Autonomous bassline generators? Wireless, modular, infrared sync? Tiny drum machines networking together? Welcome to Texas, and the minds of Eric Archer, Bleep Labs, 4ms Pedals, the Church of the Friendly Ghost, and Andromeda Space Rockers.

One look at a floor full of blinking circuits, and most ladies and gentleman might assume they’ve stumbled upon some alien technology. “Imagine the things we could learn from this civilization – advancements far beyond our own,” as the stock line from sci fi goes. “Man and woman are not meant to learn such things. You’re meddling in things beyond your comprehension.”

In other words, you couldn’t build something like this, right?

Or could you?

In Austin, Texas, Eric, Dann, and Dr. Bleep are launching a new Handmade Music series, kicking it off with kits and classes so that anyone – including beginners – can start building stuff. For the 101 crowd, there’s a free beginner class even if you’ve never touched a soldering iron, so you can build your own analog drum. “I’m no n00b,” you say, “impress me.” Sure – the “upper division” gets to talk more advanced synth design and walks through the full-blown modular, networkable kit.

At the end of it all is an open jam and featured performance.

If you’re anywhere near Austin, Texas – or can find a bargain plane fare – you’ll want to clear your calendar for October 18!

Full Event Details, October 18 Handmade Music in Austin [Handmade Music @noisepages]

That’s just the first of more events to come, so stay glued to the Handmade Music site for events in Austin, New York, Portugal, Germany, and beyond.

“That’s right / you’re not from Texas / Texas wants you anyway.” For those of us in New York, Lisbon, Rio, Sydney, and Jakarta, there’s still hope. The kits will be online, and I”m looking at ways of putting together a full Handmade Music curriculum of projects online for all of us on the site we’re developing this fall, noisepages – ideas welcome.

I certainly didn’t expect to get deep into these geekier topics in high school while I was busily trying to fail Calculus and screw up science lab results in ways that baffled my teachers. But it’s a glorious age we live in, in which we get to assimilate alien technology as our own. Stay tuned.

four tiny drum machines from ALH84001 on Vimeo.

Cybernetics is poised to make a comeback. The theory is, everything from electronic circuits to plants and animals can be understood in terms of feedback loops, as organisms – mechanical or organic – respond to input from their surroundings. The father of modern cybernetics, MIT mathematician Norbert Weiner, was inspired by working on the guidance systems of missiles. His writing was picked up Louis and Bebe Barron, informing their organism-like sonic circuits, as used in the film Forbidden Planet. The word cybernetic itself comes from Plato. Plato was talking about human self-governance. But designed with cybernetic ideas in mind, technology, too, becomes self-governing and autonomous – and the sonic circuits, too.

Young designers like Eric Archer are to me the newest continuation of work like the Barrons’. Inside his lab, Eric and others are creating hardware that behaves like intelligent life. In the video at top, four tiny drum machines, equipped with insect-like brains and reflexes, network together wirelessly over infrared, responding to light by way of photocells. These tiny devices form a colonial consciousness.

Eric may be a mad scientist, but he isn’t keeping his work secret or proprietary. He’s sharing the tools, sharing his methods, and with a whole growing crew of sonic DIYers in Austin, Texas, inviting anyone to join the revolution under the banner of the Handmade Music series. (More on the upcoming event shortly.) If you’re not from Texas, a lot of this documentation is also appearing online.

Here are more of the creations, plus the simple but powerful circuit that makes it all happen.

And yes, there’s a lot of potential to wireless IR sync.

The drums have names:

Drum Machines (Eric Archer)
ASR mk I “pops”: two analog damped sine oscillators with photocell pitch control, 16 presets
ASR mk II “snappy”: analog white noise, photocell controlled filter, envelope + VCA, 16 presets
ASR mk III “twiki”: photocell tuned analog osc, photocell tuned LPF, envelope + VCA, programmable
ASR mk IV “boomer”: analog damped sine oscillator, long decay, photocell pitch envelope, programmable

But drum machines are just the beginning of what could eventually be wirelessly synced. First up, this autonomous bassline generator, created by 4ms Pedals

The Autonomous Bassline Generator creates deterministic bassline patterns in a sci-fi retro sound by generating melodies on the fly, based on a knob. It’s just an AVR (attiny44) chip doing all the work, plus an opamp to act as the filter (photocell). The blue button is Tap Tempo, or if you hold it down for 1 second, it syncs up to the pulses on the IR receiver (this lets you beat-sync multiple Andromeda Space Rocker modules). The red button lets you edit a single note in the melody. Pulse-width modulation is currently pre-set to a certain envelope, but that will become user-controllable soon!

