Continuing our insight into this view into electronic music performance and art through the lens of BodyControlled in Berlin, we’re joined by guest writer Kristin Trethewey. Kristin, a Canadian-born video artist and curator, takes another look at LEAP and BodyControlled, on the eve of its second installment. She gets straight at the question of what “BodyControlled” means, and what it can mean for sonic performance and creation. And I wanted to make sure to subtract myself from this write-up, seeing as I was playing – but see the excellent timelapse of the evening, above. -Ed.

LEAP is one of these spectacular Berlin venues you’ve been hearing so much about. It’s a huge, raw space with a view of Berlin’s landmark TV tower, hosting interesting art events with cheap drinks and the potential for a late-night party. But it’s unique, too, in its focus on electronic arts. And unlike other media arts centers, it’s not filled with computers and half-finished electronic projects. I’ve truly gotten lost trying to find this place (it’s tucked away in a mall), so I would recommend watching the timelapse video LEAP shot that guides you to the entrance before attempting to go there. Tonight is the second edition of BodyControlled, a new bimonthly performance series at the space. This installment, called “matter incompatible,” is held in conjunction with the Transmediale Festival under the satellite program, Vorspiel.

BodyControlled is a series focused on the intersection of performance and electronics. You can expect future programming to focus around ideas of “feedback” and “bio” related electronic performances. In its first installment back in November, a packed LEAP gallery witnessed performances by Robert Henke, Peter Kirn [editor of this site], Stephen Cornford, and Paul Whitty. The event was called “Other Spaces” and took the physical architecture of the gallery as a point of departure. Having the space filled with people made for a secondary concern of space: its use. In a series whose title mentions the body, I witnessed one performance engaging the bodies that were filling the space. Robert Henke’s twelve-hour set activated interactions between the audience, performer, and environment. He moved around, listened and mingled with the audience, even though he had this amazing, souped-up control station complete with ambient lighting.

Other artists put more emphasis on the manipulation and dislocation of space through the use and abuse of electronics. Kirn worked with a custom rig with tablet-controlled original software built in open-source software Pure Data (Pd), controlled by a tablet running Konkreet Performer. Excerpt:

Excerpt – LEAP Gallery Berlin, 26.11 by peterkirn

Whitty and Cornford actively deconstructed electronics in front of the audience:
it pays my way and it corrodes my soul (2011)

Stephen Cornford & Paul Whitty’s performance “it pays my way and it corrodes my soul” seeks out musical material by physically dismembering playback equipment. A reel-to-reel tape recorder is switched on and its mechanism amplified with a variety of microphones while it is taken to pieces. The sounds produced are then fed through an array of pedals: the machine’s belts, gears, switches and casing becoming an instrument subjected to a live audio autopsy

Excerpt:
Excerpt: Stephen Cornford & Paul Whitty, LEAP Berlin, 26 November by cdm

Cornford was also interviewed by LEAP for his installation work, featuring repurposed tape machines:

As João Pais, co-curator of the event with LEAP’s Daniel Franke, puts it:

“BodyControlled means the main direction of the series, to present performance and installation works that have a strong, corporal identity. This can be manifested in many ways, not only implying a “moving performer”. The purpose is to avoid the extreme of abstract performances made by a laptop-er, sitting down as if writing emails. In the first event, this idea was shown by interpreting/filling the space of LEAP through a sound-performance (Kirn, Henke), or an installation (Cornford, Mathy, Oliver).”

