Brett Park of Shiverware wrote to share news about Rainboard, a DIY dynamic isomorphic keyboard.
The Rainboard is a 61 button isomorphic keyboard. Each button contains a RGB led in order to light up the button. A midi value is also mapped to each button. The colours and midi values of the buttons are set from an external source (currently the Musix iOS application, but could easily be set by any serial midi device) using sysex messages. This allows the layout to be change very rapidly. All that needs to be done is to use Musix to select the desired layout on screen and push a button to send the data to the Rainboard. The Rainboard then sets all the LEDs and midi values then stores these values in EEPROM to save settings across resets so the external device is not needed after the desired layout is set.
When buttons are pressed the note values are sent to an onboard midi instrument shield in order to produce sound via a 1/8 inch audio jack. As well, the midi values are sent to Musix (with note identifier values rather than midi values). This allows Musix to know exactly which button was pressed if multiple notes of the same midi value are present on the board. Musix can then use it’s built in synthesizer to play the music or it can send the data on to other iOS apps to synthesize the audio (such as NLogSynth, Arctic Keys, or SampleWiz).
Music sound designer, composer and performer Diego Stocco has posted another video demonstrating you can make some lovely music using non-traditional sound sources.
Almost everyday, on my way to a local bakery, I walk in front of a dry cleaners. When they have the front door open, I hear a lot of interesting sounds coming from their work equipment. Eventually, the different mechanical and steam sounds sparked something in my mind, so one day I asked the owners if I could record a piece of music by using their machines as musical instruments.
I used a puff iron, press and dry cleaning machines, a washer, clothes hangers, and a bucket full of soap. The bass and lead sounds were created from the buzzing tones coming from the conduits and engines. There are no additional sounds from any traditional or electronic instruments. Enjoy!
An interactive architectural mapping. Fete des Lumieres / Lyon / France / 2010
A mapping by 1024 Architecture, projected on the facade of former Lyrical theater the “Celestins”. The building deformations and figures were controlled by the audience, using a microphone and an audio analysis algorythm.
The official Tenori on iOS app enter the app store the other week but at £12 I was a little hesitant to buy it. After a little thought and a bit of googling I decided it was indeed worth the price.
The cheapest hardware Tenori-On (the TNR-O) is roughly £500 where as the current price of the iPad 2 is £499 (cheapest wifi only model) so considering that both the devices are pretty much exactly the same price (and I already own an iPad) it makes sence to get the iOS version.
Mark Mosher shares some info on the Aalto semi-modular software synth.
Peter Kirn over at Create Digital Music did a post on a new synth by Madrona Labs last month. Even though I wasn’t in the market for a new synth right now I ended up buying this Aalto within an hour or so of downloading the demo so I wanted to pass this along and help promote Madrona’s great work. At $99 this is an incredible value.
You’ve heard the gripes, and heard and seen the somewhat unscientific demos. Now it’s time to examine the over-compression of music with – science! Earl Vickers of STMicroelectronics examines the Loudness Wars in an academic paper, as noted to us by reader photohounds.
Peter at Create Digital Music: Chicago-based hacker and synthesist Matt Heins is working on an open source synth kit. As a co-creator of the MeeBlip open source-synth hardware, I’m biased — I want more open synth hardware! So this is looking like some great company. The instrument is 8-bit, with analog filter circuitry, coded in C.
Muze is an Arduino instrumentalist who creates melodies that evolve over time.
Muze has a palette of notes that it can in-turn interpret and compose into various rhythms and phrases that are strung together to form something musical. The user can then influence these strings of notes and rhythms to create entirely new compositions. Much like you would a tune a radio to get a new song, Muze can be tuned to provide new and different melodies.
In the interest of keeping Muze from becoming another knob laden techno-fest of an instrument, interaction has been limited to just one input.
On Rainlith, the primitive naturally granular sound of a big rainstick gets explored in real-time by cyber-age sound manipulation tools.
It's an interactive piece in witch the movement of the audience's body activates an electric motor, making a reflex movement on the structure that embraces the instrument. The sound of the rainstick is captured and processed in realtime, and sent 24 meters above, filling the empty space of a old industrial cereal container. The reverberated acoustic mix is then received back by the audience in the spot right below the opening of the container.
NeuronDrum is a sample based rhythm composer by Poul Vestergaard.
It has 512 audio samples 32MB. Most of the sounds are made for electronica music. All rhythms is made of a neuron based approach with 8 neurons.
The first neuron works as a kind off metronome. All neuron can send impulses to each other. Every neuron has a threshold value. If the threshold is 3 then it will need 4 impuses to fire the sample, and send impulses to other neurons.
Electronic musician, vocalist, and inventor Tim Exile is back; while the Google Doodle today of an interactive Les Paul inspired lots of people to invest some time fiddling and hacking, in Tim’s case, it inspired a whole song. And, to my knowledge, it’s the first time the homepage of Google got its own ode.
Matt Davis hacks a Kinect using OpenNI & Max/MSP. With it mapped to Ableton live and Henry Strange's MIDI to DMX Laser Control System, Matt demonstrates this fun a/v control system.
