$26,000 at the time, the Fairlight CMI was the commercial product that really launched the notion of computer as musical instrument to the general populous - along with various electronic cliches in its wildly-popular preset bank. Our friend James at Retro Thing alerts us to the fact that none other than Fairlight co-founder and co-designer Peter Vogel has been uploading vintage videos to YouTube. There’s a behind-the-scenes tour of the Fairlight factory, circa 1984, and below, a demonstration of the Series III instrument by Greg Sneddon:
There’s also this charming 1980 appearance on "This Week" on Australian TV.
What about making music with computers?
"No, no — you don’t feel like a technician."
Curious that we still have to answer that question today.
Dig the groovy imagery at the end. (around 5:00 in).
Something strange is happening on local affiliate news programs across the country: Circuit benders and other weirdo musicians are being asked to drop by and discuss their art for the American Public.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d be a little confused and freaked out if I woke up and saw this first thing in the morning (and I lived in Ohio):
And it’s not just Dan Deacon. Dynamic duo Beatrix*Jar had a similarly awkward experience. There’s something strange about what’s going on here. The news people conducting the interviews are are genuinely enthusiastic, but there’s something not quite connecting in their approach. I don’t know if it’s an intentional lack of arts-based analysis or if they just like to keep it light & fluffy for the morning viewers, but the ultimate result is surreal.
With talk of instruments like the Tenori-On, and looking to the future of tangible interfaces for music, it’s worth exploring past designs, as well. Take Don Buchla’s Music Easel — concocting sounds with this rare 70s instrument was a matter of plugging, touching, and patching. Digital sounds and music sequencers do plenty this can’t, but if it was possible to make the Music Easel’s functions tangible, why not digital instruments, as well? Artist Alex Tyson has been bugging us about this for a few days, and I finally got to watch it. It’s really lovely. (And, yeah, now I really want Alex’s camera, too.)
This colorful video features sound artist Charles Cohen improvising on a 1970’s Buchla Music Easel. This extremely rare instrument is one of Don Buchla’s 200 series. Buchla (a pioneer of audio synthesis) only manufactured 14 of these units. The entire film was edited from an hour-long set of free improvisation, with audio was taken directly from Charles’ mixing board.
All of the photography and editing was produced by Alex Tyson, a sound and video artist from Pennsylvania. The film was shot in 16:9 720p High Definition format, with only a 35mm LensBaby 3GPL.
Mmmmm… LensBaby. Yeah, this is motional porn as well as musical. (Update - looks like Tom at Music Thing is enjoying as well.)
For more Buchla improv action on a newer generation of hardware, check out Richard Lainhart on his Buchla 200e and Continuum setup, playing at our Handmade Music event hosted with Make Magazine and Etsy Labs. (Side note: if you’re using YouTube for documentation, don’t miss the latest tips for getting better quality — with help from Richard — over on Create Digital Motion. Got some clips myself I’ll be uploading with that information in hand.)
Nathan Ramella has sent us a video of a new project called ammoBox. What is it? Well, I happen to know a bit about it, but Nathan has sworn me to secrecy, so I’ll just point out:
It claims to be the "world’s first stream scratching, simul scratching, sequ scratching"
Nathan was a co-creator of the Unofficial Ableton Live API (which now lives on Google Code if you’ve been wondering where to find updates on that) — so we know he’s got the chops for hacking
Yes, that’s Ableton Live … yes, that’s a turntable … no, this isn’t quite the same as other things you’ve seen using that combination.
Any guesses?
Bay Area folk, come see this at our 2:30pm competition (and at the CDM Booth) at Yuri’s Night … and everyone else, stay tuned here and on that site for more details very soon.
Forget all my blathering on about the Sharper Image Beamz thing, because this video says it better than I possibly could. No, it’s not the video you’ve seen already. Think Beamz gone experimental — and keep watching until about :30. (Thanks to Chachi and Matt for this one.)
It’s official: Beamz has become stuff of Web legendz. I can haz alternative interface, or whatever.
St. Patrick’s Day always warms my half-Irish heart. The YouTubers are celebrating by watching user PJ TinWhistler doing his best to bang out Irish Jigs on his Nintendo DS. Give him a few moments to warm up, and it’s actually relatively impressive. (As it happens, the DS gamepad isn’t exactly the most ergonomic musical interface, but he makes do. And he is actually a Celtic musician, not just a DSer.) He diffuses any potential criticism by saying: “This video is boring and sucks. So I don’t need you to tell me.”
