Results for mods

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Siftables by David Merrill:

Siftables aims to enable people to interact with information and media in physical, natural ways that approach interactions with physical objects in our everyday lives. As an interaction platform, Siftables applies technology and methodology from wireless sensor networks to tangible user interfaces.

Siftables are independent, compact devices with sensing, graphical display, and wireless communication capabilities. They can be physically manipulated as a group to interact with digital information and media. Siftables can be used to implement any number of gestural interaction languages and HCI applications.

# Cruise Elroy » Sonic on bass

The increased audio fidelity of 16-bit consoles brought several significant changes to video games, but perhaps the most important was that instruments could be readily identified. Instead of the melody being assigned to a triangle wave, for example, it could be assigned to a trumpet.

Dan Bruno lists some nice audio examples.

Some interesting things I found on September 2nd, 2008:

# SmadSteck – SmadSteck specializes in real-time interactive sampling technology. We provide the technical basis of the various audiovisual sampling projects initiated in the context of Sample madnesS.

This composition was produced for the Lowlands Festival by Eboman and performed live at the Lowlands Festival on 15, 16 and 17 August 2008 (SenSorSuit = played by Eboman, Camera = played by Mascha Rutten, Software = SenS IV by www.smadsteck.nl).

For more info visit Eboman.

# Ben Fino-Radin – Oscillator cabinets – Oscillator cabinets – aural and visual vibration, 2007
Behind each needlepoint cone is a speaker, the speakers are playing recordings of people who wore headphones, listened to oscillators, and sang the tones they heard in real time. there are tweve voices, each with it's own cone.

# Matrixsynth: The Red Rig – Made to mimic the look of the vintage drum pads, it's made of 100% PVC pipe and copper pad fittings. All custom designed – made it up as I went along. The wiring harness took about a day to make, and is almost completely hidden inside the tubes themselves. The ends just hang in place for quick connection to the pads when setting up, and to connect to the snake that feeds the equipment rack.

# Ruin & Wesen: Lovely, Petite, Hackable Controllers for Machinedrum, Ableton, More

Peter Kirn writes:

Today, Ruin & Wesen have launched their website, with two nice-looking products ready for pre-order. The MIDI Command is a small box with five endless rotary encoders on it and a “Macro Knob.” Here’s where things start to get interesting: not only does the unit ship with support for Ableton Live and Elektron Machinedrum support out of the box, but you can flash your own firmware using SysEx. There’s also an LED display, so combined with the software editors and MIDI mappings, this could even allow you to “roll your own” Kore-style controller.

# The Umbrella Company Suitcase SK-1 – The Umbrella Company have created a series of modified Casio SK-1 keyboards housed in antique suitcases.

Some interesting things I found on August 28th, 2008:

# Hands-on with Aurora, Open Source DJ Control Surface, Shipping Now

Peter Kirn takes the Aurora for a spin:

The Aurora is called a DJ “mixer,” but it’s really a control surface. It connects via a USB jack for power and to transmit serial-over-USB data, then uses free software to translate that data to MIDI messages for use with software like Ableton Live. The project is the work of a three person team, with Matt Aldrich designing electronics, Mike Garbus designing firmware, and Maro Sciacchitano working on the form factor and look and feel. They have an impressive background in making stuff. I got to hang out with Matt in Boston, where he’s joined MIT’s Media Lab Responsive Environments group, so I expect more good projects out of him soon. Matt and I talked frankly over coffee and pastries about the strong suits, weak spots, and future of the device and other projects.

# PaperGuitar.com – Lots of papercraft guitar models.

# MAKE: Blog: Review – Gakken analog synth kit – Collin Cunningham: The SX-150 kit is very easy to use and some modding ideas are bound to come to mind should you get your hands on one. At the very least, you can choose from a number of included decorative decals – and at the more advanced end, schematic and code for using MIDI input has already been posted. I'm sure more sweet DIY add-ons are in the works – very awesome.

# Electronic Attack in the Mix August 2008

A number of musicians from the Electronic Attack forum (German) have contributed tracks to a Mix, which has been released in August 2008.

It is available for free download and includes a nonstop DJ Mix as well as the single tracks.
Tracklist:
01 - DirtyBreaksEnsemble - Tacky's Beach ~ 0:14
02 - LandSchall - Spirania ~ 3:12
03 - Nice - Funky Mull ~ 7:39
04 - Motone - Tequila Sunstroke ~ 10:24
05 - Yosh - Warmull ~ 17:01
06 - The MM Project feat. Mulli - I Will Rule The World ~ 19:43
07 - NukeArts - Bondo ~ 22:27
08 - Planet Ugh - Bodywave ~ 25:43
09 - Audiohead - Circle Jerk ~ 29:15
10 - Verstaerker - Acidmull ~ 32:10
11 - Audiohead - Circle Jerk (ReWork) ~ 37:54
12 - Le Gourmet - Ugly Mouth Jerk Face ~ 40:56
13 - Motone - D3pth ~ 44:24
14 - hello.jpg - Naked Mole Step ~ 49:12

# Theremin to MIDI Control program in Pd

Charles Martin writes:

Over the weekend I wrote a simple program in Pd that analyses an audio input and then uses pitch and amplitude information to output a midi control value.

# OpenStomp(TM) Coyote-1 – The world’s first open source guitar pedal – Available now from the OpenStomp shop (US and Canada only at the moment). Price : $349 USD.