See also my write-up for ARTSCARDS from last month:
Other Spaces Generates New Spaces Through Sound at LEAP

The second event, “matter incompatible,” draws reference to the Transmediale theme: In/compatible, acknowledging the less clear, even dark forces at play in the artistic and political climate today. Matter Controlled questions the idea of the object or anti-object within sonification. See CDM’s write-up from yesterday:

Watch Artists Talk About Making Sound From Matter; Thursday Event and Stream in Transmediale Prelude

From the Transmediale podcast, some explanations of the theme of the larger festival:

Jacob Lillemose on the exhibition Dark Drives: Uneasy Energies in Technological Times by transmediale

Kristoffer Gansing elaborates on the festival theme in/compatible, as well as the in/compatible symposium: systems | publics | aesthetics.
Tatiana Bazzichelli is the curator for out new project reSource of transmedial culture and speaks about its concept.
Jacob Lillemose speaks about exhibition Dark Drives: Uneasy Energies in Technological Times which he is curating for transmediale 2012 in/compatible.
Sandra Naumann is the curator for this year’s performance programme The Ghosts in the Maschine, which she explains a bit more in detail.
And Marcel Schwierin tells us about his concept for the video programme he is curating for transmediale 2012 in/compatible.

Performances by Echo Ho, Mario De Vega, Alex Nowitz and Ignaz Schick will investigate this blurry region between the immaterial and material. I am curious to see what objects they will bring to play with. As they potentially seek liberation from the physical objects, by reimagining their sonification, I wonder how they are also reliant and maybe even drawn towards their objectification. Bringing these disparate emotions into play is at the heart of tonights investigation. In today’s climate fractures exist between so many aspects of our lives. These performances seek to bring some of them together, compatible or incompatible as we might discover.

You can watch the proceedings via live Internet stream, for the majority of you not in Berlin for the live show.

www.leapknecht.de

More Photos

About the Author

Kristin Trethewey is a Canadian video artist, cinema performer, and curator. She holds an MFA from Brooklyn College in Performance and Interactive Media. A multi-disciplinary curator and artist for the past ten years, she has recently completed a residency at the Node Center for Curatorial Arts, was co-Director/co-Curator of the INDEX Festival. She currently lives in Berlin.

There’s lots of new stuff for musicians. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to leave some of it out, and skip to what’s really interesting.

Neil Bufkin did a great job last year covering NAMM for CDM, shooting some lo-fi, informal videos that got right to the heart of what we wanted to know. So, I’m pleased to share Neil’s work again, since unless you’re following forums (fora?) closely, you might miss it.

He picked out some of our absolute favorites. Highlights: Moog sums up the Minitaur in one, excellent word (“knobby”!), the Arturia shows off its sound shapers, Teenage Engineering flaunt their DIY prowess (hint: you can make your own inputs for next-to-nothing for the OpLab), and we get some up-close highlights of other hardware, too.

Bonus: I’ve included a quick upload from my, cough, phone of the QuNeo hardware. We’ll wait to shoot prettier videos when this gear actually ships. In the meantime, find a really old CRT (maybe from an old Commodore) and plug into that, if you can.

Minitaur: It’s Knobby!

I didn’t get to shoot a video, because I was too busy for the few minutes I had with the Minitaur just playing. The controls are simple, elegant, and – here’s why you know it’s a Moog – absolutely every conceivable position of the parameters sounds brilliant. It’s a bit spooky, or unfair, or something. I’ll have a full hands-on hopefully around April from Berlin. Here’s a tour with the Chief Engineer of Moog.

(For more of why we love Moog Chief Engineer Cyril Lance, see him show us the Moogerfooger Cluster Flux.)

Moog also posted some celeb visitors to their booth jamming away and making this thing sound even better; see other tidbits from their Twitter stream.

Arturia Minibrute

It has a name that sounds Moog-like, and it might be an analog hardware synth, but make no mistake: this synth is all-French, and un-Moog. The feel of playing it different, it has a great rotary-controlled arpeggiator, and the sound shapers and oscillator mix controls can take it into some very different sonic territory. I made repeat visits to the booth just to wrap my head around the feel, and got to really love it.

Akai MAX49

So now that you’re looking for a keyboard with MIDI and CV to go with all these new sound modules, here’s a surprising candidate – Akai. Yes, we’re utterly relieved to see the company that was recently making tiny keyboards for iPhones and things with only USB MIDI on them return to MIDI DIN and CV.

