Results for monome

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Make: Online : Open source hardware 2009

Make’s definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009.

Welcome to definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009. First up – What is open source hardware? These are projects in which the creators have decided to completely publish all the source, schematics, firmware, software, bill of materials, parts list, drawings and "board" files to recreate the hardware – they also allow any use, including commercial. Similar to open source software like Linux, but this hardware centric.

Each year we do a guide to all open source hardware and this year there are over 125 unique projects/kits in 19 categories, up from about 60 in 2008, more than doubling the projects out there! – it’s incredible! Many are familiar with Arduino (shipping over 100,000 units, estimated) but there are many other projects just as exciting and filled with amazing communities – we think we’ve captured nearly all of them in this list. Some of these projects and kits are available from MAKE others from the makers themselves or other hardware manufacturers – but since it’s open source hardware you can make any of these yourself, start a business, everything is available, that’s the point.

# fridgebuzzz electronics MK1 MIDI controller

The MK1 prototype is a user programmable midi controller featuring 32 LED pushbutton switches and 6 touch sensitive copper plate switches.

# satrap activ portable analog synthesizer (YouTube)

Flo Kaufmann shows his “satrap activ” portable analog synthesizer made out of a vacuum cleaner.

It contains 2 cmos based VCO’s , a Moog ladder filter, a 555 based ADSR, a cmos based 8 step sequencer, a PIC based vc to midi interface and a PIC based auto trigger unit. There are 4 tunable knobs on top, mostly to play base lines, and 2 conductable wires, which act as voltage dividers to generate variable tones. the wires do not vibrate. so it is not a cord instrument. satrap activ can also control other synthesizers either by midi or cv/gate interface.

# Percussa Audio Cubes: Lights & Tangible Interface with Ableton Live and Alchemy

Mark Mosher writes about his Audio Cubes:

I recently added Percussa AudioCubes to my studio and performance rig.

While I’m planning a longer post offering an overview of how AudioCubes work, this is a quick post to mention two applications of AudioCube technology I’ve been experimenting with.

# Larry Cotton’s MIDI Marimba

Larry Cotton’s 3-octave “player marimba” was featured in MAKE, Volume 4. Larry added two MD24 MIDI Decoders and the marimba can now be controlled by any MIDI sequencer or keyboard.

# An Orchestra of Linux Laptops, and How to Make Your Own Laptop Instrument

Peter Kirn @ Create Digital Music:

For a generation of musicians of nearly every genre, the laptop has become an instrument. It’s easy to take for granted, but the rise of the computer for music has been remarkable. Less than twenty years ago, real-time digital synthesis and audio processing was the domain of expensive, specialized workstations. Now, $700 per seat can buy you a full-blown musical rig, with the computer hardware, gestural input courtesy the Nintendo Wii controller, and even a DIY speaker made from IKEA salad bowls. The next challenge is to make this setup as flexible and reliable as possible. Enter Linux.

# Marblephone

g000ze @ Let's Make Robots writes:

Inspired by Animusic's bodacious films, I was wondering whether a music robot in a much more simple way would be possible to make. Here is what my little boys and I created.

Still unfinished, but already working. Thank you Animusic for activating my imagination building the music machine that I am calling Marblephone.

PongThatBeat! (Vimeo)

PingPong sequencer made with max/msp and processing.

Matthew Davidson (stretta) has released the maxforlive monome suite, a collection of devices for Max For Live.

There are seven maxforlive devices (not counting some minor variations of each) that are designed to work together in any combination or number of instances within a maxforlive project.

maxforlive monome suite

• obo – my matrix step sequencer. usable on any monome, or even monomeless operation(!)
• pitches – this is like polygomé without the step sequencer bits (like fourths/malbahabla for you monome-people). Transforms your monome into a playable surface.
• polygomé 64 – I think you know what this is by now. bleep boop bleep.
• press cafe – this version is based on press cafe 2.0 that has been redesigned and re-oriented more sensibly to make it playable with any size monome. “HEY! This makes music!” - my wife Nov 29, 2009
• spectral display – adapted from tehn‘s vu_spec, there is a version for every size monome. Drop it on a track (or more) and watchen das blinkenlites.
• step filter – one upon a time I built a step sequencer application and used it to control a doepfer vocoder filter bank. Now the filter bank is built-in. Usable with any size monome, but limited to eight bands.
• automatorgator – there are two versions of this plug in for the 256, the audio version is a monome-controlled pattern gate with adjustable volume levels and slew. The MIDI version generates MIDI CC and OSC messages smoothed out at a high resolution for gooey OSC goodness.

