soundwidgets.com

Gesture Recognition on Resistive Touch Screens

2011-11-26T10:51:00.002-05:00

...more information can be extracted from resistive touch screens by understanding and modeling the physics behind the process. When two touches occur, a segment of resistance from the passive screen, plus the resistance of the touch contacts, is paralleled with the conducting segment of the active screen, so the impedance seen by the supply is reduced and current increases..."

from: http://www.analog.com/library/analogDialogue/archives/45-06/gesture_recognition.html

What Seattle Weather Sounds Like

2011-11-22T08:33:00.001-05:00

More -> http://tomdukich.com/weather%20songs.html

Steganography 20 - Generate Melody from Text

2011-11-21T08:08:00.002-05:00

This morning I was playing around with a soft-synth and didn't have a midi controller hooked-up -- so I was using the QUERTY keyboard to play notes. Then I realized I could type words and thereby make cute little melodies, that would repeat and had themes... pretty interesting sounds, actually. I liked the idea that these melodies could be decoded back into text (with a little effort).

A few googles later, bing!

Here is Hello World in C Major:

Read the whole article here: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/security/steganodotnet20.aspx

6 Launchpads & Ableton

2011-11-20T07:18:00.000-05:00

6 Launchpads makes for a huge playing surface with distinct areas of control.

Demo of a Novation synth and 3 Launchpads together

2011-11-19T19:23:00.002-05:00

Usng 3 Lucnhpadss with a Novation synth...

What I want for Chanukah

2011-11-19T19:18:00.000-05:00

A deep-featured button controller coupled with cool slicy software PLUS 2 Stribe-like horizontal LED-festooned touch-strips to twiddle track position and needle drops - even supports a pinch input! Add monome-like sequenced sample chunking thingambobbery and you had me at hello! Check out Edison on this thing:

Reactable for iPad / iPhone!

2011-11-15T08:28:00.000-05:00

A very cool UI designed for one of the very first multi-touch tables is ported to iOS - a great combination!

pissah controllah

2011-11-14T20:06:00.003-05:00

What I really like about this controller is the combination of real knobs and an illuminated surface.

What if a monome had knobs?

2011-09-29T09:42:00.001-04:00

Here's the latest minimal toy from monome.org:

holocene from stretta on Vimeo.

Awesome "Arms" music control video

2011-04-26T10:56:00.000-04:00

Totally great and not taking himself too seriously...

Real audio and MIDI i/o for iPad?

2011-03-18T07:54:00.000-04:00

Alesis Studio Dock aka iO Pro (per Alesis' site)

Game-changer? Could be! Purportedly solving the number one complaint of most iPad musicians - iO Pro adds "real" i/o to the iPad, providing a traditional hardware MIDI interface, USB/MIDI, 2 XLR inputs (w/ 48v phantom power on one channel), R+L 1/4" outputs, headphones out, a footswitch jack, trim pots in all the right places, an impedance switch on one input, and even composite Video out! Everything but, well, the iPad...

List is $399 but Sweetwater's catalog shows it at $199. Add an iPad (~$500 depending on your prefs) and this could be an affordable and flexible alternative for laptop musicians, or for musicians currently using the iPad primarily as a dumb controller for existing computer-based music apps.

Of course, much will depend on the availability and affordability of IPAD apps that can take advantage of these added i/o options. And it remains to be seen whether the quality of the audio produced by the combo actually turns out to be "Pro". Can't wait to get my hands on one!

More reading:

CreateDigitalMusic iPad app rundown

Other CDM articles on iPad apps

An in-depth look at io Dock @ MATRIXSYNTH

The Missing Link OSC/MIDI Translator

2011-03-11T09:43:00.001-05:00

"...a standalone hardware device which contains its own WiFi radio, and translates specially-coded OSC messages sent from your mobile device or computer into standard MIDI messages to control synthesizers, drum machines, mixers, digital audio workstations, or anything which responds to MIDI commands. It does this with low latency, high flexibility and configurability, and without the need for a computer anywhere in the control chain. Multiple wireless OSC devices may connect simultaneously to The Missing Link, making collaboration easy."

$150 pre-order: http://www.wifimidi.com/store/

Hours of mindless fun (for free)

2010-11-30T11:27:00.011-05:00

GlitchSequencer

GlitchSequencer is free software that allows you to create cellular automata to trigger MIDI and/or OSC. It can also be controlled by a monome:

SimpleSynth

For basic MIDI tasks, I use SimpleSynth, a lightweight MIDI instrument that is also a free download.

Trying out slideshow plugins/services

2010-10-08T09:58:00.001-04:00

This is some random pic off my desktop along with a randomly selected song.

They have a paid version that leaves it logo free and add titles I think.