In my hands-on with the MAX49, I was very impressed by the feel. The keybed feels terrific and just springy enough, and the pads are more traditional MPC-style pads shared on the new MPC controllers. They’ve also sorted the velocity response. (That is, they aren’t the pads readers were complaining about on previous Akai keyboards.) Also, the red color that looks so garish in the product photos looks very nice in person; it’s a high-gloss, thick finish that is reminiscent of car paint.

Here’s a more detailed look at all the features via Neil:

Smithson Martin Emulator

It’s likely spendier than what at least some readers will want – especially with the iPad as an everyman’s alternative – but I really enjoy Neil’s detailed look with Smithson Martin at the custom control layouts on the Emulator hardware.

Our friends at The Verge also take a look at the new hardware. (I’ve become a great fan of Joseph Flatley’s general tech writing, so I’m really pleased to see him covering the music tech area … and Joseph, one of these days we’ll be in the same place at the same time.)

Teenage Engineering OP-1 Update, Oplab

While some may resent the gloss of marketing around their work, the truth is, the Teenage Engineers are also doing some great engineering. The OP-1 updates take a synth that was conceptually interesting and make it more musically inspiring and productive, finally starting to realize some of its original potential.

And then there’s Oplab. At $300, it’s not an Arduino – but what it is is a unique, programmable combination of CV, MIDI, and USB hosting (that’s the key) to which you can connect virtually any hardware or custom sensor or hardware creation. Some onlooked misunderstood what it was initially, comparing its pricing to boxes that only to CV-to-MIDI conversion, and missing the advantages of USB hosting.

Here’s a better look at what it actually does, and I can guarantee, having talked to the TE crew, that there will be more details to come. I hope that this will also inspire other DIY projects, even those not involving the Oplab per se, so we’ll document those aspects, too.

Again, The Verge gives us a second look with a nicer camera.

Livid

Livid has been very, very busy of late. And their latest controller, in collaboration with Richie Hawtin and M-nus, is an extraordinary example of what iteration can do for hardware. The first pad-and-fader-and-knob controllers from Livid were very, very good. This is even better. Quietly, Livid is making the kind of all-around controller many musicians will appreciate, even as big makers struggle to find the formula artists want.

Since I hear there’s some association between M-nus, techno, and Berlin, let’s hope we can get a closer hands-on. Anyone interested in that? Show of hands?

Watch This Space

We have more photos and hands-on details of new tech from NAMM to bring you. I’m working through them slowly, as is my speed, so we can go into the stuff we really care about in greater detail. And since I can’t only look at new gear, new music coverage coming, as well. Be seeing you.

Music has always moved forward when people get together to play. Groups of artists in Los Angeles’ Interface LA collective – and other California groups, like LoveTech and controllerism.com – are challenging each other to keep expanding their technique in playing electronics live.

I’m pleased with CDM and some of our friends to support a party Friday night in downtown LA celebrating playing live. Interface LA is a group centered on live electronic music performance and interactions. We’ll be bringing you video coverage after the event here, thanks to talented videographer Charlie Visnic. But we can kick things off now with videos of the artists and work. And if you are in town, be sure to preorder tickets now, as we expect this to sell out really quickly and hope to see you there!

Videos, from top: Mike Slott (Brooklyn), who’s headlining Friday night, in an interview. Second from top, check out the crew in their last event at top, that one centering on the monome grid instrument.

I’m playing, as well (hey, I’ve got to put my money where my very large mouth is). But I’m really thrilled to get to share some time with a bunch of artists I love, many coming from San Francisco’s LoveTech and controllerism.com, and from LA’s own Interface LA regulars. The lineup:

Mike Slott
Moldover
Vass Glenison
Rich DDT
‘House Band’ (Smacktop Ensemble, featuring the awesome force that is the Smacktop laptop-that-you-hit)
Nonagon
Ro and the Interface LA crew
Presented with Novation and Ableton

Friday, January 21
Doors 9pm
18+
$10 cover

We also have an interactive work entitled (con)textile:

A digital installation using the Kinect, stop-motion and digital noise, and interactive audio” by Jeff Aaron Bryant.  Jeff is a composer working in digital media and kinetics. He is pursuing his MFA in music technology at California Institute of the Arts.

