There’s a simple problem: sound is invisible, and sound synthesis concepts don’t have any physical reality. Knobs, faders, patch cords, keyboards, infrared sensors, touchpads, and the like all work quite nicely for synthesizing sounds. But take a closer look at Bjork’s use of the reacTable, an interactive multimedia interface that uses a camera to track the movements of blocks on a surface. They really are using it to make sounds, those sounds really are visualized in a nice new way (watch the waveforms connecting the blocks), and while the result is some swoopy synthy sounds, the interface does make making them a lot of fun.

It helps that Bjork pulls out some of her synthiest, electronicilicious-est tracks, like Pluto:

and Hyperballad:

And, of course, part of what happens is that the computer screen here has become the interface. When it works — when the visuals match the sounds, and suggest some new ways of constructing music — it really does show potential for this kind of instrument. (Even if you don’t buy into the blocks, the way the visualization itself works has a lot of promise.)

That’s the idea behind Microsoft’s Surface, too … but sometimes the gimmick can be a solution in search of a problem. Well, actually, maybe your computer of the future really will be “a big-ass table.” (Thanks, SarcasticGamer.com, for making me laugh so heartily.)

Via Music thing (be sure to read the comments, in which they sort out what it actually is), here’s another multi-touch music table built on freely-available tools:

MultiTouch Console

Quite a lot of tools have been connected to make this happen, but they’re all out there so you could do something similar. Let’s see if I can get this right: the software is a collaboration of two projects that resulted in the multi-touch loopArena MTC, for making music interactively. loopArena itself was built in the free, Java-based Processing, originally with MIDI support via the ProMIDI library but now evidently using OpenSoundControl. The graphics library libAVG (”picking up where Director left off”) does the tracking, though there’s also a link to the free multi-touch library Touchlib.

And, long story short, here’s what you get:

YouTube readers sum it up best: “air hockey is cool again” … “this is the real future voodoo.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

More fun than organizing your digital photos in a hotel lobby, huh?

It’s interesting to me, though, that after all this work, you don’t necessarily get a different kind of music — just a different way of making it. And there seem to be two major directions in interface. On one end of the spectrum, there are glitzy, complex interfaces with sophisticated hardware. On the other end, we have increasing interest in minimalism, like the grid of buttons on the Monome, retro-styled software interfaces in trackers on computers and game systems, and, at some point, just a desire to take that KAOSS Pad and MacBook and MIDI keyboard and just practice making music rather than worrying about interface. I actually thing these seemingly divergent threads may all lead back to the same places in the end, and don’t know that they’re even incompatible — but, “ooh, aah” factor aside, it’s fun to watch them spinning themselves out.

If this makes one thing abundantly clear, though, it’s that even though Microsoft has an easier time getting on the Today Show, they by no means have a monopoly on experimenting with these kinds of interfaces.

Got more resources for building your own tools? Diagrams, software libraries, code, blogs about how yours didn’t quite work, blog about how awesome yours is? Let us know!

The good news: Microsoft is taking multi-touch, camera tracking, and gestural technologies seriously, and they have what looks like a very nice implementation that will be one of the first commercial implementations. The bad news: it’ll cost US$10,000 out of the gate. That high price will mean you’ll see at places like T-Mobile stores and Sheraton hotel lobbies first. But what you need to know: you can build your own version, thanks to available open source tools, with is likely to be more useful for music.

Good sources of commentary:
New Media Initiatives Blog at Walker Arts Center, which notes this could be museum-friendly tech.

Chris O’Shea @ Pixelsumo, who has built a device something like this himself.

The video does show what’s cool about Surface — and it’s easy to imagine these same techniques being applied to live visual and music performance. (People have already tried experiments in that, and I think there’s a lot more to be done — once you’re talking music rather than just digital snapshots, you get into deeper questions about how to model the interface.)

But let’s get a few things out of the way:
1. Enough about Minority Report, already!

So you’ve been reading ths site long enough to see lots of interactive tables — alternative musical interfaces that involve moving blocks around a surface. But what practical use would this ever have, you say?

Clearly, outfitting the workplace of the future — or at least so says Lexus to its designers, which is equipping them with interactive desks. The Ecco Design Personal Pond desk (Trendir story) creates soothing music and lighting effects while you move around your hands or two stones on the table. And this helps us be more productive — how, exactly? Nonetheless, it’s nice to see the mainstream taking note of interactive musical table tech — keep your resumes handy, interactive designers.

(See CDM’s musical table roundup, or check out the pixelsumo blog for more tables.)

Here’s even more open source code for creating new sound interfaces using free-moving blocks for control. We looked at Sonicforms, which is both intended as a project and a repository for information. Chris’ project uses a projector aimed at a tabletop for additional feedback, and IR lights for sensing. That adds cost to the system and makes it less portable (though it does provide a cooler visual interface.)

The d-touch project, in contrast, uses tags on the blocks that are recognized by a simple webcam (fiducial recognition). Advantage: no projector, no fancy interface, ultra-portable, ultra-cheap. Sure, you lose out on the tricky visuals (and, importantly, visual feedback) — but you get the even more mysterious effect of moving around ordinary blocks with strange hieroglyphics on them.

d-touch features cross-platform C++ code (compiled on Mac OS X, but tested on Linux and Windows, too); the code is open source and regularly updated. Give us a buzz if you do something with it, because I can’t program my way out of a paper ba– uh, tangible interface.

There's been an explosion of so-called "tangible interfaces"
for music: the basic scenario is, there's a table, possibly with
projections, and little blocks or objects or projected thingies you can
play around with and move to produce sound.

(Tangible = something physical you can move or touch, as opposed to an
interface that's intangible, like the filter routing in Apple Logic's Ultrabeat, which was designed by aliens who would rather use mental telepathy for control.)

Lately, there have been nearly weekly introductions of slight
variations on this theme, so many that if you've been reading
interactive tech blog near near future, you can't tell your audiopad from your reacTable from your audiocube from your audiocubes. (Yes, those last two are different.) Even Yamaha and Fisher-Price have gotten in on the action.

Martin Kaltenbrunner has heard your cries of anguish and created a huge list of tangible interfaces / music tables,
complete with links to creators, project sites, and publications.
(Don't tell your thesis advisor, interactive technology MFA candidates
– just say you did this research during hundreds of hours at the
library.) Some links are out of date, but it's still quite useful. (via networked_performance)

Oh yeah, make that tables and one sonic banana
– is Martin hedging his bets in case this ridiculous cube phase comes
to an end and people realize that what they really want to make music
is segments of rubber hose? (Me, I think musical stress balls are the real instrument of the future.)

Still not satisfied? Head to Vancouver for an international conference dedicated to new musical interfaces, take pictures, and let us know what you see!