Part of the “Andromeda Space Rockers” series of modules, see www.ericarcher.net for drum modules.

The 6-pin header board dangling to the right is an ISP header. Totally hackable!

“Ah,” you say. “But I have computers and things. I don’t just want a bunch of little drum machines running around my studio like so many electronic beetles while I furiously tap my tap tempo in Ableton. Can’t I sync thing up?”

Yes. Yes, you can. There’s already a MIDI-to-IR prototype in the works.

Four analog drum machines are synchronized with a desktop computer running Logic. Logic is playing a loop with TR808 samples. MIDI timecode from Logic is converted to IR Sync with a PIC microcontroller. The PIC flashes an infrared LED, providing wireless clock to a chain of analog drum modules. Each drum module has an onboard sequencer, analog sound generator, and IR Sync repeater. At the end of the video, the tempo is increased to almost 3000 BPM. In a separate test, the system played OK at 1000 BPM. Of course this tempo is ridiculous but it is a nice “torture test” of Nathan’s PIC code.

PIC stuff: Nathan Wooster
drum machines: Eric Archer

Our friends at Bleep Labs also have projects in the works.

Eric and 4ms have contributed the circuits at the heart of this.

This simple circuit handles infrared clock networking. (Click for the full circuit.) I’m assuming you know how to read this; we may have to put together an actual how-to tutorial for those new to electronics, too.

And 4ms has a version for interfacing with microcontrollers.

The Barrons would be proud.

For more on the Handmade Music series as it spreads around the planet, visit http://handmademusic.noisepages.com.

I love the sound bugs make when you squish them under a solution.

AlexP, whose blog is also a great source for multitouch and the Sony PS3 Eye Camera and Windows drivers we used in the recent hackday, has been diagnosing his MacBook under Windows Vista. Hardware problems are often the source of sound blips on computers. I’ve talked previously about using the DPC Latency Checker to find this issue.

The good news: Alexander has found the problem (the Broadcom Wireless Adapter in some Apple MacBooks) and a solution (switching off Windows’ automatic wireless network search when you don’t need it). I actually wonder if a similar problem was culpable in early problems with network WiFi on Mac OS X Leopard. Whatever is going on, check out the fix here if you’re encountering this problem. And let us know if you’re seeing this on machines other than just the MacBook revision F; I’d imagine any PC with a similar wireless adapter might have the issue:

MacBook Rev. F Audio Skipping in Vista Analysis and Solution – Part 2

And yes, hardware/driver problems may frequently manifest as what Windows terms DPCs – basically, a symptom of hardware usage that can interfere with reliable audio performance. I’m curious whether WiFi connections specifically may be a cause in other cases. The problem is almost certainly not limited to computers from Apple – especially since, in this case, the MacBook is just behaving like any PC laptop with similar specs.

Steinberg announced today that their Cubase iC controller app for iPhone and iPod touch is now available. If you’re a Cubase 5 user, this app gives you loads of control over your set wirelessly. It looks great, even if you have an existing controller – it’s just like having an extra, more pocket-able remote control. Control features:

• Position: Check out the clever position displays and feedback
• Transport: You can jump to markers, toggle the metronome and precount and cycle, and punch in recording.
• Arranger: Turn arranger on and off, play, and jump within an arrangement. You even get interactive buttons with labels for arrangement points, as pictured below.

If you’re a Cubase user, go enjoy:

Cubase iC

If not, I know what you’re thinking – how can I do stuff like this with other software?

OSC

Of course, imagine if we had a universal, networkable communications protocol that was open enough to adapt to whatever music software might do? You could use messages labeled with functions (like cubase/arrange/stop in this case) and easily communicate between any of your devices.

