Results for hacks

Some interesting things I found recently:

# AudioCubes DeckaBridge

Percussa’s AudioCubes meets Deckadance in DeckaBridge, a software designed with the digital DJ in mind.

Deckabridge is a software application developed specifically for the Percussa AudioCubes hardware. It lets you use the AudioCubes with Deckadance, well known professional DJ software from Image-Line, the company that created FL Studio.

DeckaBridge allow you to:

• Control the transport (CUE, seek fwd / backw)
• Control EQ and effect sections (bit crusher, lowpass filter, …)
• Control loop length and enable/disable
• Control various parts of the relooper beat slicer (a unique feature in DJ software!)

Download DeckaBridge here.

# Arduino playground – Un looper pour guitare électrique (French)

Arduino based Guitar Looper:

Here's how to make a little pedal for electric guitar. The idea is to connect the Arduino pedals, and using software to control sound processing, we made ourselves with Pure Data. Here I show you an example of a looper, but it can also be a rack of effects without problem.

# Wild Musical Inventions from Berlin Hackday

Peter Kirn writes:

The Berlin Hack Day, which wound up earlier today, offers still more projects focused on the creation side of music hacking. Having Ableton and Native Instruments as sponsors likely helped the mood. And as you’d expect from one of the world capitals of creative hacking, Berliners don’t disappoint.

Among the projects: a beautiful, elegant 3D sequencer, a fun bird-and-sky multitouch soundmaker with multitouch trackpad input, and a robotic xylophone controlled by monome. Someone even worked out a way to turn NI’s Maschine into a rhythm game, complete with Street Fighter sounds.

Some interesting things I found on August 20th, 2008:

# AtomoSynth: New Mochika2. MIDI Sync

Mochika2 features

• One square and saw waveform VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) with a huge pitch range, from subsonic to ultrasonic sound.
• One square and triangle waveform LFO (low frequency oscillator), that modulates the VCO for the vibrato effect creating old school arcade Atari-like sounds.
• White noise generator that triggers the VCO and can create percussion like sounds.
• 8 step Sequencer with note on/off switch and pitch knob for each step .
• It has a 1/4 inch audio output, 1/4 inch CV Output (to control other analog gear).
• A MIDI input to sync the Mochika with any midi device sending midi clock signals, the mochika can sync 1,2,4 and 8 times the tempo of the master clock midi device.
• 1 ultra bright red led that indicates the LFO Rate, and 8 red leds to indicate the step that is being played. Very useful when you play it on a dark stage.

# Negotiated Project B: Live Gigging Visualisation System – Check Luke McGowan's real-time music visualisation system.

# How-To: Hack a ThingamaKIT – The ThingamaKIT is an anthropomorphic analog synthesizer kit from Bleep Labs. Using "LEDacles", photoresistors, knobs, and switches, it generates interesting high pitched vocalizations. Bleep Labs sent us a review unit and this article shares our experiences building and using the kit. We've also included a tutorial on making some hacks, modifications, and circuit bends to it. Skip to the end to see a video of our hacked kit in action.

# Arduinome: An Arduino-Based Monome Clone, Behind the Scenes – A Monome clone based on the Arduino microcontroller.

The “Arduinome” gifts the Monome with two new possibilities. First, it’s a breakthrough on the availability front: at a time when official Monome kits are backordered, it makes it easier to make your own Monome on a budget. Second, it makes hardware hacking on the Monome far easier, by allowing people to make microcontroller-level modifications on the relatively friendly Arduino platform. (The Arduino was designed not for electrical engineers, but for artists just dipping their toes into electronics, even for the first time.)

# Cell Phone Disco – Cell Phone Disco is a surface that visualizes the electromagnetic field of an active mobile phone.

Several thousand lights illuminate when you make or recieve a phone call in the vicinity of the installation. Cell Phone Disco makes an invisible property of the environment perceptible to our senses. It reveals the communicating body of the mobile phone.

# Machinecollective.org public beta – full launch soon – Machinecollective is about physical computing, hardware prototyping, (remote) personal manufacturing, human/machine interaction and control surface development. Machinecollective is you, me and the machines, connected through this online community. Machinecollective is a public experiment, with community driven open source hardware as a foundation for further exploration and development.

# DS-10 US Preorder Available; US Ship Date 9/30 – Korg’s DS-10, a synth for your Nintendo DS handheld, is now available for preorder in the US from amazon.com.

Some interesting things I found on August 15th, 2008:

# Korg Kaossilator 4-Bar Loop Hack

David Battino writes:

My favorite electronic instrument so far this year is the Korg Kaossilator, a pocket-size, touchpad-controlled synthesizer with built-in loop recorder. I liked it so much I bought one after reviewing it for Electronic Musician magazine.

What loosened my credit card was a secret hack Korg revealed during fact-check: If you power up the Kaossilator while holding down the Tap and Loop Rec buttons, the loop memory doubles from two bars to four. That may not sound like much, but it gives you time to set up tension and release; I find four-bar loops just breathe better.

Check David’s post for detailed info on the bootup technique.

# Vector Surgeon 1.0 Read Me – Hello, good evening, and welcome to Vector Surgeon, the Prophet VS editor/librarian. This document explains some of the design principles surrounding the program, how to get started, and how to use it effectively.