Circles

2010-09-11T09:54:00.009-04:00

This is a video project I did over the summer using FinalCut Pro. The video is from www.archive.org and the sound is by phineus + twine. Andy's "sax" part is guitar thru a MIDI converter. The sequencing is all done on a Quasimidi 309 beatbox. The music ends when we throw too much MIDI at the 309 and it freezes-up.

Max/MSP 2-way communication w/ iPod (or iPad!)

2010-06-16T12:57:00.002-04:00

Fantastik from Pink Twins connects your iPod/iPod Touch, and soon iPad, to your Max/MSP music programs. And it's free. Uses the standard UDPSend and UDPReceive Max objects. The iPad version is on its way to AppStore...

Livid Ohm 64 Review

2010-05-25T07:57:00.010-04:00

More people should subscribe to the world's greatest Audio publication: TapeOp

My review of the Livid Ohm 64 is on page 58...

I previously reviewed the monome 40h, in my opinion still the best illuminated button controller ever, result of one of the most-inspiring DIY projects I know.

Rhizome groove machine

2010-04-21T11:01:00.005-04:00

mmmm, yummy! more info

Stribe Proto sample mixing

2010-04-08T06:56:00.005-04:00

This is a primitive Max/MAP sequencer app for mixing samples and triggering MIDI with the stribe. On-screen the grid sequencer triggers a sample to begin. Depending on tempo, more or less of the sample is played. Some short sounds are triggered repeatedly. Stopping the sequencer and/or removing trigger points allows sounds to continue playing to conclusion.

BTW this is an early Stribe Proto mod'd to run Curious Inventor firmware. A neat happy accident is that I can put the cursors and the level meters on the same LEDs.

Further Max programming is required to get toggle control over "chunks" of LEDs to add button-like effects (for loading samples, paging, etc).

Curious Inventor Stribe Quad demo

2010-04-08T06:51:00.002-04:00

quad stribe Live looping mixer from CuriousInventor on Vimeo.

Scott @ Curious Inventor put together a nice demo mapping his Stribe to affect loops in Ableton Live... via Vimeo

Mark Bokowiec performs with Stribe

2010-03-22T10:21:00.002-04:00

"Stribe controlling Logic8 via IAC"

It's from 2008 but I just came across it...

Tanais Fox's 16-stribe project gets fancy

2010-03-22T09:36:00.004-04:00

Check out these images on Make Blog of Tanais Fox's drawing for a milled aluminum case to hold 16 stribe1 kits.

sound meets kit meet art

2010-03-21T07:55:00.002-04:00

Check out this beautiful pocket oscillator kit, idyllic beach not included. via Make

stretta C74 interview

2010-03-18T09:36:00.002-04:00

stretta gets some well-deserved attention. Gotta check me out (e.g. afford) this M4L thing!

Phineus + Twine

2010-03-01T12:27:00.002-05:00

<a href="http://phineus.bandcamp.com/track/midifier">midifier by phineus</a>

twine: midi files
phineus: knobs/309

some recent trax from phineus

2010-02-15T19:23:00.006-05:00

<a href="http://phineus.bandcamp.com/album/hckdmlnbllr">manimalis by phineus</a>

<a href="http://phineus.bandcamp.com/track/uphanded">uphanded by phineus</a>

<a href="http://phineus.bandcamp.com/album/we-are-the-circuit-man">wearethecircuitman by phineus</a>

Cymatics = Visual Sound

2010-01-31T08:09:00.001-05:00

Cymatics Scientist Says Sound is a Bubble, Not a Wave by Jodina Meehan
Check out the cool article linked above...

I've always thought of sound waves this way, but had never seem them represented like this. This is a great way to think about sound when mic'ing instruments or creating sound art.

monomnichord by Calum Scott

2010-01-23T06:56:00.000-05:00

monomnichord from Calum Scott on Vimeo.

"A max/msp patch that uses a monome 40h and a stribe to emulate a Suzuki Omnichord."

It's wonderful to see music being made with a stribe1 alongside a monome.

2010-01-02T10:10:00.000-05:00

wearethecircuitman.phineus.ep

stretta's procedures

2009-11-20T06:44:00.003-05:00

maxforlive: stepfilter from stretta on Vimeo.

stretta continues to blow my mind - this time with his monome app 'step filter' running inside Ableton Live

KORG MicroSampler

2009-11-19T11:49:00.001-05:00

A nice run-thru of features on the new bang-for-buck sampler from KORG

2009-11-08T09:17:00.002-05:00

via Anarchy Rice

Novation’s new ~~monome~~ controller in action. 3-color buttons, seamless integration with Ableton Live. Only apparent drawback is it only does MIDI via Automap mode. But at only $200! street it's definitely worth exploring.

I wonder when they're gonna make a Stribe?

Chladni form as output?

