Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Here’s a neat opportunity for you music makers out there, the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition by Georgia Tech, Wired, and Harmonix (the makers of Rock Band):

INSTRUMENTS

Any new musical instrument is eligible for the competition. Instruments may generate sound acoustically or electronically, they may exist in physical or virtual manifestations, and they may be played by humans, robots, or computers. They may modify, improve, or extend existing instruments — including the human voice — or they may offer entirely new design paradigms. New instruments which cross over these categories or which defy any such categorization are also welcome.

PERFORMANCE

Entrants must perform a musical work with their new instrument to demonstrate its musicality, design, and engineering features. Performances may include traditional acoustic and/or electronic instruments alongside the new instrument. They may also include multimedia elements such as video, animation, graphics, text, kinesthetics, hydraulics, dance, or acting. The performed work may be composed by anyone, including the entrant, or it may be an arrangement of an existing work. It may be in any musical style. The duration should be between 2 and 10 minutes. Entrants must be prepared to perform with their instrument at Georgia Tech on February 27th-28th, 2009.

Via the AME blog.

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Original post by Becky Stern

This Friday, MC Frontalot himself will be at the Austin premiere of Nerdcore Rising.

Tickets and more info here. Whether you’re in Austin or not, enjoy this MC Frontalot music video from a documentary on text-based gaming:

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Original post by Luke Iseman

Joseph Casbaria’s Sequential Resonation Machine manipulates amplified sound via a (very custom) 12-position rotary switch on the console’s face -

This switch is controlled by a variable speed DC motor. The signal path is accessed from the patch panel via switch jacks in the center of the panel (2 jack groups).
Next, the user can patch the switched signals into any one of the pipe jack multiples (4 jack groups).
From these outer jacks, the signal is sent to separate speakers underneath each of the twelve pipes spanning an octave C# 4 up to C5 (4’ pipe).
The result is a very simple sequencer, using pipe resonance to produce pitch.

Sound samples available @ Oddmusic

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Original post by Collin Cunningham

Eric Gradman, the hacker who gave us the awesome TRS-80 bluetooth hack, sent us a link to his NotPocketSimon project. This was a quick and dirty collaborative version of the Milton Bradley Simon game from the ’80s that he put together in just 8 hours. He took it to the most recent Mindshare event.

…the highlight of installing this piece at Mindshare was that Nolan Bushnell who invented the damn game (originally called TouchMe at Atari) was in attendance and had nice things to say.

BTW: Eric is also part of the awesome Mutaytor circuspunk troupe. Keep an eye on them as circuspunk becomes a growing phemon (we predict).

NotPocketSimon: Collaborative Simon for Your Next Party

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• Simon Stabs
• Trampoline Simon
• Simon Says Christmas Wreath...
• Sing-Along Simon game

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Original post by Gareth Branwyn

Here’s an interesting statistic for you - 75% of all MP3 players sold in the UK are mobile phones. Now, this may seem a little misleading when you consider that 90% of mobile phones on the market can play back MP3 files but it does mask the fact that the digital music format is the most successful of all time. According to the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) over 32 million MP3 compatible devices were sold in the last twelve months, with around 24 million of these being mobiles. Compare this to 8 million CD player sales and it seems pretty clear where people see the future. ERA chairman Russel Coultart confirmed the success of the format: “Never in the history of the music business have we seen a format take off like this before. There is now no doubt that MP3 is the fastest-growing music format of all time, faster than vinyl, cassette or CD.” The ERA also predicts that UK music downloads will exceed 160million by the end of 2008 and cites one of the reasons for these fast-growing sales as the availability of cheaper album downloads from companies like Play.com and Amazon. Album download sales were up by 76% from the beginning of 2007 to the beginning of 2008, an increase that’s worth around £4.5m. However, Coultart confirms the main reason as the abolition of DRM and with major players like iTunes finally waking up it seems likely that 2009 will be even bigger. “We have said for a long time that open standards are the way forward for permanent downloads. It is no coincidence that now the DRM shackles are coming off, more retailers are entering the market.” - Paul Lester [ERA] ETA MP3 DRM

Original post by nafiz

Here’s an interesting statistic for you - 75% of all MP3 players sold in the UK are mobile phones. Now, this may seem a little misleading when you consider that 90% of mobile phones on the market can play back MP3 files but it does mask the fact that the digital music format is the most successful of all time. According to the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) over 32 million MP3 compatible devices were sold in the last twelve months, with around 24 million of these being mobiles. Compare this to 8 million CD player sales and it seems pretty clear where people see the future. ERA chairman Russel Coultart confirmed the success of the format: “Never in the history of the music business have we seen a format take off like this before. There is now no doubt that MP3 is the fastest-growing music format of all time, faster than vinyl, cassette or CD.” The ERA also predicts that UK music downloads will exceed 160million by the end of 2008 and cites one of the reasons for these fast-growing sales as the availability of cheaper album downloads from companies like Play.com and Amazon. Album download sales were up by 76% from the beginning of 2007 to the beginning of 2008, an increase that’s worth around £4.5m. However, Coultart confirms the main reason as the abolition of DRM and with major players like iTunes finally waking up it seems likely that 2009 will be even bigger. “We have said for a long time that open standards are the way forward for permanent downloads. It is no coincidence that now the DRM shackles are coming off, more retailers are entering the market.” - Paul Lester [ERA] ETA MP3 DRM

Original post by nafiz

Roland Piquepaille writes “The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has some unusual teaching programs. One PhD student, Øyvind Brandtsegg, is a graduate of the jazz program and this article describes how has developed a computer program and a musical instrument for improvisation. The PhD student is 36 years old and is at the same time a composer, a musician and computer programmer. His ‘computer instrument′ can take any recorded sound as input and split it into a number of very short sound particles that can last for between 1 and 10 milliseconds. ‘These fragments may be infinitely reshuffled, making it possible to vary the music with no change in the fundamental theme.’” Brandtsegg improvisational software is called ImproSculpt his site contains several selections from his musical output, including “some pieces made with the predecessor of ImproSculpt,” called FollowMe.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by timothy

It’s a little too late to join in on the fun of this online drum circle, but the video is really interesting. Hopefully they will have another session in the near future. I’ll keep you all updated.