Information:
http://interface-la.tumblr.com/events
http://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/82413

Facebook links:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Interface-L-A/316896995011687
https://www.facebook.com/events/351095438239262/

Images

November Interface LA, in photos

San Francisco’s LoveTech crew, including their Burning Man trip

SmackTop, in Video

We’ve seen this before, but it’s still good watching someone hit their laptop.

More Events in LA This Week

I have an early flight Saturday morning back to Berlin, but there are two other great events in Los Angeles this week if you happen to live in the area or are in town for a certain massive trade show down south in Anaheim.

TRASH_AUDIO NAMM BBQ 2012 has closed its RSVP, but if you do make it, let us know how it goes or (with, uh, permission) take photos of any cool stuff you find. Really wish the TRASH_AUDIO folks the best and all our modular and sound-making friends and Matrixsynth and company; I’ll be somewhere like 40,000 feet over Ireland while that’s going on.

Also, Droid Behavior is doing a party Friday night that should go late at an undisclosed location, the fifth anniversary of their Wham Bam series. I thoroughly enjoyed getting involved in that in 2010, and might duck in if I can on my way to LAX; the event here is not related, to clear up any potential confusion.

Arvo Pärt’s music is always spare and gorgeous, inspired by Medieval counterpoint and voicings, and you’d expect it to be such on any instruments. But here, you get something truly unique: a transcription of the composer’s ‘Fratres,’ normally played on string quartet, on a mixer.

The no-input performance uses exclusively tuned audio feedback to generate sound, creating an almost vocal quality to ringing timbres generates entirely in the mixer.

Details:

Camera : Jimmy Hayes
Console : Christian Carrière
Research residency, Summer 2011
OBORO, Montreal, Canada
oboro.net/

Console : Allen&Heath GL2400-40
Thanks to Claus Frostell of Erikson Pro, who lent me the console, which made this project possible. eriksonpro.com/

The project is the work of experimental musician Christian Carrier, a Montreal-based sound artist and composer.

http://christiancarriere.com/

Thanks to Gregory Taylor and Todd Reynolds, among others, from whom I found this on Facebook.

Texas-born, Detroit-raised, New York-based artist Matthew Dear has a new EP, to be followed by a full-length in 2012. It’s worth mentioning now for two reasons: one, the driving, “chugging” rhythms of the single, “Headcage,” will pop into your head and stay there, led by Dear’s vocal ability to croon and groove simultaneously. Second, the opening of this video may well make your mind go squish. The work of London-based director Morgan Beringer, seen previously milking monochrome textures out of another Matthew Dear collab, the film makes it look like some very colorful part of the Earth’s crust turned a film into magma. It settles down, but the opening frames are to me transcendent, especially when set to a similarly-morphing sonic backdrop.

You can stream and download the single via SoundCloud:

Matthew Dear – Headcage by ghostly

More on the upcoming release from Ghostly:
Matthew Dear: Headcage

The music writing echoes a bit for me Eno and Byrne on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts; perhaps channeling that, the album art by Michael Cina for Dear has washes of indistinct color, like a kaleidoscope set into motion, then blurred. Ghostly reports Dear co-produced the single with Van Rivers and The Subliminal Kid, vets of the acclaimed self-titled Fever Ray. The rest of the album is full of other vocal and producer collaborations. More on this when it arrives.

“Folk music of the 21st Century” – radio broadcaster, jazz aficionado, and jazz-based Ableton Live instrumentalist / remix artist Nick Francis really sums up what this whole site is about. As he chops up jazz greats in Ableton, his mash-up music chops are as much musical analysis as they are performance. He walks through his controller moves in a pedagogical way, highlighting the meat of the jazz legends he puts into play. It’s a kind of digital transcription, transcribing re-imagined for Ableton’s colored blocks in place of.