2009-10-23T18:41:00.005-04:00

Weird thought of the day:

Thinking about capturing 2D blobs and turning them into sound. What about 2D blobs made by sound?

What if you videotaped the changing design on a chladni plate and then used software to turn that video into sound?

I posted earlier about a Chladni plate powered by a speaker.

Touching the Sound

2009-10-20T10:20:00.003-04:00

Touch Loop Navigator from christian bannister on Vimeo.

Check out this great project at subcycle.org.

subcycle labs is the creative work of christian bannister a musician, designer and developer located in portland, oregon

Foxy's 16-stribe monster

2009-10-20T06:58:00.003-04:00

16-Stribe Monster from Stribe Forum member Foxy

16 Stribes will be mated to a variety of button pads. See the build log and current status here

Foxy's next challenge is getting the Max patches sorted. I'm still a bit all-thumbs with Max myself. I can probably cobble something together, but if someone has or can make an elegant solution to run 2 8-stribe Stribes (2 Arduinos) and 2+ monomes (not sure if he's going Arduinome or using monome boards), please give a shout-out on the Stribe Forum!

Monome Meet 2009

2009-10-10T06:52:00.006-04:00

video still of MakingTheNoise

I would have loved to be at this event in Princeton Oct 3 but just couldn't work it out. Hopefully there will be a next time... Some consolation is this great Vimeo page with tons of great footage: http://vimeo.com/groups/monomeetfall2009 as well as some awesome live sets!

~~I hear there were also some great live performances in the evenings so when I find some video or audio of those I'll post them here...~~

Listen: Monome-Made Music, from tehn to Daedelus
By Peter Kirn

or

Latest tracks by monomeet

phineus: Not On

2009-10-09T20:20:00.002-04:00

phineus: Not On by phineus

Stribe / Livid Concept Sketch

2009-09-27T17:43:00.001-04:00

Stribe/Livid Hybrid Concept
Borrowed the case shape from the Livid "Tactic" http://www.lividinstruments.com/hardware_other.php for these concept sketches

See: http://www.soundwidgets.com/2009/01/monome-40h-3-stribe1-modules-granular.html

2009-09-17T05:29:00.000-04:00

Moldover's new CD not only delivers music, it completely redefines what it means to "play an album"... Moldover's CD packaging itself IS a new musical instrument! The CD is mounted on a custom designed circuit board, intricately patterned and powering a "light-Theremin". Yes! You play the artwork and it makes sound!

Pretty dang clever!

First Industrial Stribe application

2009-09-15T09:52:00.000-04:00

from CuriousInventor.com:

TracyEvansProductions, a company that specializes in interactive tradeshow exhibits and other multimedia, has integrated Stribes into a kiosk that interactively explains the interaction of water and oil in wells for Schlumberger.

Kudos to Scott Driscoll @ Curious Inventor for making this all happen Stribe-wise!

The Drum Buddy

2009-09-09T08:27:00.000-04:00

Super-limited-edition drum gizmo - I love this thing - and the demo is too cool. I guess Laurie Anderson has one. I've thought of a similar concept but on a much larger scale, using different length rods rotating around a pole and IR triggers... anyways, check out the vids and an in-depth article at: matrixsynth. Be sure to stick out the video to the part where he brings in the scratchy record. Awesome.

Visit quintronandmisspussycat.com and freshkillsflagship.com for more info, images, & music.

Monome on Letterman

2009-09-04T16:44:00.000-04:00

At the end he asks her what it is and and pokes at the buttons and she says it's her Twitter thing. Too bad she didn't give monome.org a plug, but hey it's totally featured so...

New v of Tony B Machine

2009-08-07T08:49:00.000-04:00

It will make them boogie! Instadance-hall smackdown fun.

http://www.tony-b.org/

Stribe Duo with potentiometers, joystick

2009-07-13T10:22:00.001-04:00

Curious Inventor made a cool custom Stribe1 "Duo" with some pots and a joystick.

More here: http://soundwidgets.com/smf/index.php?topic=266.msg1030#msg1030

Chladni Plate

2009-07-11T09:02:00.000-04:00

Chladni Song by Meara O'Reilly, film by Lisa Foti-Straus

This phenomenon was known at least as far back as 1680. Ernst Chladni published his technique to demonstrate the phenomenon in 1787 (wikipedia: Ernst Chladni), using a bow against a piece of metal sprinkled with flour. Nowadays a speaker is placed under the plate to more accurately control the amplitude and pitch of the signal to be displayed. Which actual patterns appear are affected not only by the pitches and resonance, but also by how the plate is physically attached and (presumably) the location of the speaker.