Telematic Drum Circle is an interdisciplinary art project which combines Tele-Robotics, Computer Science, Pneumatics and Music. The project explores the rupture of deeper communication in the technology meditated world, and addresses the issue of global harmony by sharing participants’ rhythmical spirit produced through the telematic live drum ensemble. It consists of two main components: a set of sixteen robotic drums arranged in an installation space and an interactive website networked with these drums. Each drum is representative of a geo-cultural region.

More about the Telematic Drum Circle [Drum Instruments]

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Original post by Marc de Vinck

Musician/producer Pete Drake performs his song “Forever″ with his steel guitar through a classic talkbox. A surreal and beautiful performance - the talkbox in use here is cool in and of itself!

The freestanding design with handle is inspiring and simple talkboxes are pretty easy to make. [via Boing Boing]

More:

HOW TO - build a talk box

The Sonovox - a retro Peter Frampton “Talk Box”

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Original post by Collin Cunningham

Yes I hereby proclaim this to be International Vegetable Music Week!

Tyler of Oddinstrument shared pics from his Vegetable Instrument Workshop at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. Attendees produced a number of auditory organics including a cucumber saxophone, coconut/carrot slide trumpet, and the butternut squash drum machine.

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Vegetable Orchestra performs
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Carved carrot clarinet

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Original post by Collin Cunningham

We′re not quite sure why we haven′t seen more MP3 players shaped like cows yet but thankfully Creative is addressing what must surely be a gaping hole in the market by redesigning its Zen Stone player. Called the Zen Moo, it’s a miniature cow’s face with controls built into the nostrils and ears and is available as the straight Zen Moo or the Zen Moo Plus. The latter has an LED screen, FM radio, alarm clock and a game in which you have to feed and care for a miniature cow, which we′re assuming is similar to those irritating tamagotchi things. Both offer a built in miniature speaker and 20 hours of playback time, with 2GB of capacity and support for MP3 and WMA files. If you’re looking to pick one up for bovine-friendly pals though you’ll have to shop abroad - it’s only being released in China at the moment, which is probably a good thing, and there are no details on pricing. - Paul Lester [Epizenter] Creative mp3 player Zen

Original post by nafiz

Got a favourite album or track that’s so damn good you want everyone to hear it? Well then step forward the BoomBench. Created by German designer Michael Schoner of NL Architects, it’s a park bench sized Bluetooth compatible sound system with twin 60-watt co-axial speakers and two subwoofers built in. There’s also a bass shaker in the seat which we’re guessing simply vibrates to the music and it was demoed in Amsterdam last month for the Urban Play event. The idea is that those sitting on the bench can pair their portable Ṃ player/mobile phone and pump tunes through it, which is a great idea in principle, though some numpty is bound to turn up with a ‘Best of Michael Bolton′ album and ruin it for everyone. Sadly we don′t think these will be replacing the boring old wooden benches any times soon, but you can check out the video of it in action below. - Paul Lester [HackADay] BoomBench Bluetooth speakers

Original post by nafiz

If you believe the rumours circling around the music industry at the moment then Apple may be close to securing a long-overdue deal to provide DRM-free music from major recording studios. It is currently in talks with Universal, Warner and Sony BMG to secure the rights for its iTunes website, which aside from the obvious advantages also means that it’ll no longer be providing tunes exclusively for its own audio players.Everyone seems a little hesitant to offer any solid details at this point as any deal is reliant on Apple being reasonable enough to play ball, but with rivals like Play.com and 7Digital already offering such content it would seem like a necessary move to consolidate its position. More unsubstantiated rumours suggest that Sony could be looking to abolish DRM on its catalogue altogether, and if this is true then it would make sense for others to follow suit. Hopefully the success of those who have already adopted the new model will prove that people are more than happy to pay for music as long as they don’t feel like they’re being taken advantage of or ripped off, then we can wave goodbye to this whole DRM debacle for good. - Paul Lester [CNet] Apple iTunes DRM

Original post by nafiz

The Vienna vegetable orchestra shares video of their shopping, creation, and performance processes. The included concert footage is from a benefit for the Spanish Vegetable Workers Union.

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Carved carrot clarinet
&amp
Make music with veggies

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Original post by Collin Cunningham

Emtec will be the latest company to try its hand at digital media storage and streaming following the launch of its S800 HDD Movie Cube. This Apple TV rival has a 500GB hard drive built-in along with an analogue/DVB tuner which allows it to act as a PVR by recording and saving your favourite programmes to the internal drive. Of course you can copy your own music, video and photos over and there’s wired and wireless network access available which presumably allows you to stream content stored on a home computer. The usual connections and format support are here, including HDMI and DivX, but aside from being able to convert DVD and video there doesn’t appear to be anything radically different here that you won’t find among rivals. Still, it may well be worth a look when it’s released in December, word on the street is Dixon’s will be selling it for £229.99. - Paul Lester [PocketLint] Emtec media streamer jukebox

Original post by nafiz