A quick wrap up of the debut of Amon Tobin's ambitious 'ISAM' Live show which launched itself to the public on June 1st as part of Montreal's Mutek Festival.
Bluebrain's The National Mall will only work within the physical boundaries of the National Mall park in Washington DC. It is a location-specific album and is not intended for use outside of the designated area. Please follow us on Twitter (@bluebrainmusic) to learn more about when a location-aware album might be coming to a location closer to you. While on the Mall, we recommend you quit other applications from the multi-tasking bar on your phone for best performance. If you are having difficulties, force quit or restart your phone. Make sure to quit the app fully once you leave the area to avoid it draining your battery when it isn't being used.
OUTLOUD.FM lets you create rooms where you can chat and listen to music with your friends with a real time collaborative playlist. Just sign in, pick a room name, and start uploading music!
Yes, I create digital music, too. One of the things I’ve loved about CDM is the chance to share music making, from the construction of the tools to the production of performances and recordings. If that’s all we ever get out of music – getting to share with someone else – that’s already more than enough for me.
This week I’ve released my own End of Train Device, a full-length ambient / leftfield electronic album.
Barry Wood is back with another selection of interesting products showcased at the NAMM show.
Welcome to the 2011 edition of the NAMM Oddities …finally
This year the show went smoothly but due to a perfect storm created by of a pile of work (the paying variety), local politics, and the writing of my first now published book, the Oddities were nearly 4 months late.
There was no shortage of Oddities-worthy items at the show this year. Even though this is probably the last NAMM report to go online, I'm certain that there are a number of products that will see their press debut on these pages.
At first, it seemed like it might be just a blip: amidst generally declining sales of physical music, down sharply from their 1990s boom, vinyl sales were trending up. The reversal started with a slight uptick in 2007 – already noticeable as the CD had begun its collapse. That slight uptick has turned into a small boom. From a tiny 300,000 units in US sales in 1993, the vinyl record is projected to do some 3.6 million units in sales.
Radium is inviting you to have a look behind the scenes at the Radiumphonic Workshop. In the video below we delve under the bonnet of Radium to have a look at what makes it all tick – the sound lab operated by the fine team at Radium. It demonstrates a rare glimpse of how we work, as well as showing off some of the machines, technology, people and creative approaches we use to manipulate sound!
Computing technology is an inherently disruptive thing, wonderfully so. It solves problems you didn’t know you had. It creates problems, then creates new problems in even trying to understand those problems. Simply using a computer is a kind of design statement.
You’ve seen questions about what happens with computer performance and audience interaction. But, in AMALGAM, design student Jacob Lysgaard asks those questions, and proposes solutions, in a new way: with a giant talking robot face.
Good people, unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control, the "clean" version of our new album, The Hot Sauce Committee pt 2 has leaked. So as a hostile and retaliatory measure with great hubris we are making the full explicit aka filthy dirty nasty version available for streaming on our site. We hope this brings much happiness, hugs, and harmony. Enjoy Kikoos for life!
The armies of the earbuds are everywhere, as people – since the dawning of the Walkman – tune out their surroundings. What if, instead, your surroundings became soundtracks? That’s the question posed by a mobile app research project, partnering between New York’s Times Square and a creative team at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
UrbanRemix invites users to capture geo-tagged sounds with a free iOS and Android app, then to string them together into sound compositions on the Web
Codebending is the exploration of software with “patch points.” Patch points expose the inner workings of computer programs, and allow for atypical connections between things like games, music making software, office suites, etc.
Every movie blogger is obligated to devote a post to The Wilhelm Scream AT LEAST once in their lives. And they’re all pretty much the same: A quote from wikipedia, the compilation video on YouTube, and the latest movie they found it in. This post is a little different. Starting last year I started collecting Wilhelm Screams, planning on making a video showing some favorites. That project spiraled out of control, and the result is a (pretty) complete collection.
Max Mathews is best known for his involvement in the debut of digital synthesis, but he contributed much more. His Radio Baton predicted gestural controllers that arrived much later from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, and it may be his code design ideas that outlast even the memory of the computer’s first musical utterances.
Slewpi is a new type of app that lets you create music and synthesized sound and animation by painting on the screen with your fingers.
Slewpi is super easy to use, just paint with your fingers and choose different colors and brushes to change the strokes and sounds. Slewpi records what you do and plays it back in a loop.
Choose different brushes to change the visual style as well as the sound of your strokes in real-time. The different brushes correspond to different synthesizer waveform and vibrato settings allowing you to create new and diverse audio/visual compositions.
Strings of numbers are everywhere in our world, tucked just outside our awareness alongside identifiers like bar codes. Dutch media artist and inventor Leo van der Veen simply plucks that information and brings it to the fore.
A few months ago I published a post on how to make a MIDI Ribbon Controller with Arduino. In the meantime I had a few ideas to improve both hardware and software and also felt the need to change many parameters without having to reprogram every time Arduino. Finally I placed the controller in a case, thanks to Laura who built it. So this is version 2.0 of my MIDI Ribbon Controller, which finally becomes a much more practical tool.
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