Here's a good explanation: Chladni Plates

And here's how to build yer own, via Make magazine: http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol16/?pg=128

New Stribe Goodies from Curious Inventor

2009-06-10T21:04:00.000-04:00

Double: http://curiousinventor.com/store/product/292

Quad: http://curiousinventor.com/store/product/293

Shield: http://curiousinventor.com/store/product/290

Scott has been hard at work designing and making a simple system to connect multiple stribe kits together. The system includes a purpose-built shield that integrates a multiplexing circuit to use 12 sensors with the Arduino's 6 ADCs.

Curtis Roads and Granular Synthesis

2009-05-13T13:27:00.001-04:00

Nice little vid series re: Curtis Roads and Granular Synthesis

'MOTHERBOARD - THE GRANULAR SYNTHESIS OF CURTIS ROADS'
from VBS.TV

My favorite part is where he compares granular synthesis to landscaping.

monomecontrol Max objects

2009-05-08T09:12:00.000-04:00

A collection of abstractions created by James Drake in Max/MSP 5, used to build monome interfaces.

Discussion here: http://post.monome.org/comments.php?DiscussionID=4478

Time to get working on some stribecontrol objects!

low cost multi-touch for music

2009-05-04T07:13:00.000-04:00

Multitouch Prototype 2 from Randy Jones on Vimeo.

My brother sent me this video of an awesome DIY multi-touch controller for music applications. No blinky lights, but it appears to be true multi-touch, pressure-sensitive, and the method is very clever. Plus the music apps look pretty cool so far.

jesusizeme (Phineus)

2009-04-25T23:27:00.000-04:00

Phineus music + Roger Fritz video = jesusizme

More cool stribe-age from machinecollective

2009-04-15T17:16:00.000-04:00

Check out this sweeeet case for 2 stribe1s and 4 potentiometers...

More pics here from machinecollective

...some of machinecollective's other products, together with the dual stribe1 case.

Blue stribe1 kit pics and movies

2009-04-11T19:18:00.000-04:00

A really nice Flickr set from machinecollective, demoing a stribe1 kit in progress built with custom blue LEDs.

Quasimidi Sirius User Manual pdf (English)

2009-01-30T08:45:00.000-05:00

sirius_manual.pdf

Why am I posting this here?

Well, I recently acquired a rare and wonderful Quasimidi Sirius keyboard/workstation. Though the manufacturer (Quasimidi) has been defunct for many years, I figured I'd be able to find and download a manual for this quite sophisticated device. HOWEVER, the most-easily-found version of the download is a rough scan in a damaged PDF file that would not print on my printer. Very frustrating.

A good 2 hrs of web searching ultimately brought me here: http://www.quasimidisupport.de/html/downloads1.htm where lives a very nice pdf of the manual that prints-out crisp and clear. Yay!

I hope this information will be of use to other seekers.

monome 40h + 3 stribe1 modules = granular synthesis

2009-01-14T08:35:00.000-05:00

Stribe1 Monome Sampler Scrubber from CuriousInventor on Vimeo.

Scott from curiousinventor has whipped-up this super-cool demo of a monome 40h working with 3 stribe1s. The devices are connected via software (Max/MSP). Links to the Max patch coming soon!

Finally, a reason to get an iPhone

2009-01-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

TouchOSC is an iPhone / iPod Touch application that lets you send and receive Open Sound Control messages over a Wi-Fi network using the UDP protocol.

The application allows you to remote control and receive feedback from software and hardware that implements the OSC protocol such as Pure Data and Max/MSP.

TouchOSC

Arduino audio projects

2008-12-17T11:22:00.000-05:00

Just a few 'tube videos I found of Arduino music-making:

Auduino - The Arduino synthesiser
Arduino polyphonic synthesizer
Arduino drum machine
another Arduino drum machine
Arduino Sequencer

Plus check out this cool CDM article I just found that pretty much covers it: Making Music with the Arduino: Wires, Solder, and Sound Round-Up

Fabulous progress on Stribe1... Stribe8!

2008-11-30T16:08:00.000-05:00

Stribe1 x 8 + new max/msp software demo from CuriousInventor on Vimeo.

Scott's been busy putting together a stribe1 x 8 and writing new firmware and patches. Also some promising experiments using 4051 chips to multiplex AD inputs on the Arduino. More info here

A new simple Stribe app from Thyeks

2008-11-17T09:24:00.000-05:00

This video is from "Thyeks", who lives in the Carribean. Here's a link to his app if you want to mess with it: [link]

stribe1 demo

2008-11-17T01:05:00.000-05:00

Using the app Scalar with a pair of Stribe1 prototypes:

The Stribe is Dead... Long Live the Stribe!

2008-11-12T14:44:00.000-05:00

The original Stribe Prototype kit has been discontinued (oh no!), but a new modular kit is taking it's place: the single-strip Stribe1 (yay!).

The Stribe1 kit (also available assembled) gives you everything you need to build a "single stribe" touch-control module, minus the microcontroller.