He writes in the description:
I finally found an instrument I can play at night without waking up the neighbours. It’s the DS game “Daigasso Band Brothers”. And here I try to play some jigs before messing up. I think they are: The Lark on the Strand / Killavil Jig / Jim Ward’s / Geese in the Bog. Many mistakes but it’s quite hard with all the ornaments and the speed so I guess it’s good enough for a few days of practice. (Damn, I failed the F# attempt…)(By the way, I was holding the camera with my neck.)
Stomp along, everybody!
Now, anyone got Bulgarian folks songs performed on a PSP?
In case you haven’t seen it, Nine Inch Nails has taken to the multi-touch Lemur control surface and More Buttons Than Thou top-end Monome. There’s a short video of an experiment combining the two with a real (MIDI-enabled) Yamaha piano. It’s just under a minute, but already evocative — I’m not entirely sure why Alessandro is manning the touchpad on his laptop given all this hardware around, but the cascading patterns on the Monome suggest both LED art and a digital take on a player piano.
But lest you think you need all that pricey hardware to make use of an unusual tool, look no further than MilkyTracker. Platform wars end here: MT runs on Windows (95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista), Mac OS X (PowerPC, Intel), Linux (x86, 64-bit x86, PowerPC), Linux game/mobile platforms (GP2X, ARM), UNIX (FreeBSD x86), and Windows CE. Wowsa. And it’s all yours for a donation, if you can spare one. Heck, there are even video tutorials on the site.
But geekdom aside, I love that MilkyTracker ninjas can make so much music out of so little. Without taking on the aesthetic style here, if that’s not your thing, it’s a reminder that economical choices with your tech can produce all kinds of different sounds. So, maybe rather than loading that preset, try to construct a drum kit out of basic waveforms.
Enjoy!
Video by extrabajs; for some reflections on MilkyTracking, see our friend thumbuki — who, speaking of doing more with less, is working with an OLPC. Economical hardware use is back in an age of power efficiency and computing beyond the deep-pocketed “first world” — and everything old is new again:
What? MilkyTracker is fanning the flames of a platform war with the Atari ST? No worries: MaxYmizer is a newly updated (yep, you read that right) tracker tool for the Atari platform. Polyphonic MIDI input and MIDI clock output means it should easily integrate with your existing studio. See the Digital Tools blog for full details.
Got some time on your hands? Wine glasses, stuff to knock? Camera? Happen to be deep in the Southern Hemisphere at the British Antarctic Survey’s Rothera Research Station and your fellow scientists have a winter film festival on? Scientists Rob Webster (music) and Jim Elliot (video) found themselves in that situation, and came up with this rather beautiful creation:
(No need to adjust your set: that opening is silent, as I expect the Rothera Research Station is sometimes.)
It’s all another reminder that musical ideas are all around you, wherever you may be — and sometimes it’s very good to get away from the computer screen.
Also, to those of you constantly complaining about the weather in Berlin - considered Antarctica?
I think this solo desperately wants a Keyboard transcription. You know, “Play like Sun Ra.” It may require a larger insert, but maybe it could be sponsored by Yamaha or something.
Okay, granted, Earthlings might argue that this sounds chaotic, but on Sun Ra’s native planet Jupiter, this actually borders on the pedestrian. It’s pretty conventional 83-fingered hyperlocramixydixylycradidian mode, transposed here to what is apparently a Yamaha YC-30. Sun Ra even makes a nod to the fact that the Jupiterians’ torso typically rotates at increasing speed during live performances, as an especially “grupicosmilogical” solo causes their arms to detach.
In all seriousness, this just happened to coincide with listening to some Sun Ra records this weekend … if you don’t know his music, take some time to listen to it. YouTube excerpts with bad sound could easily give you the wrong idea. The ability to order a certain amount of entropy into larger forms that really are connected with the jazz tradition is amazing. And for those of you running boring, equal-measured loops in Ableton, spend some time with the polyrhythms. Sun Ra does have good stuff to teach. And it makes me look forward to Yuri’s Night in April all the more — Sun Ra is the artist who really went to space, and brought us back some music. Who needs Virgin Galactic?
Window is a lovely arts blog — across “writers, academics, engineers — anyone with a good idea” — out of Aukland, New Zealand. They have a good overview of Monolake, aka Robert Henke, electronic composer and musician and co-founder of Ableton.
And you know what that means. Time for some video action. The first is by Lars Nagler, from his track “Layering Buddha”, which is based on Buddha Machines (you know, instead of albums entirely featuring the Tenori-On or KAOSSilator). The second is Robert showing off his Monodeck, which while not entirely practical in some ways still makes me try to think of new ways of controlling Ableton Live sets. More on that topic soon.
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