Elly Jessop and VAMP at the Maker Faire from The Amazing Rolo on Vimeo.

Yann Seznec aka The Amazing Rolo brings CDM his coverage of music tech at the Maker Faire in three episodes today.

Continuing the tradition of computer-augmented vocal performance and interactive gloves, Elena “Elly” Jessop shows off her VAMP system at Maker Faire. Elly is a Masters student at the MIT Media Lab’s Opera of the Future research group, headed by Todd Machover. Interestingly, Elly’s background is in conventional theater, including stage and costume design and choreography.

http://web.media.mit.edu/~ejessop/

VAMP stands for “Vocal Augmentation and Manipulation Prosthesis.” What’s really nice in this demo is that the results sound like more than just effects – they begin to become real augmentation, setting up a complex relationship between the vocalist and the sounds that come out.

It’ll be great to see your work evolve over time, Elly, as you fuse that experience. (And I know what a challenge can be, as I’m still working on fusions of my own, having likewise come from various non-digital backgrounds… heck, I made my way through puppetry class at Sarah Lawrence, even. It’s a lifetime-scale commitment.)

For more on data gloves and such: composer, computer scientist, and futurist Jaron Lanier did lots of seminal thinking about these ideas leading back to the 80s. And you can find some extraordinary work from “augmented vocalists” like Laetitia Sonami and Pamela Z. Here’s a terrific 2006 interview by Sua Constabile for Cycling ‘74 with Laetitia:

Well, fine, Jamie Lidell. Now you go and ruin it for the rest of us. See, none of us playing with a Nintendo DSi will possibly look as good as you do.

I jest, of course. Jamie Lidell, the wildly-talented vocalist, picks up the new, online-savvy take of the Nintendo DS and breathes cool into it. This is what Sony ads tried to do, but Jamie does masterfully. And, okay, don’t expect the built-in sound app on the DSi to do as much as it appears to be doing here – there’s quite a lot of non-real-time, non-DSi remixing going on, even though what he does do with the simple app is genius.

Thanks to Liz Revision for finding this one.

This does bring us to a burning question: Nintendo and Sony, I’m looking at you. When will we be able to run eccentric and niche music creation apps as official software on your machine? Imagine NitroTracker on the DSi download store or PSPSEQ and PSPRhythm on the Sony Store.

Updated, for all time:

Readers are nearly 100% for judging this one. It was a fake. And the site with a really stupid name (hellohomo??) admits that it was faux.

Howard Stern Hoaxed! Beyoncé "Outtakes" Are Fake, Creator Admits [E! Online]

Wow, that may be the last time CDM links to E!

Lesson learned: yes, the Internet has the power to spread rumors at new speeds. It can also debunk them even faster. That’s something to pass along to the “get off my lawn!” crowd.

Electro-Harmonix has made a quick-and-dirty vocal effects box. Usable parameters, good fun, and $200 – sure, it may not be the highest-fidelity vocal box ever, but what’s not to love? Our friend Collin Cunningham at MAKE gets the jump on this one.

It’s got some surprisingly unique features:

• 256-band vocoder “designed by the same EMS genius who made vocoding famous,” they say
• It will harmonically match electric instruments as well as vocals.
• 2- to 4-part harmonization, at the 3rd and 5th (labeled “Low” and “High” in case you slept through Music Theory class)
• 9 programmable presets
• Gliss
• Gender bender male/female formant mod (which actually sounds decent, and could be fun with instruments, as well)
• Mic pre, phantom power, balanced XLR output (thanks for not making this like a cheap consumer toy)

And the whole thing is built in NYC. I have to go see where they’re making these things.

I think this line is hilarious: “Diana Ross had the Supremes, Brian Wilson had the Beach Boys, Kraftwerk had The Robots. You have the Voice Box.”

Well, speak for yourself. I want the Kirnaires backing me up (matching sweaters and all) and I still want a Voice Box.

Above: proof you can have a product demo video that isn’t lame. (I’m looking at you, um … almost entire music instruments industry!)

EV appear to have seeded these to other folks to make some YouTube videos. You know what that means: it’s time for a really odd and wonderful cover of Knights of Cydonia. That’s funny, “No One’s Going to Take Me Alive” is the line I last used when I neglected to return a demo hardware loaner.

For an impressive, competing line of products, check out the TC Helicon line. They’ve recently offered up the smaller, stompbox-style Voicebox line, which nicely reduces their high-end effects to a smaller form factor. It’s a good time to be a vocalist shopping for gear.

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.”