Multiple Stribe1s can be chained together with a ribbon connector and attached to the microcontroller of your choice.

For now we have building-block firmware and patches for the ATMEGA-based Arduino and Arduino MINI. Bitwacker (PIC) firmware is in the works.

The kit consists of a long and narrow PCB (~ 9 3/4" x 7/8"), a single 170mm touchstrip, 2 columns of 64 LEDs (128 LEDs total), and all the supporting circuitry, driver chips, ribbon connector, plexiglas enclosure, etc.

The instructions include step-by-step details on placing and soldering the parts, wiring it to an Arduino, and using the software.*

I think it would be fairly straightforward to hook one (or more) of these up to a monome 40h, but I'll defer the details to those who know the monome's internals better than I do. (Note: due to MUCH interest in this idea, I'll be trying this soon with my own 40h and will post my results)

The Stribe1 project was made possible with the generous involvement of Scott Driscoll of Curious Inventor (curiousinventor.com). He was kind enough to put my name on the project (and circuit board) even though he actually did most of the work.

Get yours here: http://curiousinventor.com/kits/stribe

* Note: assembly instructions are done, but we still haven't posted firmware, patches and Arduino wiring... Soon!

Blue Ribbons

2008-10-20T19:26:00.000-04:00

I was pleased and flattered that the Stribe receceived TWO "Editor's Choice" blue ribbons this weekend at Maker Faire Austin 2008. Thanks guys! It's a wonderful feeling to be recognized for all the long nights of hard work.

I made some terrific new friends and got to talk "geek" non-stop for 2 days!

And of course it's always a distinct pleasure watching people discover the Stribe!

Special thanks go to stretta for his demo app, and to Vlad Spears for Scalar.

Goin to the Faire

2008-10-16T22:53:00.000-04:00

Heading to Austin tomorrow for the 2008 Maker Faire.

I'm bringing the Stribe along with a new firmware rev from Kid Sputnik to show off, along with an updated version of a Max patch written by Stretta.

Last year I went to the Faire in Austin with the original Stribe prototype under my arm and just wandered around, showing it to a couple folks. Then a few months ago I had my first booth at the San Mateo Faire - which was incredible. I plan to bring a bit less stuff, and the booth won't be quite as "fancy" this time.

I'm psyched to meet up with Scott Driscoll from Curious Inventor (http://www.curiousinventor.com), David Fowler from ucHobby (http://www.uchobby.com), and several others for a weekend of gettin' our geek on, and BBQ.

Scott and I have designed a new product, called "Stribe1", which is a single-strip stribe module - one touchstrip and 2 columns of LEDs. Soon we'll be selling these on his curiousinventor.com site, along with a variety of touchstrips from SpectraSymbol. There will be an official announcement and lots of pics and demos soon. Can't wait to see what people make with 'em!

Got my cowboy hat on and I'm mostly packed... I'll try to post some pics as the weekend progresses.

How to Make a Cheap Multitouch Pad

2008-09-02T10:32:00.000-04:00

via MTmini

The above demo shows 1/2 of the ingredients of a "true" multi-touch display.

To make images appear under your fingers instead of over on the computer's screen, takes only a few more steps:

1) Remove the IR filter from the camera so it can detect infrared, then add a filter over the lens to ignore visible light, so the camera only "sees" IR.

2) Add an IR source inside the box, pointing up (many commercially available security cameras already come configured with IR "blast" arrays, or they can be purchased as a separate unit, or make your own).

3) Exchange the tracing paper for a material that is still translucent yet allows IR light thru.

4) Add a little LCD projector next to the camera in the box, also pointed up.

TaDa!

Now your hands will be bathed in invisible infrared light. As your fingers approach and/or touch the surface, the camera "sees" IR blobs, which are then processed in software to differentiate touch and other gestures. The "Touchlib" library includes everything you need to process the images (as seen in the video). Now you project the image up onto the touch surface from below. The image is projected in the visible spectrum and so doesn't interfere with the IR blobs being received by the camera.

There is also a way to get crisper IR blobs, without bathing the user's hands in IR, by using a technology called "Frustrated Total Internal Refraction" (FTIR), popularized by Jeff Han. FTIR relies on the unique properties of acrylic sheet, e.g. it is extremely reflective on the inside surface, until touched (or until it gets dirty). By shooting IR into the edges of the sheet, touches are "seen" by the IR camera whenever the internal refractive properties of the acrylic are "frustrated" by being touched. Each touch bounces a blob of IR down into the camera.

*

I've been having some great conversations about multi-touch lately. What constitutes multi-touch? Does dual-touch count? Can multi-touch be "faked" on a single-touch surface using close timing of events (e.g. milliseconds apart)? What if you use the same approach on a dual-touch surface? Is this how the iPhone works (e.g. software detection of finger-spacing)? What about the Macbook's dual-touch mousepad? How does that work, anyways? Which technologies are dominating, if any? Capacitive, grid o' wires, heat sensing, IR bath? Which approach is typically used for which commercial application?