Yep: we’ve got that already. It’s called OpenSoundControl. Unfortunately, many developers seem to think it requires specialized hardware (not true), or simply don’t understand what it’s for and how to implement it. Hopefully we can work to correct some of those misconceptions over the coming months.

There are, of course, lots of great OSC apps for iPhone like OSCemote, TouchOSC, and MrMr. And that means, vendors, there’s a now 30-million+ installed user based on this device alone. Think about it, won’t you?

Mackie Control

While we wait for the Coming of OSC, a decent function in the meantime is Mackie Control Universal, which maps standard functions to MIDI messages. iTouchMIDI (iTM) MCU, seen here in the fall, implements the protocol for iPhone. You do need an app at the other end for Mac or (recently added) Windows. But you get some decent functions. It’s a bit Ableton Live-centric, as you can see from the Scene, Clip, Loop, and Back to Arrangement buttons. But the faders and transport should still work with other tools, like Reason, Logic, Tracktion, and Reaper. (In fact, with Reaper’s custom controller layouts, you might be able to put those specialized Live buttons to use, with the right scripts – I’ll have to try that.)

iTouchMIDI MCU

If you put any of these solutions to work in your studio or on the road, we’d love to hear about it!

Interested in experimenting with MIDI, minus the wires? Why not try a DIY hack yourself? Limor Fried aka Lady Ada of Adafruit Industries has posted a detailed tutorial on transmitting MIDI over the inexpensive and relatively friendly XBee wireless module.

It’s a bit of a hack – you force the XBee to communicate at MIDI baud rate, and on Windows, at least, you have to fool the OS into using MIDI’s non-standard baud rate for serial communications. But it seems to work. That’s where you come in: Limor’s got some folks testing this, but we could use some additional real-world tests and a “port” of the instructions to Mac OS and Linux. (I’ll be testing, too, once I get my hands on some spare XBees.)

Tutorial: Using XBees to create a wireless bi-directional MIDI link [ladyada.net/make]

HOW TO – Using XBees to create a wireless bi-directional MIDI link [adafruit blog]

Ingredient list:

• XBee module
• Adafruit’s own handy XBee Adapter Kit (an adapter board that makes it easier to add the wireless module to your own projects)
• Parts for making the MIDI adapter: MIDI connectors, optocoupler, hex inverter
• A computer (Limor runs Windows, but any OS should work)
• Some MIDI gear (see: hardware manufactured from the mid-1980s to now)

How does this compare to commercially-available wireless MIDI adapters? Honestly, I have no idea – that’s where we could use some real-world tests. (Yeah, I know – I’m really helpful. But then, there’s still a compelling argument for wires in many situations.) My guess is, if you’re serious about wireless MIDI, you may want to consider other alternatives.

If you’re serious about wireless, in fact, you may want to look beyond MIDI. Brian Kerr, who brought his own wireless controller to a recent Handmade Music night, chose OpenSoundControl after unsuccessfully testing MIDI. The problem with OSC, of course, is that you really need MIDI on the other end for almost all hardware (like Limor’s own x0xb0x 303 clone). OSC is a better choice if you’re building your own project – you can always convert back to MIDI on the other end, but you have the convenience of OSC over wireless and can use OSC natively with software that supports it. (Visual software, tools like Max, Processing, and SuperCollider, and – I really do believe – soon, music software will work.)

But then again, this is a fantastic way to experiment with the XBee and to try some fun stuff with MIDI gear you’ve already got hanging around – and may be just fine for some applications. I’m eager to hear how it goes. More on wireless control and projects soon – stay tuned. Thanks for the great work on this, Limor!

The Cupertino-Mushroom Kingdom gap has been closed: you can now mix and match DS and iPhone/iPod touch for wireless control of music and visuals. DSMI, the homebrew library that has enabled wireless and serial MIDI connections from the Nintendo DS, has come to iPod touch and iPhone. That means anyone building instruments and controllers on the iThing can now add wireless MIDI controllers that talk to computers – or other mobile devices, including the DS. It also means that DSMI’s acronym standing for “Nintendo DS Music Interface” has only one word that describes all the things it does.