The maxforlive monome suite is available to download as freeware.

More information: The Stretta Procedure

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Audio Cubes: Tangible Interface for Audiovisual Creation, a Percussa workshop

AudioCubes designer Bert Schiettecatte will be hosting a series of one day workshops at his private workspace, for a select number of artists, starting November 10^th 2009.

Workshop description: Starting with some theory, you will discover the history of AudioCubes, tangible interfaces, and their applications. The practical part of the workshop will let you master the technical aspects of using AudioCubes in sound, music and visual creation, and let you work on your own project using AudioCubes.

Topics covered:

• history of audiocubes
• overview of tangible interfaces
• why were audiocubes created / fundamental ideas
• how audiocubes work
• the audiocubes hardware
• audiocubes software for live performance, sound design and music production
• how to use audiocubes to control MIDI software and hardware
• how to MIDI map audiocubes
• how to use AudioCubes with Max/MSP

# Plogue Chipsounds review – retrogaming nostalgia

Torley takes a look at Plogue Chipsounds.

Tom Shear @ Waveformless shares his thoughts in his Chipsounds review

What excites me most about Chipsounds is the possibilities for the future. I’d love to see a couple options that weren’t present in the original machine introduced here. A filter section would definitely expand the possibilities (a handful of chips have filters available as their chip-specific settings), a more useful and flexible Portamento function would be great, and, as mentioned before, a wider array of effects would be a nice addition. That said, imposing the limitations of the original chips is not a bad thing in my opinion. It encourages the same kind of creative thinking and workarounds the original programmers used to use back in the day to get sounds you wouldn’t expect to be possible with such limited means. Plogue has approached this softsynth with a palpable sense of reverence and their affection for these outdated sound makers shines through in abundance. An exceptionally fun and unique instrument! [8/10]

# Veqtor’s corner: DIY Flux Capacitor Expander

Göran Sandström writes:

This demonstration uses my crude DIY flux capacitor for the Livewire AFG, basically 5 switches and 10 jacks corresponding to the flux cap pins. Two pin pairs are attenuated by two VCA's controlled by the makenoise/wiard wogglebug, crosspatched with the malekko/wiard noisering, which drives the melodic noodling, via a A-189-1 used as a bitcrusher, to perform cheap quantizing.

The sine output is sent to an input of a makenoise QMMG, driven by the A-143-1 envelope. About halfways through, a feedback path from the animated pulses, animated by A-143-1 LFOs, into the A-106-6 xpander filter (wogglebug controlled) goes into one of the pins on the flux cap expander, resulting in strange noises and unpredictable overtones.

# Seeed Studio DSO Nano, Pocket Digital Storage Oscilloscope – Review

Blair Thompson reviews the Seeed Studio DSO Nano:

For those starting out in electronics as a hobby there are some tools that are required for the job. To begin with, a soldering iron, some screw drivers, perhaps tweezers and of course a multi-meter are probably what you would consider essential.

After a while though, you are going to be looking for more. Amongst the other goodies out there to help you on your way are oscilloscopes. In the past, advice on forums has always tended more towards purchasing a second hand scope. These tend to be had for around £100 on places like E-bay and most certainly will be a few years old if available at this sort of price. Well that is changing and I was excited yesterday to get my hands on a “Scope” that may just re-write the forum advice. Meet the Nano DSO from Seed Studio…

# PetSynth

Chiron Bramberger turns his synth for the Commodore PET open source.

Petsynth features a two-octave keyboard layout, selectable note length, many selectable octaves, selectable pulse-width, vibrato, distortion, and noise or “drum mode” depending on how you use it.