Some interesting things I found on July 31st, 2008:

# Omega Orion: analog synth as designed by Stanley Kubrick

Music Thing reports on the Orion Galaxy:

An Omega 8 – the $4,600, 38lb mother of all modern analog synths – in a great looking new skin.
Design is by boutique guitar amp builder Tim Caswell and someone called Antoine Argentieres.

More info on the Studio Electronics Orion Galaxy here.

# DJ Motion Capture – Made with the Vicon Motion Capture system housed in space 5, Culture Lab (Newcastle University, UK), the aim of the project was to magnify performance gestures to provide unique insights into how a DJ overcomes the fixity of recorded materials.

# Plastinkus DJ scratch pad – It’s a scratch pad the size of a credit card. Plastinkus produces sounds like a real disc. There is a wide variety of color combinations available.

# Gakken Analog Synthesizer SX-150 – Battery-powered, stylus driven fun.

RJ, a Japanese MAKE magazine reader, posted a guide to create a MIDI interface for the Gakken SX-150 a few weeks ago (even before it was released…). More info here: SX-150 synth MIDI mod

# Yahoo Music to offer refunds, what about MSN? – Yahoo Music is offering refunds to anyone who bought songs from the service. Is it time for MSN Music follow Yahoo's lead?

Some interesting things I found on June 5th, 2008:

# CellularRecombomat: patch-bay circuit bent cellular automata video synth

Tom Koch aka Univac writes:

My main idea with this gadget was to have optical control over the three main basic cellular automata (CA) controls (which are controlled by the pots on the right side, from the top): algorithm (the algorithm used to generate the type of cell which also controls what tone is generated based on the object created), width across the grid, and speed of cellular generation, each line generated one at a time from top to bottom.

# Drum Master – DIY Electronic Drum Brain – The Drum Master system is actually comprised of two parts:

1. The hardware brain module (containing the Arduino microcontroller and a collection of circuits to assist in obtaining the sensor information) is called the Drum Master. This is connected via USB (technically, a virtual serial port over USB) to a computer,
2. which is running the Drum Slave software, written in Python.

When a sensor is hit, the Drum Master converts the signal to a digital value, and sends this value (and the port on which the sensor was detected) over the serial port. The Drum Slave program listens for this, and plays the corresponding audio sample.

# Underwater Microphone (Hydrophone) – Construct a inexpensive hydrophone out of things laying around your house.

action_owl writes:

I decided to put up this instructable because (to my surprise) no one has a hydrophone instructable up yet. I made mine using a mixture of other people’s hydrophone creations that I found through a google search and a bit of ingenuity.

# Circuit Bent | Modified Fab Echo – Unlocking the Fab Echo’s delay potential. Add a Delay Rate knob (speed of repeats), increase the mix knob to full wetness, and to give it full feedback (which literally makes it feedback). Modded LFO’s to the delay circuit that cause strange swirly sounds, and pitch bending weirdness.

# Create Your Own Guitar Effects Pedal – This is a general instructable about how to build your own pedal clones.

It’s not hard to do, just take care that you read up on some info beforehand. There’s numerous schematics and layouts on tonepad.

If it’s the first build you’re doing it’s best to start with the easier stuff, like a simple fuzz or overdrive.

# Review: Percussa AudioCubes

David Battino writes:

At present, AudioCubes shine as a cool-looking device for experimentation and live performance. Only you can say whether that novelty justifies the boutique price; the results will depend on your creativity.

# Isidore, the modular robot with CV lights – "My friend Louis shot this video while I was testing the voltage controlled lights with some 16 steps sequence MIDI running in cubase, then converted to CV by Doepfer MCV24. All sounds by Doepfer A100 modular synth."

# How to Deal with MIDI Clock Signals in Arduino – Sebastian Tomczak shares some generic Arduino skeleton code that could be used to synchronise many different types of things to MIDI clock (and therefore ProTools, Ableton Live etc — any type of host sequencer).

Some interesting things I found on April 25th, 2008:

# KlangStufen – „KlangStufen“ is an experiment to show, how much information you can get from the sound of a city. You can experience the urban space auditivly by mounting the different height levels of a city, which would not be possible in the real space at all. You should concentrate completely on the sounds, the visual remains in the background.

KlangStufen (Sound Steps) installation by Christiane Keller

A stair makes the different height levels conceivable to the user. The single steps correspond to the different height levels. So we can use the existing architecture to experience the urban space and to get information about it. The user selects his point of view in the city on a map projected on the wall. Now from this point you move along the y-axis upwards or downwards, depending on which step one is standing.

# Audio Ping Pong – Mike McCracken has a fun little project using an arduino, headphones and an accellerometer.

# Kids Be Gone – Mosquito Device – Are gatherings of teenagers and young adults affecting your business and your profits?
The Mosquito ultrasonic teenage deterrent is the solution to the eternal problem of unwanted gatherings of youths and teenagers in shopping malls and around shops.

# Tristram Cary, Tape Music Pioneer, VCS3 Designer, Composer, Dies – Tristram is credited by some as the father of tape music, originating tape music techniques in World War II. He’s notorious to the general public and sci fi fans as the composer of the music for the Daleks in Doctor Who.

# Puzzlemation – A Dynamic Tiled Display – Puzzlemation divides the digital display into pixels you're free to pick up and re-arrange. It can be used to create things as diverse as modular animated signs, to a uniquely challenging dynamic puzzle.

# LoFi Looping Tape Machine – xelent modified a bedside table alarm clock with a tape recorder into a lofi loop recorder.