More Tangerine Stribe

2008-08-23T10:26:00.000-04:00

Dreamy stribe music from Mark Bokowiec in the UK

scalar

2008-08-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

A little demo of 'scalar', triggered by a stribe. Scalar is written by vlad spears, of 'balron' fame. By changing simple things like the sensor poll rate, sticky or non-sticky values, MIDI scale, and instrument mappings, I am able to play the stribe in a variety of modes.

Of course the stribe strips can trigger a much higher resolution map than this (1024 potential points of resolution per strip). Though it doesn't demonstrate this unique aspect of the stribe, it's still fun to play with. The strips are much more sensitive than buttons, requiring the lightest touch. Rolling a finger on it's "ball" can produce a variety of subtle effects, a slide from one note to the next, or produce a very rapid 'fingered' pattern.

LED feedback is minimal at this point. Still working on the firmware...

stribe.org
scalar

monome & stribe in the UK

2008-08-06T09:35:00.000-04:00

A newly-constructed Stribe Prototype effecting simple single-voice sequences running on a Monome 40h.

Soundhack

2008-08-06T08:38:00.000-04:00

freesound bundle: the freesound bundle is a collection of free vst/rtas/au, mac/windows plugins

Tenebre

2008-07-26T15:11:00.000-04:00

Tenebre - Platinum Standard
Interesting lo-fi-ish production and good playing on this instrumental track. The sound is stylistically reminiscent of Pavement, Sebadoh, and Slint, with a little dose of Elephant Six thrown in, and at the end some bells. More bells!

Thought food

2008-07-26T13:08:00.001-04:00

Giant Alphanumeric Nixie Tube available for lots of $ on the 'bay

Sometimes I go to this page and just listen to the default sounds

A couple of 3-dimensional alphabets. Info on the above alphabet. The image below I came across randomly and I can't find any information about it, so let me know.

Another 3D alphabet

CNMAT's experimental spherical speaker

Interactive Acoustic Modeling from Princeton. video

Max/MSP night school at CNMAT

2008-07-25T15:39:00.000-04:00

Hallowed hall

Watch my ever-growing-in-detail blog post here: http://soundwidgets.com/smf/index.php?topic=204.msg741#msg741

Hangin' with the big kids

Custom Controllers

2008-07-04T12:33:00.000-04:00

I built these to order for a customer. I was sad to see them go...

Tablo - conductive fabric gesture controller

2008-05-31T13:48:00.000-04:00

Adrian Freed's "Tablo"

"As the conductive stretchable fabric... is displaced towards the bowl it shorts out different lengths of ...conductive plastic... The result is a circular array of nearly mass-less displacement sensors. The gesture-to-displacement relationship changes according to distance from the center of the bowl..." read more

A Bicycle Built for Two

2008-05-23T08:38:00.000-04:00

Daisy.mp3

Original "Daisy" Song 1961
Max Mathews, John Kelly, and Carol Lochbaum

From a Wikipedia article on Max Matthews: "In 1961, Mathews arranged the well-known song Daisy Bell ("Daisy, daisy") for an uncanny performance by computer-synthesized human voice, using technology developed by John Kelly of Bell Laboratories and others. Arthur C. Clarke of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame was coincidentally visiting friend and colleague John Pierce at the Bell Labs Murray Hill facility at the time of this remarkable speech synthesis demonstration and was so impressed that he used it in the climactic scene of his novel and screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the HAL 9000 computer sings the same song as astronaut Dave Bowman disables his cognitive functions."

Microfiche Music Machine

2008-05-12T08:07:00.000-04:00

Here's more info about the band Microfiche

Awesome Maker Faire 2008 video

2008-05-12T07:53:00.001-04:00

So far this is the best Maker Faire 2008 summary I've seen - it captures the diversity of projects and amazing stuff quite well. Note however that even this great vid represents barely 1/10 of the actual amazingness to be found at this huge Faire.

