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:

What’s new in the world of music technological creations? It’s stunning how much people are creating in their private workshops and bedrooms. I’m pleased to have the chance to share it virtually here, and Thursday night in person in New York City.

We’re proud that Handmade Music returns to Brooklyn’s 3rd Ward this Thursday, presented by createdigitalmusic.com with XLR8R.com, Make, and Etsy.com and sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon. (Free beer.) It’s a party, a science fair of music tech and instruments, a show-and-tell, and a noise-making jam, for musicians, tech lovers, and the musi-curious.

Free (+ free beer while it lasts)
Thursday, January 15
7:30-10:30pm (drop by for as long as you’d like)
3rd Ward, Brooklyn NY
Facebook event page
Going.com event page
RSVP to handmade (at) 3rdward (dot) com — walk-ups welcome, but it helps us to know how many folks are coming!Directions to the Space

If you’re in town, you’ll want to be there. For everyone else, we’re working on getting lots of documentation for you of the projects, so stay tuned. (We’ll have to have an all-global virtual Handmade Music Night soon!)

Here’s a look at the projects. It’s a bit like having an all-DIY, oddball music tech trade show – eat your heart out, NAMM show! (Warning: one slightly not-safe-for-work clip of a mannequin getting felt up.)

Neither of these items is “news,” but since I missed them, you may have, too — and because they’re so absurd and wonderful, I can’t let that happen. Some things are timeless.

Via Chris Cheung’s Hong Kong’s-based Special Interest Group comes the Theremin Watch, “Modified (circuit bend) from 大人之科學 kit set.” I love the idea of a wrist-mounted Theremin. On one hand (ahem), it does mean that you can calibrate relative to your body, because it’s always strapped to your wrist. On the other, I expect that’s still something of a challenge. But it’s not so often you get wearable Theremins.

SIG Theremin Watch [specialinterestgroup.hk]
See also the more current honhim.com/blog

Andrew Cavette points to the Theremug, a combination of delicious tea and Theremin sound making, by the always-talented Kyle McDonald. This item made the music tech blog rounds in the summer and hit Make’s blog nearly a year ago, but then, unlike recent fads like iPhones and Windows Vista, tea is centuries old.

Instructions:

1 Prepare some tea
2 Expose the L/R leads on an 1/8″ cable
3 Immerse leads in tea
4 Plug cable into audio input
5 Start up max/pd/processing/etc. and average every 735 samples (882 if you’re in Europe/running on 50Hz)
6 Scale value and drive oscillator

I can’t believe that not a single blogger made an Infinite Improbability Drive reference here. Sloppy. Technically speaking, this gives you only the Brownian Motion Generator — you’ll still need the sub-meson Brain and atomic vector plotter. Rest in peace, Douglas Adams.

If you want to do this with Pd, Kyle wrote on Make:

For an idea of what the pd patch would like like… I just posted a screen shot of the max patch: http://flickr.com/photos/kylemcdonald/2126494098/

You’d use osc~ instead of cycle~ of course, and could reduce the mess between average~ 1024 and sqrt~ into a -~ and *~ that you set manually.

Theremug from Kyle McDonald on Vimeo.

Update: Keith writes to tell us more about his wrist-Theremin:

thanks for posting my wearable theremin!! Me and Chris Cheung is SIG. This product is by me. The original post is here that has more photo: http://www.the-demos.com/2007/11/28/theremin-watch/

May be you also interest my work Moving Mario , which is awarded in Ars Electronica 2008, interactive art!!

http://www.the-demos.com/movingmario/moving-mario/

I am also interested in Moving Mario — but that sounds like a job for Create Digital Motion.

It’s not animal-friendly, constructed of black leather and snakeskin, but it is fashion-forward. It’s Rucyl Mills’ over-the-shoulder, wearable MIDI controller, complete with pads, knobs and faders (looking mysteriously like they were liberated from an M-Audio Trigger Finger). Rucyl describes her creation:

I built the elektro-07 so I could control the sonic and visual parameters of my live performances without having to look deep into the eye of my laptop, hunched over in computer music stance. I’m still learning how to play it.. Software wise, it runs a maxMSP/Jitter patch smoothly, connected to my laptop by a long usb cable. Major thanks to Luke DuBois.

I have to agree: I’ve seen people with great stage presence hunched over laptops, but hunching is … well, uncomfortable. Note, by contrast, her relaxed pose.

Rucyl is a NY-based electronic musician and artist, with an impressive portfolio of interactive works.

Rucyl Mills site

As for the “Sexy Computer Nerd” reference, that’s a reference to Rucyl’s love ballad to you PHP-coding, blinking-LED-heart heartthrobs out there:

Tired of all those DIY electronics projects making an awful racket? This one is whisper-quiet. You may have to turn up your volume to hear it at all.

Project creator Andrew Benson (maker of many wonderful things for Cycling ‘74) writes:

I just finished sewing together an FM synthesizer that lives on a wristband and is controlled by a little brown button that serves as a knob and a pair of small pressure sensors made from conductive fabrics. The whole thing runs off of an attiny45 chip, which is a really cheap AVR microcontroller chip that I’ve programmed with some FM synthesis routines.

It is a quiet little noise-maker, and is super fun to play with. All of the electronic connections (except for the little hand-routed PCB) are made using conductive thread. I’m still working on some finishing touches like strengthening the weak points with embroidery and providing slightly better protection for the circuit, but the functionality is all there. Let me know what you think!

Project blog post
Flickr set
More YouTube videos (this and other crazy projects)

As it happens, one of my favorite projects from the spring ITP show at New York University was the Square Band by Rory Nugent:

A wearable, portable square-wave synthesizer designed to be worn around the wrist so that he or she can be musically expressive whenever the moment strikes them.

Rows of buttons run along the underside of the wearer’s wrist for triggering of musical tones and a light sensor is available for shifting the pitch of the tones being played. This design allows for a form of musical expression that integrates itself very intimately with the human body. Tapping with the fingers plays tones and movement of the wrist and arm shifts these tones in pitch up and down.

Square Band @ ITP NYU Show Page
Rory Nugent Blog
As seen by our inestimable friend Collin Cunningham at the MAKE: blog

Solar panels? Fun, simple beat making? I’m sold.

Whether this appeals to you or not, you can bet that the growing availability, cheapness, and ease-of-use of small microprocessors will mean synths everywhere. Could be even cooler than that Dick Tracy wrist phone, after all.