Of course, you’ll only be able to reflect on this once you can take your eyes off that stunning wooden controller, which has the look of a decades-old instrument. Kraftwerk in their early days would have chuckled at the polished-wooden nostalgia, but here, it’s about care as much as memory – and Nick is a fan of Kraftwerk, DJ Shadow, and others. None other than Matt Moldover inspired all of this. (I look forward to catching up with Matt in California next month.)

We first saw Nick in May:
A Controller Love Supreme: Beautifully-Crafted Wooden Jazz Controller with Ableton Live [tons more detail there]

Our friends over at Dubspot have an extensive, illustrated video series on interviews. You can tell they didn’t have to edit too much here, that Nick just kept talking and saying great things.

The Choppertone: Custom MIDI Controller for Ableton Live – Nick Francis Video Interview [Dubspot Blog]

But seeing electronic music with Nick’s self-described “vintage fetish” – from the RCA-chic swirled woodgrain to the great old standards – is a joy. And if you can’t get enough of Nick, you can go listen to his radio show, too.

Quiet Music
Nick Francis @ KPLU (Seattle)

Flip that YouTube into 720p to hear the sound properly – yes, even in this modern age, the default setting is a bit lacking in warmth.

There’s also a second part of the video with a performance of “Canto de Wonderwall.” (Not visible in Germany due to licensing issues.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sonic and musical inspiration are never far away, especially with a microphone in hand. For the latest example, Ableton Live meets a local playground.

Jason Richard, aka “bassling,” used field recordings in the park to compose a track. He writes:

I’ve been recording playgrounds and remixing the sounds in Ableton Live to create tracks. To help people understand what they’re hearing, I’ve been making short videos showing some of the process.

It’s an idea I’ve had in mind for a while and the centenary is deadline to work towards. I’m inspired by the Italian Futurists and Alan Lamb, who mentored me in 2006 as part of the Unsound Festival.

The playground is part of a series of videos of local playgrounds, intended to celebrate the 2012 centenary of Leeton in New South Wales, Australia. (That’s southeastern Australia, for the uninitiated.)

More information:
http://bassling.blogspot.com/

It’s really nice having the video to serve as a guide to the music, I think. So, what field recordings have inspired you? Let us know.

There are simpler, more minimal interfaces, and more tangible interfaces for Ableton Live. But when it comes to all-stops-pulled, touch-everything control of the full depth of Ableton Live, it was already hard to beat TouchAble for iPad. Now, with an update, that app closes even more of the gap between what you can do on the iPad and what you can do through the standard Live UI.

The standard computer model – mouse, keyboard, display – places some distance between you and a graphical user interface (even if that mouse is quite precise). The advantage of something like an iPad is, you can touch that interface directly. Part of the reason I’ve criticized that interface is, you’re still short of true tangible control with feedback – and there’s a great “rant,” far more articulate than I have been, on the topic, one that deserves further discussion soon.

But, as a middle ground, TouchAble is impressive. It’s very effective as a kind of “cockpit” for most of Live’s functionality.

New in this release, in brief:

• On-the-fly looping
• Beatjump / loopjump from a clip, among other shortcuts
• New mixer, with crossfader
• Velocity-sensitive drums
• Control Impulse, Auto Filter, Pingpong Delay
• Lots of other enhancements; see the full update list

In fact, with the new Devices, velocity-sensitive Drums, and Looping, TouchAble goes further toward making an iPad-centric “instrument” out of Live.

Odds are, you own just one iPad. But if you’ve got more – or some friends – the new version also supports up to four iPads at once. The video’s shaky, but we get to see that feature in action.

Sylvain Garcia, aka “Le K”, of TouchAble played with all four iPads at Wild Renate here in Berlin last weekend, and sends us documentation. The TouchAble crew also tell us there’s more to come, particularly with artists.