# Music is Math animation: The ‘Mandela’ Variation

Glenn Marshall recently did his first Processing animation, set to the Boards of Canada track ‘Music is Math’. The Mandela Variation is the same animation with a small but significant difference.

Glenn writes:

I changed the random seed number. This number is basically the starting point for all random numbers throughout the code used to create the branches, particle motion etc.

I thought it would be interesting to see and compare the difference between the first and second videos, with only changing one number. The original seed value was 1973, the year I was born, and I was thinking of what other numbers I could use for a second video, and Nelson Mandela’s prison number came to mind – 46664, which is what is used here.

Glenn’s blog is a nice read, so check it out! He just posted some cool images from his Iris Generator done in Processing.

# mnk::GarageRemote – GarageRemote allows the control of GarageBand's transport functions from any MIDI controller that has programmable buttons.

Some interesting things I found on August 13th, 2008:

# Circuitastrophe Symposium – Cincinnati Sept 4-8th 08. Circuit Bending, Robotics, 8-bit Music, Hacking & Electronic Design

From the anti-theory website:

From September 4 through 9, 2008, Cincinnati, the birthplace of circuit-bending, will host its first circuit-bending festival, Circuitastrophe! The dream child of Professor Mark Shafer and the noise music artist Nebulagirl, Circuitsastrophe! will presents 20+ performers and groups from around the country appearing at some of Cincinnati’s most unusual and historic venues such as Northside’s vintage Masonic Art Damage Lodge. The lineup is included at the end of this press release. Circuitsastrophe! also features workshops and talks, including a rare public appearance by Reed Ghazala on September 6, presenting “The Folk Music of Chance Electronics,” or “How to Start an Art Movement Without Really Trying.”

# The Strangest Synthesizers In The World – You haven’t seen weird, until you’ve seen some of the bizarre synth contraptions that keyboardists and electronic musicians have come up with. In fact, some of these instruments are so weird, we’re not even sure if they are synthesizers! Take a look at this twisted synthfest, and you be the judge.

# Reaktor Inspiration: Visual and Audiovisual Art – Reaktor user sonictwist made a gallery with visual stuff made only with Reaktor 5.

# Ableton Live – Intro to Slicing and Drum Racks – A step by step walk through the process of slicing a loop while giving you an introductory overview of Ableton's Drum Rack features. The video also covers simple sound design ideas for changing your existing slices so you get more mileage out of the loops you've already created!

# How 2.0: Digital Wall Harp – Use infrared sensors to make off-the-wall music!

This is a pretty simple Infrared Harp. The sensors work like on/off switches to trigger various sounds when they are plugged into your computer's music program. With the MidiTron you can use any type of analog or digital input device, from temperature sensors to regular switches, to trigger your sounds. Get creative, it's really fun to think about all the things you could play!

# Hacking a toy guitar to make a “Frets on Fire” controller – Step-by-step instruction on how to hack a standard computer keyboard to build your own Guitar Hero-Like controller for the free, open source Guitar Hero clone "Frets on Fire".

Some interesting things I bookmarked on del.icio.us on April 1st, 2008:

• True industrial design: vintage mic’s – Collection of some beautiful vintage microphones.

• Pocket Piano Arduino Shield – A board for making the Arduino into a portable stand alone music synthesizer. It plugs directly into the Arduino board and provides 25 multiplexed keys (2 full octaves), 4 pots, status LED, reset switch, digital to analog converter IC, and a RCA audio jack.
• FET Preamp Cable – A phantom powered discrete FET (Field Effect Transistor) preamp built into the plug of a guitar cable. It provides almost all the advantages of an on-board preamp with none of the disadvantages.
• Reprap – n. any open-source rapid prototyping machine that can manufacture a significant fraction of its own parts; v.t. (in lower case: to reprap) to make something in a RepRap machine. Arduino was chosen for the next stage of RepRap development.
• Hackers Publish German Minister’s Fingerprint – To demonstrate why using fingerprints to secure passports is a bad idea, the German hacker group Chaos Computer Club has published what it says is the fingerprint of Wolfgang Schauble, Germany's interior minister.

Some interesting things I bookmarked on del.icio.us on November 27th, 2007:

• Wiinstrument – Ever wanted to have a cheap external MIDI controller that’s wireless? Or to play a groovy drum loop in your sequencer without having to set note delays manually? Wiinstrument is a MIDI instrument that is controlled by a connected Nintendo Wii remote.

Wiinstrument on Leopard

• Geek Hacks Laptop, Puts in Electric Guitar (with Video) – Musician/geek Ben decided to dispose of his old laptop by putting it in an electric guitar.
• Pushpin MIDI Music Synthesizer for the Game Boy Color – Pushpin converts your Game Boy into a MIDI ready device that you can control from any keyboard, sequencer, or software.
• Native LucasArts games emulation makes iPhone absolutely perfect – Play your favorite LucasArts games on your iPhone with ScummVM.
• human after all: about daft punk’s bearbricks for alive 2000 – A limited edition pair of Daft Punk Bearbricks, meant to coincide with the release of Daft Punk’s Alive 2007 CD. Medicom will release 3000 of these toys on December 5, package them with a copy of the CD and sell it for 5250 Yen ($48), presumably in Japan.