May, 2008 archive

These video mashups pit Tommy Seebach’s cheesetacular Apache video against classic electronica tracks:
Apache My Bitch Up

The Original Pixelh8 Music Tech Game Boy Synthesizer is a cartridge that fits into an unmodified game boy, letting you control the Game Boy’s on-board sound. You can edit the wave duty, pitch sweep and volume envelope as well as new additions such as unison, 5th power chords and octaves.
This updated version V2.0 allows for [...]

Chiptune site 8BitCollective has released a new free CD, Hello World!
Download link
Track listing:
01. MM – 8BC Is Cool
02. Swampyboy – Glacial Floe
03. ChipHydra – Anything with Heart
04. Digital Cait Sith – Krazoa
05. Little-Scale – Hello
06. Raptorface – Cherryblossom
07. Sparkyboy – Gloom
08. Nintenboys – Be Alone
09. Constipation Man – Space Race
10. Failotron – Hello Világ
11. Pandotrix! [...]

Episode 5 of Mondo Modular features some interesting footage of Herbert Deutsch.

Bob Chidlaw from Source Audio demonstrates what can be done with 2 rings controlling synth parameters using Hot Hand Soundblox controllers:

You can make awesome chainsaw sound effects with your hands.
You can make the photographer keel over.

We need some of these things!

Chris Graham is prototyping a modular breath-controlled instrument of his own design, the MultiWind. 
One of the goals of the MultiWInd is that it can be played multiple ways:

The Mini Instrument (playable in many styles including brass, harmonica and breath controller).
The Woodwind style instrument, which is convertible from the Mini Instrument by snapping on the Finger [...]

GlitchDS is a free cellular automaton music sequencer for the Nintendo DS that could be great for creating IDM and Glitch style loops.
Features include:

Customizable Cellular Automaton sequencer
Create your own “trigger points”
Load in your own sounds
Save and load your work
BPM settings, or “strum mode” for controlling tempo
Up to 6 sounds can be loaded at once
Each sound [...]

What happens when you combine age-old contrapuntul style with Gameboys?
One possibility is Joey Mariano’s Gameboy Madrigals:
Early composers of the madrigal used only two to three voices to create counterpoint. Realizing the opportunity for reinterpretation through the gameboy sound chip, Joey Mariano set out to create a body of chiptune madrigals inspired by early RPG games, [...]

From the because it was there category:
Sebastian Tomczak posted this video of a working prototype version of an interface that controls the sound chip inside of a (real) Sega Master System using MIDI data. 

Tod Machover of MIT’s Media Lab is devoted to extending musical expression for everyone — from virtuosi to amateurs, and in the most diverse forms — from opera to videogames (Guitar Hero grew out of his group).
At TED2008, he talked about what’s coming next, from new tools for music creativity to the world’s first robotic [...]