For more in-action videos — proof that this can work in practice, there are two YouTube playlists:
TouchAble Featured Artists
TouchAble Artists

TouchAble @ App Store; via DE:BUG [in German]

Let’s get straight to it: Ozone has already established itself as a do-everything mastering tool. It’s a suite of interconnected modules handling frequency and dynamics, designed to work together in an integrated interface. It does so much, in fact, that it’s hard for an upgrade to do more, but Ozone 5 promises new sound and visual feedback that could further entrench this popular tool.

And that could explain how Ozone 5 stole the Audio Engineering Society trade show in New York. AES is a flurry of knobs, dials, and faders, but some of the major buzz we heard was just this single upgrade to the software. (CDM’s Marsha Vdovin was out on the floor, and the word “Ozone” kept cropping up.)

Ozone is eminently visual software, so a lot of what’s new you can glean just by looking through the screenshots. But there are sound improvements, as well, both in the standard Ozone and the spendier “Advanced” edition.

What’s new:

• Updated modules. iZotope says they’ve “refined” their DSP algorithms. (Let’s see, carry the one…) The idea is, existing modules should sound better. There’s a detailed list on the iZotope site – aside from more subtle changes, you’ll find very specific adjustments to how parameters are controlled and how they impact the sound. To give one example, there’s a …
• New Limiter. The latest version of iZotope’s “psychoacoustics-based” limiter in the Advanced edition has a new stereo link control for handling left and right separately or together, and new intelligent transient handling algorithms, among other improvements.
• Enhanced EQ. Analog-matching EQ models analog shelf modes and frequency response, matching is easier than before, as with other modules, you can use left/right separately, and now zoom and display stereo info in your spectrum. There’s also new variable-phase functionality.
• New Reverb. Yes, sometimes you use reverb when mastering. (A little light reverb can do wonders.) A new modeled reverb algorithm adds new models and spaces and gives you unique early reflection control, as well as “cross-mix” for stereo imaging.
• New UI, workflow. I’ll let you just see what this looks like, but suffice to say parameters and labels are better-organized to be friendlier to advanced and beginning users alike. Past versions of Ozone were sometimes pretty-but-counterintuitive; this looks a bit clearer. Of course, you might not notice while dazzled by the…
• Slick visual feedback. In the standard version, metering has been enhanced. In the Advanced version, you get slick 2D and 3D plots of your sound spectrum for the Meter Bridge and Meter Taps modules. They look awesome, yes, but I also think these kind of “alien world mountainscape” views can help you better visualize what’s happening in a sound, so there is a practical use, too.

And, of course, all of this means you can easily wow clients when mastering by showing them visualizations that look like Geordi LaForge is studying abnormal quasar activity from the deck of the Enterprise. Just try to avoid opening up a cosmic string-related time wrinkle while mastering.

(And yes, when you’re all alone and no one is looking over your shoulder, you can do something useful with it.)

Pricing: US$249 (€195); US$999 (€799) Advanced.

Why is Advanced so expensive? Well, each module is also an independent plug-in you can use in your host. With that in mind, this starts to look like a better deal – some terrific reverb, EQ, and dynamics you can use anywhere. You also get the Meter Bridge and Meter Tap for analysis, fancier 2D and 3D spectrographs, and more advanced loudness meters. On the other hand, the basic version will also work with your host and gives you the sound-processing functionality minus all those more sophisticated meters you might need.

This month, there’s also steeply discounted intro pricing: US$599 for Advanced, US$199 for the standard edition. Expires December 1.

Ozone 5 was announced last month, but is now shipping. An OpenGL 2-capable video card is required for the 3D visualizations, but nearly all machines now provide that (including most integrated chipsets, too).

Ozone 5 Product Page @iZotope

For a look at what this tool can do, here’s our friend and experienced mastering and mix engineer Danny Wyatt, talking about how he works with limiting. The new UI and meters are actually a lot clearer than what you see in the video, and offer some nice, new functionality. I can tell you, Danny is a fully-converted Ozone lover, having worked with him in the studio as he mastered my own album. He’s got a big toolset of other stuff, but Ozone is very often what the real work comes down to, and — I think I can say this, Danny — he’ll be happy to evangelize the tool if you talk to him.