All this without adding or hacking the Commodore PET in any way. Plus, it’s compiling from C, so it’s FAST – with very low latency.

The drum sounds are also crazy weird. You can also set the vibrato so high it sounds more like a laser gun or alien telephone.

# Kseniya Simonova – Sand Animation – Ukraine’s Got Talent 2009 Winner

Kseniya Simonova is an Ukrainian artist who won Ukraine's Got Talent 2009. She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and "sand painting" skills to interpret Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.

More on Kseniya Simonova

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Max For Live Sneak Peak (Vimeo)

This is a sneak peak into Max4Live. This will show you a basic intro into what you will see in the M4L environment.

# 7up Live – a Java application that combines 8 different monome applications into one interface.

With it, your monome communicates with Ableton Live 7 via MIDI and allows MLR-like functionality along with other goodies like sliders, sequencing melodies, creating patterns of beats, saving/loading/queueing your songs, and more.

# sammichSID – designed to be the “no excuses” MIDIbox SID synthesizer kit – i.e. for all those people who want a MIDIbox SID but consider building it with modules too time-consuming, too newbie-unfriendly and/or too hard to design and construct a control surface, and where MB-6582 is too expensive, too daunting and/or too hard to source all the parts.

sammichSID therefore has the following design constraints/features, which support each other:

• cheap
• small
• DIY newbie friendly
• minimal control surface
• single “walwart”/AC adapter supply, no C64 PSU brick!
• stereo SID, optimized for 8580/6582A, 6581 optionally supported
• “sandwich-style” stacked PCB design, no wires!
• laser-cut 3mm acrylic case by Ponoko, customization possible
• industry standard 2×20 character LCD with low-power LED backlight, customization possible
• common control surface parts used, customization possible
• To be available as a complete kit, including PCBs, components, case, hardware and (optionally) two 6582A SIDs!

sammichSID

MIDIbox SID Synthesizer V2 features

• One Core module and one stereo SID module, fully integrated on one PCB with power supply.
• Five “BankStick” slots, so you can store 4 banks of 128 patches, plus 128 “Ensembles” (engine and patch configurations)
• Jumpers to configure the power supply, allowing a regulated 12V input to power 6581, or unregulated AC/DC input to power 8580/6582A.
• Minimal control surface with three user-customizable buttons and LED matrix for maximum bling.
• 2×20 character LCD with support for low-power (25mA) or high-power (250mA) LED backlight.
• Potential for future upgrade to MIDIbox SID Synthesizer V3 using add-on board

# glitchscape – An online sine-wave loops creator.

Glitchscape is an experimental sound/vision musical instrument designed and programmed by Tomasz Salwnikowsi, freelance Flash developer.

glitchscape – draw blocks to create melodic sine-wave loops

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 recently:

# B4 Controller – MIDI Organ Controller for Native Instruments B4 (II) Virtual Organ Software

The goal of this project was to build a MIDI Organ Controller to play and control the Native Instruments B4 (II) virtual organ software.

Just like the software this project attempts to replicate the 'real thing'—the classic Hammond B3—as much as possible. All of the software's functionality known from the original instrument can be controlled from this controller. There is no need to take a look at the computer display or to control the software with the mouse or computer keyboard at any time.

Link via CDM

# Low Frequency Entity

Musician, designer and developer Christian Bannister wondered what it would be like to touch a bass in NI Massive and manipulate it directly and visually in real-time.

I really wanted the form to be more about the characteristics of the sound than something that only responds to the audio of the sound like what has become the standard fft based sound visualizer.

For example, the filter is being modulated here and when the rate of the modulation increases so does the rate of vibration of certain aspects of the form. Easy to see… hard to explain.

# modo [pre-release] midi CC/LFO sequencer – Modo stands for -modulating oscillators- and is basically a midi CC-sequencer.

In detail, the sequencer try to mimic a LFO behaviour with ability to modulate each other. It lets you create fancy animation curves, you wouldn't want to draw these by hand.

and…

# 64 (Video) Fingers. – New monome app called 64 (Video) Fingers. It works very similarly to Dovemouses 64 Fingers with some slight differences.