If you’re a developer, you can grab the open source (LGPL-licensed) code. If you’re a user, apps are already supporting the new wireless features. There’s MIDI Motion Machine, which provides tilt and 16 triggers, and iXY, a 99-cent app for KAOSS Pad-style X/Y touch control. The MIDI Motion Machine author, TheRain, takes an interesting approach: there’s both a free and pay version, and the free version has source code.

Tobias Weyand, DSMI’s original co-creator along with TheRain, writes:

My friend TheRain has ported DSMI to the iPhone! This enables iPhone deveopers to easily integrate wireless MIDI in their applications, making it possible to control any MIDI application on the PC with the iPhone. The Wifi-to-MIDI bridge is the same DSMI server application that is also used for the DS, thus it works with Windows, OSX and Linux.
Also, like on the DS, both OSC and MIDI are supported!

DSMI for iPhone is available from our Google Code site (http://code.google.com/p/dsmi/) together with an open source example application called MIDI Motion Machine that is a tilt-based xy-controller.

The cool thing is that this library takes away all the hassle of communicating MIDI messages to the PC and makes development of MIDI controllers very very simple. So, we hope that people will use the DSMI to create a lot of innovative iPhone MIDI controller apps.

Pretty cool, isn’t it? :-)

By the way, if you’re a loyal Nintendo DS developer and think this whole iNonense thing is useless, the main library for DS also got a lot of improvements, cleaner coding, and collaboration on Google Code.

What about using OpenSoundControl instead of MIDI? On the iPhone/iPod, it’s a non-issue: OSC is a networking protocol, so it’s already wireless-ready. On the DS, DSMI’s source includes an OSC example, and unlike the MIDI in DSMI, you don’t need a piece of software receiving on the computer end.

Now, any suggestions for how to broaden the acronym DSMI so it’s more accurate? Digital Signal Multimodal Interface? Digital Sound and Music Interface? Damned Sweet Machine Instrument?

Or, to go recursive: DSMI Sure Means Ideas.

DSMI Official Site
CM Software Designs (home of iXY, MIDI Motion Machine, more apps and tutorials – must-visit)
DSMI at Google Code

See previously:
Unreleased iPhone – iPod Touch MIDI Controllers, Ready for Ableton Live and More

And this suggests, as we speculated, that the problem with Apple’s App Store is simply that it’s overclogged with apps. The other complaints still apply, of course:
iPhone Ups and Downs, Unhappy Developers, and the MIDI Controllers You Can’t Have Yet

We’ve gotten lots of feedback from readers in our mobile device poll. Basically, I’m aware some of you have use for this stuff, and some don’t — just as with any app that’s specific to one platform. And one message we got loud and clear is that Apple’s gadgets aren’t nearly as affordable in other countries. But we’ll, as always, work to keep a balance of a lot of stuff. The first wave of iPhone apps has now become available, so I expect things will die down a bit and we can see if we can do useful musical things with all this software now!

And yes, we have a lot of non-mobile stories in the pipeline if I can just finish the darn things. (I’m on the road; stay tuned!)

It’s cheaper than dedicated Digidesign hardware or automation surfaces – and it’s pricier than all the other iPhone / iPod Touch music apps we’ve seen. But Alex le Lievre has made his iPhone Pro Tools controller software, a story we broke on CDM in December, available on Apple’s store. And it’s the most like a pro … tool of any app we’ve seen yet.

The idea, as we originally saw, is fully duplicating your Pro Tools onscreen interface in a touchable interface on your iPod Touch or iPhone, complete with interactive feedback on channel settings, audio levels, and the like.

The updated release is ProRemote 1.0. A “lite” version is US$39.95, but the full version will set you back US$149.95. That’s caused some complaints from about everyone with whom I’ve talked about this, although I have to say if the resulting tool is useful to you, that’s in line with other “pro” music software (which I expect was the idea). I do think, though, that a lower price might have helped this be an impulse buy for all the Pro Tools users out there.

Pricing aside, the app itself is amazing. Thanks to all of you for the flood of tips on this one, as well. (My general sense is, we’re all skeptical of the iPhone, but likewise interested in seeing what it can do. There wasn’t any rampant “fanboyism” in any of those tips.)