This isn’t a review, mind – in fact, my only significant reservation is that Ozone is so slick, it could distract from the reality that good mastering probably doesn’t need it. A great mastering engineer can do wonders with a fairly simple tool and their ear – no wild visualizations required. (“Great mastering engineer,” also known as, “not me.”) But that same person may well appreciate the level of precision iZotope, working with algorithms they’ve developed entirely in-house, can provide.

We want your feedback, as always. Ozone users – what do you think?

Users of rival products – what’s your all-in-one mastering tool of choice, and why?

You can complain about music events and festivals as they are, dream about what you’d imagine an event could be – or you can go and make it happen. And since the latter category fits friends-of-the-site Chris Gilroy and Lara Grant, it’s well worth an endorsement for this weekend’s In/Out Festival. (For their part, both Chris and Lara have been regulars at our Handmade Music NYC series; Chris as an electronic audiovisualist, and Lara as a textile-and-sound-melding felted signal processing guru.)

If you’re in New York, hope you can make it or even help cover it for CDM. If you’re not – like, for instance, if you’ve recently moved to Berlin – we’ve got some videos here to give you a taste of this particular assemblage of musical makers.

The lineup looks rich and varied on the performance side, coupling emerging artists with known names, all in genre-bending, adventurous sound:

Daedelus, Christopher Willits, Ander, Bit Shifter, tehn (Brian Crabtree), Portable Sunsets, Nick Demopolous’ Smomid, Comandante Zero, Noizmakr, Programs, Sarah Danke: Switched, Ivan Franco

There’s also a great selection of workshops:

• Heatit°C prototyping workshop, which uses a heat-reactive postcard for an analog circuit alongside “thermochromic and conductive inks and batteries, switches and conductive thread,” all made with a Craft Robo for producing 2D and 3D templates. (Wait… wha? Someone definitely go and cover that.)
• How to make a contact mic
• Kinect and movement using free software (Pd) – with Sofy Yuditskaya, who writes about Kinect and other 3D hacking today on Create Digital Motion
• Max for Live with Christopher Willits
• Comandante Zero on integrating live acoustic and digital instruments into performance
• Alternative musical instrument discussion

And here I’ve assembled some of my favorite videos of the artists and past In/Out events:

Stephen McLeod turns an egg-cooking session into a live, improvisatory tune – fried breakfast you can dance to:

There is a certain sense of magic or alchemy in the way a good cook or a good musician can transform raw ingredients into something beautiful. I feel like there is a kinship between these two disciplines, and this series of videos and performances is a meditation on that intersection.

While I prepare for you a meal, I use microphones and a computer to process the sounds. These sounds combine to form an automatic composition, determined by the recipe and improvised on the spot.

A meditative musical creation by tehn, aka Brian Crabtree, creator of the monome, was a highlight for me in 2009. (I played visuals live, using my photography and software I built in Processing. Side note: the bio pic is Brian appearing at one of our first Handmade Music NYC installments, put on with friends at Etsy.com who are now based here in Berlin. Strange, the arc of time and space.)

Here’s protofuse, aka Julien Bayle (French artist also known for his Max development work and protofuse controller), playing Brooklyn’s Issue Project Room with Chris Gilroy on visuals.

Festival co-organizer Chris Gilroy jams at one of our Handmade Music NYC parties from earlier this year.

“Switch” by Sarah Dahnke (here with meredith Blouin) is a far-out dance confrontation, in which bodies augment one another with sound.

And to close out this set with a groove, here’s Switzerland-based artist Ander playing a truly futuristic-looking controller Station, which appears to be ready to operate the Death Star.

Incredibly, all this music runs US$20 a day, or $30 for a limited-edition two-day pass, with workshops priced at $10-15 or free.

In/Out runs at The Knitting Factory and Death by Audio in Brooklyn.

http://www.inoutfest.org/tickets