Oh, and look for a brief shot of The Stribe at about 7:34. :)

From: curiousinventor.com

Cycling74 mentions Stribe, and Electronic Musician article

2008-05-11T16:49:00.001-04:00

Cycling74 has a nice mention of the stribe and a pic re: Maker Faire 2008

Electronic Musician May 2008: DIY Resurgence by Scott Wilkinson

The Stribe @ Maker Faire featured on hackaday.com

2008-05-06T15:25:00.000-04:00

link to article

The Stribe booth at Maker Faire 2008

2008-05-06T02:03:00.001-04:00

Some kids totally diggin' the way-out sounds

All hands on deck

Booth with stribe logo (made from construction paper)

I gave a brief presentation about the Stribe - unfortunately I was completely unprepared and I had sound driver issues - better luck next time, I hope

Me (left) and Vlad (right), showing off the latest Stribe prototype

more: Flickr

Maker Faire San Mateo, Day 1

2008-05-04T11:01:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the debut of the Stribe at Maker Faire, and it was amazing! A non-stop procession of fascinated people surrounded the booth for 10 straight hours. Stribe pioneer Vlad Spears totally saved the day when my MOTU interface gave up the ghost 2 hours into the demo. Just when I thought all was lost, Vlad stepped into the breach, fired up his own machine and held the crowd mesmerized with his lovely new Max 5 app, "Scalar", which made the Stribe into a wonderfully easy-to-play instrument. He manned the booth heroically and provided detailed explanations of the stribe, the monome, Max, and how it all fits together. I don't think he drank, ate, or sat down the whole time. My own demos pretty much relied on the MOTU, so without Scalar and Vlad it's hard to say what the day would have been like.

Thank You Vlad! You are a true rockstar, in every sense of the word.

I'm still a bit stunned at the level of interest and the many wonderful conversations I had with visitors and fellow Makers.

Today I hope to borrow an audio/MIDI interface from a fellow Maker and run some of my original demos, including a cool demo app written by stretta, along with a couple of my own creations.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth on Day 1. I apologize if I didn't get to chat or you caught me in a flustered moment, but the onslaught of Make fans was unrelenting (which is really great) and I was overwhelmed at times. It was cool to meet members of the Stribe community in person, and I came away feeling both grateful and proud and just plain tickled. Something tells me this is going to be quite a ride. Thanks SO much for the enthusiasm and encouragement so far - it really does keep me going.

I have some great pictures and I'll post them as soon as I can. :)

Now it's time to get ready for Maker Faire, Day 2!

stribe + MIDIbox = awesome app!!

2008-03-30T12:37:00.000-04:00

From tk of midibox.org: "...Most of you guys are using Arduino based hardware, therefore I'm not sure if you are interested in an alternative approach, which is based on the MIDIbox hardware platform and MIOS. As the name implies, the focus is on MIDI communication instead of OSC via USB, accordingly this solution covers different usecases.

"The main difference to your current approach is the autarkic firmware, which doesn't require a computer to process the sensors, handle the LEDs, and to communicate with other MIDI devices. This might make it less flexible for experimental stuff, on the other hand I can easily add a LCD, buttons, more LEDs, rotary encoders, etc... - everything which is provided by MIOS - and control my MIDI synths directly..."

[more]

red stribe wearing plexi

2008-03-25T13:26:00.000-04:00

Some plexiglas test parts arrived from the Netherlands today via Xndr Industries. I assembled an all-red stribe with the new parts and it looks pretty awesome:

more pics here

rockin the T-On

2008-03-22T18:14:00.001-04:00

phineus + tenori-on + alesis micron from phineus on Vimeo.

I got a chance to play with a Tenori-On - it's pretty neat. Here I am testing out the MIDI implementation.

The Stribe goes to Maker Faire

2008-03-16T09:36:00.000-04:00

Finally emerging from the shadows, the Stribe will be at Maker Faire in San Mateo May 3 & 4, 2008. So get some sunblock and come to the Faire!

I visited the Maker Faire in Austin, Fall 2007 and it was awesome.

Fresh e-ink for the Stribe!

2008-03-13T12:20:00.000-04:00

Calculator Music for Nerds via LVHRD.ORG

it's a shirt - no it's a web site

2008-03-11T19:42:00.000-04:00

Buy a t-shirt and help support the Stribe Project.

free TR 606/808/909 for Windows

2008-03-03T08:06:00.000-05:00

Who says you only get what you pay for? This donation-ware download from d-lusion is a hidden treasure for those in search of simple drum programming and great sounds on no budget. It's been around for a while but I came across it again recently and fell in love all over again with drum programming. Also check RubberDuck, a re-imagined TB-303, and the MJ Studio MP3 mixing tool. Don't forget to throw a few beans in d-lusion's Donation bucket for providing all this great stuff for free!

From the d-lusion site:

"Based on the concept of the legendary Roland drum synthesizers TR-909, TR-808 and TR-606 whose throbbing bassdrums and crashing hihats sent generations of dance-music enthusiasts into extasy, Drumstation combines cool old drum machine features with cutting-edge software synthesis technology. Drumstation is a drum software synthesizer and features 8 channels of drums (either samples or synthesized drum sounds), programmable via an easy-to-use step sequencer, effects (realtime reverb, delay, flanger, filter, distortion) for each channel, loops could be sliced and stretched.

