committee. Congrats to – Rio!

What does it mean to truly democratize technology? When is DIY more than just the creation of an object? That’s the question asked by our friend Julià Carboneras, who curated the new Nerdeferences feature of the OFFF digital design conference in Portugal last week. DIY is more than just cool devices, argues Julià: it’s social hacking, too. He brought together myself, Instructables.com founder Eric Wilhelm, and musical inventor and artist Gijs Gieskes (who stole the show, showing some creations live onstage). But there was a bigger picture, too, that I wanted to share.

Julià wrote, in Catalan and English, an introduction to the idea for the conference catalog that I thought was really compelling. OFFF has allowed this text from their catalog to be reprinted here, and Julià has given us a Spanish translation, as well. (Spanish first, English second.)

I’m actually pleased that on CDM we have the chance to talk about radical DIY and open source ideas alongside more traditional commercial projects. In that way, you see design in a larger context. You can see the tools that allow people to be creative alongside one another. And my sense is that people do find ways to build business models and economic independence around notions of open source and DIY, which is vital in the capital-driven world in which we live. What draws together people, whether using commercial tools or building their own, is some desire for real independence instead of dependence, for expression and not just consumption.

I’ll let Julià take it away, though, because the issues he raises goes well beyond the insertion of some of these ideas (and some very nice, loud sounds) into a design conference. I know many of you working in communities and events elsewhere are thinking along similar lines.

(Photos here from the event itself; we expect to have additional video, too, soon. Let me know if you were there in Lisbon!)

NERDFERENCES [ESPAÑOL]

Desde sus inicios la llamada “democratización” de la tecnología ha estado limitada por demasiados factores para poder considerarla genuinamente democrática. A pesar de que realmente la caída de precios ha permitido un acceso más amplio a sofisticados dispositivos digitales, también ha determinado la manera de utilizarlos impuesta por sus fabricantes. Hoy en día, miles de usuarios están rompiendo estas limitaciones a través de la ética del DIY (háztelo tu mismo).

Desde que Reed Ghazala acuñó el término “circuit bending” en los años sesenta para referirse a la modificación de la circuitería de aparatos electrónicos para generar sonido, la influencia del movimiento DIY en la creación contemporánea ha sido obvia, y algunas de sus invenciones y descubrimientos se han convertido en recursos básicos en el arte digital actual, como el software Processing o las superficies de control Monome. Pero no podemos pensar en el circuit bending y en el software de código abierto como meras técnicas o dispositivos. La naturaleza de su propia existencia está fuertemente vinculada a ideologías que se asocian a movimientos sociales y políticos alternativos. Frecuentemente relacionado con el punk y los movimientos anticapitalistas, el DIY es, ante todo, una postura en contra de la producción en masa y las políticas de comercio multinacional. Pero lejos de usar técnicas de confrontación abiertas y directas, su beligerancia se expresa principalmente a través de estrategias de “copia y mejora”: algunos de los dispositivos más famosos que han nacido del DIY tienen sus orígenes en la reformulación o modificación de tecnologías ampliamente conocidas vendidas por multinacionales. En realidad, cuanto más popular es el producto, más atractivo es piratearlo.

A Gijs creation. Photo courtesy OFFF Festival.

Nerdference es un nuevo panel enfocado al DIY digital que se presenta en el festival OFFF: un movimiento social, ideológico y tecnológico bajo el cual pueden encontrarse múltiples formas conceptuales a través de disciplinas como el circuit bending, el software y hardware hacking, el desarrollo en código abierto, superficies de control de fabricación casera, entre otras muchas. Nerdference es una oportunidad única de dar una visibilidad física y una exposición offline a un fenómeno que vive mayoritariamente en internet. La red ha permitido desde el desarrollo de proyectos colaborativos tan grandes y conocidos como Linux a poder compartir con el resto del mundo dispositivos caseros realizados individualmente como hobby. Una red internacional de tecnologías de dormitorio que ha contribuido substancialmente en la evolución de las herramientas digitales usadas ampliamente en la creación con nuevos medios actual.

Nerdference es un amplificador para una generación de artistas con voz propia. Una generación nacida con un portátil bajo el brazo; adolescentes que han aprendido a programar de forma autodidacta y se han convertido en hackers famosos; músicos que elaboran todo un proceso de producción, con suficiente imaginación y conocimientos técnicos como para crear desde sus propios instrumentos hasta sus redes de distribución musical; artistas que desarrollan su propio software y lo distribuyen libremente…

La primera edición de Nerdference en el OFFF Oeiras 09 tiene el honor de presentar a Eric Wilhem, Peter Kirn y Gijs Gieskes.

Eric Wilhem es el fundador de instructables.com, un web de referencia mundial donde todo aquel que quiera puede mostrar sus dispositivos caseros hechos por ellos mismos. Instructables.com es, tal como Wilhem declara, “el web de Muestra y Explica más grande del mundo”, y se ha convertido en la Biblia del DIY. En él se puede encontrar lo más inimaginable: desde como se diseñó y programó la propia web, a como customizar instrumentos musicales o como fabricarse uno mismo el detergente para lavar la ropa. Esta será una oportunidad única para disfrutar del amplio conocimiento de Eric sobre DIY.

