It may be 2009, but you can still play electronic music as though you’re an invading alien visitor from the future. Just ask The Sonic Manipulator, an electronic musical performer and inventor, alias Claude Woodward. His musical creations range from warped radios to instruments derived from turntable scratches and Theremins. And then there are some instruments that seem to be sonic weapons. (Apologies to recent protesters in Pittsburgh.)

CDM reader Andrew Cordani caught Claude at the UK’s British Invention Show. Claude is apparently a Perth, Australia transplant, by way of Cambridge, though Andrew writes that he “has been known to travel about a bit (Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Alpha Centauri, Epsilon Indi, Teegarden’s star and further).”

Andrew describes Claude’s other creations:

Met at the British Invention Show (http://www.britishinventionshow.com/show/index.html), at Alexandra Palace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Palace)
(Organized by [MP3 player inventor] Kane Kramer – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_Kramer)

http://www.youtube.com/user/sonicmanipulator

http://www.sonicmanipulator.com/

http://www.sonicmanipulator.com/Inventions.htm

The Claude-a-tron – a sort of pre-wireless (i.e. wired) Theremin – and is “Way cool”

The Radiolian a lot of fun – Essentially triggerable (pre-recorded) radio samples – Used to switch-between radio programs (reminds me of http://www.neave.com/television/ )

The Greet-o-metre + The Transatron should be given out to all travellers, interstellar or not!

(My fave was the Rap Rod – which does for scratching what CDs did for vinyl. The Bash-a-tron was a close second, though)

Definitely check the Sonic Manipulator site for many, many more bizarre creations if the one at top doesn’t impress you. See a couple of my faves at bottom.

Fans of DIY, the whole event sounds fantastic! Thanks, Andrew, who can be found here (with his own futuristic creations):
http://midisticks.ltd.uk/

From Sarah and Lara Grant, we have a dress that makes music, with tube-like apparatus made of felt for connecting sound, modular fashion. From the raucous duo Great Tiger, we get a homebrewed arcade controller Ableton Live that mashes loops into dance music with a quick button push. Yep, it’s Handmade Music time again in New York tomorrow Thursday. If you’re anywhere in the area, come on down – and feel free to bring your own projects and/or expect some surprise technological appearances. If not, we’ve still got some MP3s, visuals, and how-to information to share.

If you do make it to Brooklyn, we can promise some behind-the-scenes demonstrations, noise, at least one live set, and free, ice-cold Colt 45s while they last.

Read on for event details, a preview of the projects, and videos and downloadable MP3s from Great Tiger.

Wearable Patch Cords in a Sonic Dress

Sound artists, inventors, and designer sisters Sarah and Lara Grant present an in-progress audiological fashion experiment involving patch cords made from felt. (I love the gorgeous conceptual drawing.) They’re working with a dancer to make this into a performance, and we get to see the work evolve before our eyes.

the title of the piece is ‘Audiotrails’, playing off of the word ‘entrails’, since as you’ll from the drawing attached, we are designing a dress that has several felted cords coming out from the gut which will act as patch cords. These patch cords connect to different parts of the garment to produce various noises and effects.

What we will be bringing is an example of our patch cord concept in the form of a felted swatch and a concept drawing of the final piece, which we have not completed, but hope to present either next month or the following at handmade music. We will be talking about our process and answering any questions based on that. Sarah and I had been envisioning our set up on a table in the smaller room, since had not been planning to perform and since our goal has been to show our progress of a project that would take a couple months to finish.

Here’s a look at one of the coils, a felted patch cable that can then become part of the garment:

Sarah Grant has also done fascinating research into what she calls “felted signal processing,” in which textiles can themselves become active sound elements.

Push the Button: DIY Arcade Controller for Ableton Live and the Button-Mashing Music of Great Tiger

That’s button mashing in a good way. Inspired by games, fast push-button moves and combos, and electronic music, the duo Great Tiger has built a custom rig for mashing samples in Ableton Live.

The custom arcade controller, looking like what happens when an 80s arcade cabinet and the monome have a love child, was featured on the DJ blog DJ TechTools. (Worth reading that article for lots more technical details from the duo.) This video by Great Tiger gives a behind-the-scenes look at how the hardware is used with Live and how it’s put together.

Here’s Great Tiger live in action at Brooklyn’s Red Star:

Free Great Tiger MP3 Downloads

Great Tiger were kind enough to share a couple of their fun tracks with us, so you can grab them wherever you are.

Great Tiger on MySpace | Facebook

Come Visit Us

RSVP to handmade@3rdward.com OR
RSVP on Facebook

Handmade Music’s Brooklyn edition is held at 3rd Ward in East Williamsburg, a brisk ride on the L train out of Manhattan.

FREE, as always
…plus FREE Colt 45
7:30-10:00 pm, Thursday, October 15 (arrive by 9 or you’ll miss a lot)

Presented by CDM with our friends at MAKE, Etsy, and XLR8R

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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.)

Dueling Gestural Interfaces

GCe2 // GestureSynth from Mouse & the Billionaire on Vimeo.

We have not one but two fascinating takes on gestural objects as music controllers. Brian Kerr is bringing his research into new dynamic interfaces for music, drawing upon an academic background in industrial design, as M Bethancourt brings the Gesture-Controller Exploration 2 (GCE-2).

Mouse & the Billionaire (M Bethancourt): GCE-2

M Bethancourt has created a really gorgeous object, so I’m eager to see it in action. Check out the site for research, presentations, ideas for use, and more. And clearly we have to get Mouse & the Billionaire and Brian Kerr together – they’re working on similar lines, so they’ll either learn from each other or break out into a big gestural music battle. (or, ideally, both!)

The Gesture-Controller Exploration is an ongoing study in innovative musical controllers that explores the relationship between movement, physical space and musical performance. The most recent incarnation is the GCE-2 (Gesture-Controller Exploration 2). Dipping, swinging, swaying, tilting, and turning the The GCE-2 sends signals to the computer, informing its sound-making functions. This allows for a more satisfying performance experience, leveraging the power of the computer and helping the electronic musician to use physical means to create and manipulate digital electronic sounds in new and interesting ways.

Link: http://www.mouseandthebillionaire.com/gce 

Brian Kerr: Dynamic Musical Interfaces

Prototype Video 1 from Brian Kerr on Vimeo.
Prototype Video 2 from Brian Kerr on Vimeo.

My blog link: http://dynamicmusicalinterfaces.blogspot.com/

Vimeo link: http://vimeo.com/briankerr

I’m currently completing my industrial design masters thesis at Pratt Institute. My working thesis title is, Dynamic Musical Interfaces. I’ve started to document my first prototype, which is a wireless gestural controller for Max/MSP. One of my main goals with this project is to create an physically expressive performance device for computer music that is engaging for both the performer as well as the audience.

I love that Brian’s design was able to make use of a 3D printer, because I believe someday these will be as commonplace as the Canon multifunction sitting on my desk. Brian writes:

I worked in the parametric 3D CAD program, SolidWorks to design the exterior casing of my controller. After it was built in with this software environment, I converted the file into an STL format and printed it out with a 3D printer. The bottom of the controller has a potentiometer joining the half sphere with the upper section. To stabilize this connection, I built a pair of channels into each of the parts and inserted little plastic ball bearings for support (I’ll add photos of this later).

Mannequin Parts as Instruments

Richie Brown says he’ll have to see how much he can carry with him on the train from New Jersey, but he’s got a stockpile of wonderful technology oddities he’s created. He writes:

I’ve recently come into possession of several mannequin parts which I have used to house several electronic musical instruments. This marries two of my favorite things: surreal humor and blippy bloopy sounds. One project is the Torso Theremin. It is made from a circuit bent cassette tape recorder. I’ve included a video link here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox2xCvWxPwY

Another is a Leg Maraca as seen in this included video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CLKh28t0Sk

I am also working with graphite’s electrical conductivity and resistance value to make drawings that can be played like instruments.

Wearable Leather-and-Snakeskin Controllers and Other Goodies

Rucyl is already a favorite on this site for her terrific creations, like this over-the-shoulder, wearable (if not so animal rights-friendly) snakeskin-and-leather MIDI controller. I believe she’s bringing this along,

See previously: Sexy Computer Nerd: Rucyl Mills’ Wearable, Over-the-Shoulder MIDI Controller

And her new site: http://www.rucyl.com

She’s also working with King Britt, one of my favorite musical peoples, among other collaborations. She writes: “I’ll be releasing a new album in a few months on my own label, as well as some upcoming collaborations with  Xaphryn Follicle, King Britt, DJ Kiva, and Sarah White. I’m also working on an even smaller version of the elektro-07.”

Prepared NES

You’ve heard of prepared piano. Notendo, aka Jeff Donaldson, will be in with his prepared Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) for a bit of blippy goodness, explaining how it all works.

notendo.com

notendo @ last.fm

Premiere of Music Coverage from Make:TV

Maker Channel 101 Screambody, Laser Harp, Cupcake Cars, TV-B-Gone from make magazine on Vimeo.

Phil Torrone of Make Magazine will be on-hand to talk about how the Make community is adopting TV – both old-school (PBS) and new-school (online). We’ll have screenings of some of the music projects from the Make:TV show that premiered this month. Bring popcorn!

And More

Walk-ins of unusual creations are encouraged. The Make crew usually bring some of their stuff in. Machine+1 has promised “An atmospheric guitar and synth deluge- in the fashion of live looping- using custom, handmade footswitch controllers triggering software.”

There’s usually some surprise I didn’t expect. You really are encouraged to bring out stuff you’re working on, even if it’s not yet awesome / functional. Hopefully we can do some of this sharing and learning increasingly online, as well.

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:

Sexy Computer Nerd from elektrocardio on Vimeo.

Thanks to Eric Dunlap for sending this our way. Other examples of wearable interfaces, anyone — or other ways you’ve made your gear strap-on-able?

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.

TurntablistPC is an ongoing art project coupling a vintage turntable with a vintage PC, creating a hybrid, record-playing server that can be controlled remotely by remote websites around the world. It’s the creation of artist Mogen Jacobsen, and it’s currently being exhibited as part of a show called Webscape at the Art Museum of West Sealand, Denmark. What? You’re not planning to pass through West Sealand this fall? The museum still wants your help: embed a piece of code, and visitors to your own website will trigger manipulations of the turntable based on geographic position.

TurntablistPC Project Page
The TurntablistPC spins again! [Networked Music Review, my new favorite source for artsy music tech!]

Thanks to our artist friend Michael Una for tipping us off. I’m not sure I’ll be building anything of this sort soon, but what I do like about it conceptually is that it returns playback devices — increasingly abstract and virtual in the age of the iPod — to the realm of mechanical instrument. I think we may see all sorts of strange, new, hybrid digital/mechanical instruments in the coming years.

Of course, if you can’t figure out how to turn a turntable into a hybrid server art installation, you can always just don your black vinyl jumpsuit and strap your turntable to your back. I think Numark’s idea here was to somehow promote their turntables, but to me, they may have stumbled onto a new, futuristic couture in which we wear heavy objects as fashion statements. And for whatever reason, I’m game! (People could, you know, come up to you … I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine sorta thing?)

Making_sound grabbed this shot and sent it to our Flickr group; thanks!

Daft Punk is on a mind-blowingly cool tour. Aside from, you know, being Daft Punk, they’ve assembled dazzling futuristic visuals, slick leather jumpsuits, and sophisticated, animated LED helmets.

What? You want to tour with LED helmets, too? It’s easy, outlined in a PDF by the creators. I can make the steps even more brief:

1. Cast your face and make a bust of the face and clay models of all the parts.
2. Modify a motorcycle helmet for the electronics.
3. Design your own LED display and controller board.
4. Glue in LEDs … one … at … a time … and connect three feet of wiring per LED.
5. Build another custom PC board for a control keypad on the armband. (Hey, step #3 was easy enough, right?)
6. Custom manufacture all the exterior plastic and finishing.
7. Paint

The best way to experience all of this is in person, naturally, but here’s a roundup of some terrific coverage.

Daft Punk Concert report and lots of technical details, via our friend Chris O’Shea / Pixelsumo (who points to all the details on the visuals and costumes)

Word of an Upcoming Daft Punk Movie, from our friend and CDM contributor Quantazelle (Liz McLean Knight)

Many, many, many Daft Punk videos on dailymotion.com

Brilliant black-and-white snaps backstage on Flickr from leather jumpsuit designer Hedi Slimane

Alien, futuristic action figures — because they can.

Gobs of videos of the pair in action:

The utter rockness of Daft Punk:

Want more style when dancing to Daft Punk? Just bend the fabric of space and time to warp your dancing moves. Or, um, video it and then do it in post, as this young woman does (via the lovely EtherBomb blog):

And the upcoming movie trailer:

No YouTube round-up of Daft Punk would be complete with out Music thing’s “visual aid” to the samples used in the songs:

See Tom’s blog entry for full discussion.

Cassette-tape DJ battles are just one of TradeMark G.’s retro, regressive, subversive musical creations. He also likes to put on glasses, a white lab coat, and interactive sewing thimble gloves, in order to produce illegal, copyright-crushing musical performances.

Many of the techno-gimmicks seen here on CDM are one-offs and prototypes. The Evolution Control Committee, by contrast, has been producing “illegal art”, often with the aid of technology, for some 20 years. They’ve been “culture jamming”, dropping Napster bombs (remember Napster?), infamously attracting the ire of CBS, and dressing up as giant pairs of trousers and cans of Parmesan cheese ever since. (I’m especially fond of the giant pants costumes.)

For the last few years, they’ve been perfecting the Thimbletron, a glove with sewing thimbles attached to a hacked M-Audio Oxygen8. (I always knew those Oxygen keyboards would be good for something.) The interface gives them newly-expanded powers of sample triggering. Happily, unlike Wired Magazine, they don’t overuse the term “mash-ups” to describe what they’re doing. Try, instead, “plagiarhythm” or “plunderphonics”: “In the world of The ECC’s music, Public Enemy duke it out with Herb Alpert while TV news anchor Dan Rather is the new frontman for AC/DC.”

Thimbletronic Energy Technology Page (video link at the top)

TradeMark will be performing with the Thimbletron at the Maker Faire, as well as running the cassette tape DJ battle we saw earlier:

Call for Cassette Jockeys @ Maker Faire, Cassette Tech Roundup

CDM (meaning me) will be at Maker Faire all week, sending as much coverage and causing as much havoc as possible. I’m hoping Dan Rather shows up.

More glove music controllers:

Controlling Music with DIY Interactive Gloves