"All this in the year 1998!
This free downloadable version also contains - beside the standalone software synthesizer - a complete set of free drum samples and effects to get you started (Roland TR-606, TR-808, TR-909, Real Drums, Sound Effects, DR-101, DPM-48, and additional Yamaha/etc. sampled sounds)."

UK Sound Square project

2008-03-02T10:35:00.001-05:00

"Input device from a matrix of IR beams set in a square. Fed into a Macintosh through a create HID interface. Processed with custom software written in Objective C and Quartz composer and fed to an MU10."

Mike Cook, in the UK, made a device similar to my Sound Square project (ca 1993), but smaller, and he went much farther with the software. Interestingly, he built it around the same time period (1994). At the time, a grid of sensors seemed like such a powerful meme to me that I assumed this type of music tech would be everywhere in no time. The fact that it HASN'T seemed to progress very far in 15 yrs was what put me on the path that eventually led to the Stribe. Well, 15 years later it seems Mike has dusted off his project as well! He has a great website and a page dedicated to the how-to of it all. Yay Mike!! Can't wait to see what comes next!

the stribe map

2008-02-23T21:51:00.000-05:00

Stockhausen on 'sounds', 1972

2008-02-23T15:48:00.000-05:00

Very interesting 1972 lecture by Karlheinz Stockhausen (August 22, 1928 – December 5, 2007). He discusses synthesizing and transforming sound via technology, and the (then) theoretical possibility of speeding up a sound or piece of music without changing it's pitch.

stribe + monome 40h + balron + DSI - Part II

2008-02-20T08:39:00.000-05:00

Create Digital Music » Hands-on, Interview: Stribe Multi-Touch Controller

2008-02-19T21:07:00.000-05:00

An An In-Depth Interview w/ ME in CDM :)

Gainer: Arduino-slayer?

2008-02-14T21:05:00.000-05:00

The Gainer controller in Valentine Red

I saw some early press on this in 2007 that looked promising but now suddenly the Gainer website has really filled-out with tons of good information. This is a really interesting controller board that has a variety of possible configurations. Very intriguing - possibly a new heart for the stribe? Arduino MINIs are expensive (~$60 + shipping for the 2 Arduino stamps). Meanwhile the Gainer is open source and relatively cheap to build (~$30 USD in parts) and includes a USB interface. http://gainer.cc/

The Gainer can be configured for a variety of applications. Check out the specs.

Their website also links to this useful table of commercially avaialable sensor interfaces which I came across but then lost again. Here it is:

Comparison table of commercially available sensor interfaces

stribe + monome 40h + balron + DSI monosynth

2008-02-10T13:36:00.000-05:00

Here's the monome 40h running "Balron" while the stribe sends CC data to the DSI. There's a bug where the stribe sends a constant barrage of CC data so it's affecting the sounds a bit but it sort of works. I really should record the sound properly because my li'l camera mic really doesn't do it justice. It sounds huge!

stretta literally rocks the monome 64

2008-02-07T12:44:00.000-05:00

monome 64 tilt from stretta on Vimeo.
The latest monome.org offering, the 64, features a built-in tilt-sensor. Here stretta makes very interesting use of the feature.

stretta + stribe

2008-01-30T12:21:00.001-05:00

A Brief Conversation Resulting in One Less Child from stretta on Vimeo.
Something beautiful, at last!

don't fence me in

2008-01-30T11:52:00.000-05:00

...mangled by monome + stribe.

This song is from my Texas friend Manda Clair's music sampler. I hope she doesn't mind. The video effects are for fun - these chunks are what my video editor thought made reasonable "scenes". I had to stack them all up to get the video to be continuous.

hour of mindless fun

2008-01-30T07:47:00.001-05:00

Make sure you have an hour to waste before clicking the link that takes you to this flash-based sequencer: Tony B Machine. Here's the history, google-ated from French.

monomuino: an Arduino-based monome compatible

2008-01-30T04:28:00.000-05:00

monomuino: Arduino-based monome compatible from JMG on Vimeo.
via upward, not northward

mlr + stribe pt II

2008-01-29T11:32:00.000-05:00

somewhat better angle so you can see what's happening. only the left 4 strips are working in this app, controlling the volume objects in mlr. I' need to re-tune them to have a longer "throw" instead of only being audible near the top. Otherwise noise floor comes up on my crappy PA mixer.

It seemed like vlad had built in some way to make the channels stay on but I realize now that was the trigger from mlr turning them on. Once I started messing with their volumes, if I didn't re-trigger on the monome the volume would drop to zero. Clearly I need to add the "fader knob" feature to the firmware soon! :)

new stribe video - stribe + mlr

2008-01-29T06:34:00.000-05:00

Super-short demo of using the Stribe to control volumes in mlr - basically using the stribe as as a MIDI mixer but via Max - stribe is in default firmware cursor mode, w/ no feedback from mlr, yet.

Also check out the in-progress stribe builder's guide