Here’s a video of the new release in action:

As you can see, you get true bi-directional control with an interface on-screen that looks like the interface of the software, plus live feedback on audio levels. Even the Lemur and Dexter aren’t quite this slickly integrated with software. You can even control Pro Tools dialog boxes.

The difference between the versions (see full feature table):

Light: HUI protocol only (so it could be used with Live, Logic, DP via their HUI support), 8 channels

Pro: Dedicated transport view (with marker settings, scrubbing touch area), undo/save features, landscape meter bridge, 32 channels

Something else really odd is going on – I can’t access the ProRemote full version via the US iTunes. Yes, Apple’s store seems to be as screwy as developers are saying it is.

The Pro version also promises enhanced support for other DAWs. I’d love to see a little love for Live and Logic. The idea is, buy into the Pro version, get more stuff later. This is a case, though, where a demo version is badly needed, but that’s not available via Apple’s store.

Devil’s advocate: Of course, there are lots of ways of controlling DAWs, and I can imagine many of us (myself included in some cases) will continue to prefer tangible feedback. Mixing from an iPhone would seem woefully imprecise, and while it’s nice to have transport features, something like the Frontier TranzPort DAW remote is also wireless – and you can fumble around for a button without having to look at it. Many of you also point out that a disadvantage of the iPhone is that you have to cradle it in one hand while using it in the other.

Then again, pointing out these weaknesses isn’t to say there isn’t some real potential here, or that this wouldn’t work for some people.

If you do spring for it, we’d love to hear how it goes. And even if you don’t, you can see some of the potential of touch apps for DAWs of the future. So, DAW developers, time to start thinking about fingertips as well as mice when considering your UI.

Far Out Labs [Official developer site]

For more technical details, with some caveats on touch control, see Far Out’s FAQ

CDM’s scoop on the story last year, with early details from the developers:

Control Pro Tools with an iPhone or iPod Touch

We suspected AirPort issues with both Leopard and Tiger; many of you reported the simple fix was to turn AirPort off. The latest update:
“Addresses AirPort issues that may result in slower performance in Logic Studio or MainStage.”

Now, that’s oddly worded. Unless there’s some really specific interaction between Logic and AirPort, but no other audio apps, presumably this line actually means “…that may result in slower performance in music and audio applications.” Update: Readers tell us that’s exactly the case. So, Apple, why not simply refer to audio production apps, since third parties depend on your OS, too?

Leopard is gradually getting fixed for real-time audio performance so the number of you with problems is waning, but those of you who have had trouble through 10.5.3 with AirPort on, let us know if this fixes software from Apple or anyone else.

About the Mac OS X 10.5.4 update

The wonderful cellular automation synth glitchDS has just gotten its 1.3 update, with per-sound volume, a tap-able “pad play” page for triggering samples, quick snapshot saving, and other improvements.

Better still, the author has created a new tool, demoed in the video above. repeaterDS lets you draw on the DS screen to play a looped sample, with the Y axis impacting repeat length and X axis controlling playback offset.

repeaterDS

(Thanks, foosnark!)

dsmcu is an in-progress wireless mix controller, focused on wireless control of the mixer in the affordable Windows production app Reaper. (Eventually Pro Tools, Logic, and other DAW support is planned.) Right now, it works with the mcu protocol to support two-way fader control, VU meters (handily displayed on the top screen), track controls, banks, and scrubbing. Dan warns it’s a little tricky going getting it set up, but it looks well worth it for the brave:

Project page / getting started

Author Dan has also created a drum machine, synth, and sequencer program called bliptracker

If you’re having keeping track of all this goodness, Dan has put together a little list of the best music tools for DS:
DS music apps

And if you like wireless MIDI, be sure to check out DSMI, on which the other wireless implementations are generally based.

Finally, the Korg DS-10 DS cartridge got its launch in the UK last week, although there’s not really any news to report from the launch event and we’re mostly still waiting to get one. In the meantime, though, the 1UP Show has picked up the DS-10 in this video:

Hope to have CDM’s DS-10 hands-on soon, once I can get my hands on a DS-10!