Peter Kirn es el nombre que está detrás de createdigitalmusic.com, createdigitalmotion.com y
createdigitalmedia.com. Estos blogs son puntos de encuentro esenciales para artistas, programadores y VJs, y son una guía para conocer las últimas novedades tecnológicas y de DIY. Y por último, pero no menos importante, el artista holandés Gijs Gieskes nos mostrará como lleva el circuit bending al extremo en Nerdference. Aprenderemos como concibe, diseña y construye sus extraordinarios artefactos y software de modificación de navegadores web.

Julià Carboneras

NERDFERENCES [ENGLISH]

Since day one, the so-called “democratization” of technology has been constrained by too many determining factors as to be considered genuinely democratic. Although it’s true that the prices drop has improved a wider access to sophisticated digital devices, it also has determined the way of using them through the limitations set by their manufacturers. Today, thousands of users are breaking these limitations through the DIY (Do It Yourself) ethos.

Since Reed Ghazala coined the term “circuit bending” in the sixties to name the modification of electronic devices internal circuits to generate sound, the influence of the DIY movement in contemporary creation has been obvious, and some of its inventions and discoveries have become basic resources in today’s digital art, like the Processing software and the Monome control surface. But we can’t think of circuit bending or open source software as mere techniques or devices. Their most intimate nature, their existence itself, is strongly connected to an ideology that deals with alternative social and political issues. Often related to punk attitude and anti-capitalist movements, the DIY is, first of all, a stand against mass-production and mainstream trade politics. But far from openly confrontational techniques, its belligerence is mostly expressed through copy-and-improve strategies: some of the most famous devices born in the DIY scene have their origins on the re-formulation or modification of already existing and well-known technologies manufactured and sold by multinationals. Actually, the most popular the product, the most attractive the hacking.

Nerdference is a new panel at OFFF focused on the digital DIY: a social, ideological and technological movement whose multiple formal and conceptual traces can be found on disciplines like circuit bending, software and hardware hacking, open source development and homemade control surfaces, among many others. Nerdference is a unique opportunity to bring physical visibility and offline exposition to a phenomenon mostly living on the Internet. The net has been a determinant platform for the development of so big and well-known community projects as Linux or the worldwide sharing of self-made devices made out by individuals all over the planet. An international bedroom technologies network that has become a substantial issue in the evolution of digital tools massively used in today’s new media creation. Nerdference is an amplifier for a generation of artists with an already own voice. A generation born with a laptop in its hands; teenagers who learned how to program by their own and have become famous hackers; self-taught music producers with enough imagination and technical skills to build up their instruments and create their particular distribution networks; artists that develop original software and give it out to like-minded others.

Nerdference’s first edition at OFFF Oeiras ‘09 proudly features Eric Wilhem, Peter Kirn and Gijs Gieskes.

Documenting process via Instructables. Photo (CC) Anna Fuster / Tartanna.

Erik Wilhelm is the founder of instructables.com, a world reference site where anyone can show his / her self-made devices and applications. instructables.com is, as Wilhelm himself declares, “the world’s biggest show and tell website”, and it has become the bible for the DIY believers. It covers almost every imaginable topic: from designing and programming the site’s pages themselves to customizing musical instruments and creating your own washing powder. This will be a unique opportunity to enjoy Erik’s broad knowledge of the DIY industries.

Peter Kirn is the man behind createdigitalmusic.com, createdigitalmedia.com and createdigitalmotion.com. These blogs are essential meeting points for artists, programmers and Vj’s, and extremely useful guides to check today’s DIY state of the art.

Last but not least, Dutch artist Gijs Gieskes will show his extreme take on circuit bending at Nerdference. We’ll be able to learn how he conceives, designs and constructs his amazing artifacts and web browsers modification software.

Julià Carboneras

More resources:

Instructables.com

Trackmate Tangible Controller: A terrific example of documenting a tangible music interface project via Instructables (which in turn this group linked back to their Sourceforge page, a case of using the right tool for the right job)

Gijs Gieskes

Links from my presentation:

Adobe Rants Produces Unexpected Glitch Art
(proof that having tools that don’t always work perfectly, or that can be pushed past the point at which they function properly, can make them more powerful)

TUIO + reacTIVision: a protocol and open source vision library for touch, tangible interfaces

opensoundcontrol.org: a means of making devices and software more intelligent, more expressive, and more connected in a way that benefits artists and musicians

Save that Old PDA: Run Reware, Play Pd Musical Creations, Android (OFFF, NYC) – a way to harnass open source software to make supposedly “disposable” devices powerful again

handmademusic.noisepages.com: an opportunity to work on this stuff with other people, live, in person – and a call to extend this around the world, beyond Brooklyn, has already resulted in a number of cities in the US, plus London, Berlin, and Porto, Portugal

http://paia.com a source of DIY kits, including solder-free, business-card-sized kits that can be used to teach kids about electronics and sound early

Finally, here’s my presentation via SlideShare, complete with (some) of the embedded videos: