From the department of “just because we can” comes Expert Sleepers’ demo of using a modular synth to control an iPhone.

If you start getting prank calls from modular synthesizers, you can blame these guys.

Patch details below.

via expertsleepers:

Demo of Expert Sleepers Silent Way CV To OSC allowing a modular synth to control TouchOSC on an iPhone.

A short demonstration of the MLGI (Multi- Laser Gestural Interface) designed by Meason Wiley at California Institute of the Arts.

Strap it on a dolphin, and you’d have a lethal weapon.

The Multi- Laser Gestural Interface is an open source and modular “free-gesture” controller that uses beams of laser light along with photo resistors to create a physical, fluid musical instrument.

With the MLGI, Wiley is attempting to bring a physical interactivity to electronic music performance. By removing the performer from behind the laptop, the audience becomes aware of the performer’s interaction with the controller, which creates an instant visual connection between the sound and the performer.

The MLGI was created using Dan Overholt’s multi I/O CREATEUSB or CUI interface, which, along with the programming language ChucK, can be made to send MIDI or OSC via USB port.

For more information about this open-source + modular controller,  visit www.cyclespersecond.net.

Saturday Synth Porn: Sound of Life (SoL) is a very unusual audio-visual performance by noise performer 23N! that explores the idea of generating noise music from the movements of spermatozoa:

SoL consists in generating sounds and visual dynamically through the tracking of the movement of individual spermatozoa of the semen of the performer observed under a digital microscope. The obtaining of the semen is an intrinsic part of the performance.

Details on the work below.

According to 23N!:

Artist Statement

When spermatozoa are the ones generating sounds, who is the performer ? Are the spermatozoa the performer or are they already a distinct autonomous living entity ?

Sound of Life is trying to address these questions by limiting the interaction between the performer-creator, as the one who gave birth to the spermatozoa, and the spermatozoa to a minimum. Spermatozoa that enter the field of vision of the microscope are all potential performers and the sounds they generate depends mostly on their movements that are not controlled.

While the act of selecting the candidate spermatozoa can be seen as an action of the performer that limits the freedom of the spermatozoa, it is meant to be done in the case of a staged performance. In the case of an installation, random selection or selection of all moving spermatozoa can be easily implemented instead.

By making the act of obtaining the necessary fresh semen a part of the performance, the artistic creation is voluntary confused with the creation of life. The created life, the spermatozoa, becomes an artistic creator, blurring the border between life and art.

The software behind the performance is put together with the usual experimental electronic music culprits, including OSC, PureData, & Wiimote.

Interesting experimental concept or intellectual wankery? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

The forthcoming v1.1 of Expert Sleepers Silent Way has an enhanced OSC implementation that makes it possible to use with the popular TouchOSC iPhone app. This video shows this in action.

via expertsleepers

Expert Sleepers Silent Way is a suite of plug-ins designed to let you control a modular analog synthesizer system from your computer, using control voltages.

Like MOTU Volta, released earlier in the year, Silent Way works within your sequencer, sending signals to your audio interface to output control voltages compatible with modular synthesizer and classic analog gear.

The plug-ins produce no sound themselves, nor do they process sound – rather, they generate signals to be used as control voltages (CVs), which can be patched into the control inputs of oscillators, filters, VCAs etc. of an analogue system.

There are currently two plug-ins in the Silent Way suite – Silent Way DC and Silent Way Voice Controller. These are described in more detail below. It is anticipated that more plug-ins will be added to the suite in the future – watch the website for product announcements.

Silent Way plug-ins also feature

• full MIDI and OSC control.
• MIDI/OSC scriptability.
• sample-accurate handling of MIDI note messages.

Expert Sleepers is also offering a bounty for early users that are willing to help test the plugin with untried audio interfaces:

Since there are far more audio interfaces and synth modules in the world than any one person or even company is ever likely to own, it seems unlikely that Expert Sleepers will personally be able to test every combination.

Therefore we’re offering a bounty for people who buy and use Silent Way with their setup and document the results. To qualify, you need to do the following:

• buy Silent Way (you don’t qualify if you use the demo version to do the below).
• send us the details of your system (computer, host application, audio interface, synth modules).
• put up a video on YouTube demonstrating that Silent Way works with your stuff.

The offer is:

• a coupon for $25, good for one purchase from the Expert Sleepers store, if you do the above, or
• a coupon for $50, good for one purchase from the Expert Sleepers store, if you do the above and you’re the first to document the successful use of Silent Way with a particular audio interface or synth module.

More info on Silent Way below.

If you’ve used Expert Sleepers’ Silent Way, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Silent Way DC

Silent Way DC is a simple plug-in that generates constant output signals. It is intended to be used in conjunction with parameter automation (via MIDI or directly by the host application) to generate varying signals. For example, you could use it as an LFO where you draw out the LFO waveform in your host’s parameter automation GUI.

Silent Way Voice Controller

Silent Way Voice Controller is a virtual instrument plug-in designed to directly control an analogue synthesiser by generating the appropriate CV and gate signals via an appropriate audio interface.

By listening to the synthesiser’s output signal, the plug-in is able to calibrate itself to generate the appropriate pitch CV for the incoming MIDI notes.

As well as the basic pitch and gate signals, the plug-in can generate three multi-stage envelope CVs which you can feed to VCAs, VCFs etc. in your synth.

Pricing and availability

Silent Way is available immediately in Mac OS X Audio Unit format, priced at $49. Mac and Windows VST formats to follow.

This video demonstrates using an iPhone to control Native Instruments Reaktor via Open Sound Control.

Resources:

• Native Instruments Reaktor (Mac)
• TouchOSC (iPhone)
• Reaktor synthesizer designed by Tony Wallace

Brian Green, who’s always coming up with strange and bent electronic music gadgets, put together this iPod touch guitar and demos it in this video.

Green explains:

Its something i basically did for fun, its not something i would use live and i don’t use the guitar in a normal sense for my music so it really would serve me no purpose.

Ok the main the i would like to clear up is NO NO NO i did not glue the itouch(s) to my guitar, there were several blogs that did a post about this and it seemed like one of the first ones that did said that i glued them to my guitar, this is false.

I seemed to get a lot of hate for the fact that i “glued ipods” to my guitar and that it was a dumb idea and so on bla bla bla, well i mean the whole idea of it was kinda a joke to begin with but my point of doing it was to do something inovative, i got the idea to try it after i seen a guy who added a guitar hero neck to a real guitar and then i made this.

Green’s iPod touch guitar appears to be more of a mashup than an instrument per se.

Leave a comment with your thoughts on the iPod touch guitar.

via BrianWilliamGreen

The MLGI is a multi-laser gestural controller built and designed by Meason Wiley at California Institute of the Arts.

The controller uses Dan Overholt’s CUI interface along with an array of photocells and laser modules to send out control data, which can be converted to OSC or MIDI using various programming platforms such as ChucK and Processing.

This video demonstrates the MLGI working with ChucK, which is sending OSC to a custom built live instrument created using Native Instruments Reaktor Software. The controller is still in it’s development stages, but will be featured at the NIME conference at Carnegie Melon in June.

More info here.

Saturday Synth Porn: This synth porn video features a veritable orgy of synths – one of the finest collections of analog synthesisers in the world.

Dig the funky 70’s style soundtrack, featuring Tonto’s Expanding Headband’s Cybernaut and  Jean Jacques Perry’s E.V.A.

Give this a look, in the privacy of your own home, and let me know if it doesn’t fill your heart with desire….for synth gear!

via Sharpblue

If you’ve used pOSCa, leave a comment below and let us know what you think of it!

Description:

pOSCa is an Open Sound Control compliant controller for audio and multimedia software such as Ableton Live, Reaktor, Plogue Bidule, Traktor, Max/MSP/Jitter, Pure Data and OSCulator.

Using the controller from the iPhone allows the electronics music performer to get up from behind the laptop and interact with his audience. pOSCa sports a nice dial, up/down and left/right buttons and ten programmable buttons. Programming the buttons is easy: just select a button and set a value with the dial, then you can set another button to another value. When you hit the first button again, the dial will spin in place and give the desired value. This allows for easy pre-programming up to the performance and quick interactivity.

In order to have no surprises in concert, the settings are kept in the iPhone/iPod’s Settings area. Be sure to set the settings to interact with your audio software.

Here you can set your computers IP address and what UDP port your software is listening to. You can also set a name for the device so that you can have multiple devices controlling the same synth without causing confusion. Also you can set default min and max values. These are by default set to max and min for MIDI as many of the synth come from a MIDI heritage, but they can be set to anything you want.

pOSCa works best using WiFi and works equally well on the iPhone and iPod touch, although when using it in concert you might want to turn off the phone functionality first.

iOSC (App Store Link) is a remote control application that uses the OSC (Open Sound Control) protocol to turn your iPhone into a music control surface.

Using the OSC protocol over your device’s built-in Wi-Fi connection, iOSC communicates with other compatible hardware and software nodes on your network. You can also remote control the middleware such as Max MSP, Processing, ActionScript (FLOSC) and many other devices that support the OSC protocol from your iPhone.

It sells for $2.99. 

If you’re using iOSC, let us know how your using it and what you think of it!

Features of iOSC:

• Ability to prevent errors during the live with large size parts. 
• Ability to set from “Parts Set” as default.
• Customize Parts colors or label names. 
• Customize OSC messages. 
• Multi-host functions *You can register different Hosts for each Parts. Now iOSC enables you to control multiple hosts simultaneously. 

How to use:

• First, go the settings. 
• Press the EDIT button, and tap the part that you want to set. 
• Make sure to set the appropriate host. (Added host can be commonly used for all Parts.) If you only set the host, a default OSC message will be sent.

How to delete the list:

• To delete the set from Main menu, tap Edit then flick it. 
• To delete the host from Host List, flick it.

This is a demo of some of the new features coming up in synthPond 2.5, an ambient music application for the iPhone, showing how synthPond can integrate with MAX/MSP (or any OSC device) wirelessly.

CDM reports that Open Sound Control (OSC), a protocol for communication between music devices over modern networks, has been ported to the Nintendo DS. 

This opens up possibilities for using the Nintendo DS to control music software and for other devices to control music software running on the DS.  

You can find out the details at the DSMI site.

Tokyo-based d.v.d is a trio with two drum players, Itoken and Jimanica and visualiser Takashi Yamaguchi (ymg) on the hardware front.

While the two drummers furiously beat two drum kits in front of a huge screen, their sounds trigger geometrical shapes with processing, Pong-style game settings or bizarre drop landscapes that interact, transform or collapse. 

Jimanica explains how it works:

An audio generating computer and a second one that generates the visuals exchange signals through LAN using OSC. The tracks are played with max/msp. The drum sets are attached with a sensor called trigger and that transmits the vibration of the drums as signals to the midi interface. Those signals are then converted into midi note numbers. That midi data is then sent to the visual PC and creates the actions in the animations generated by processing software.

Basically, we as the two drummers perform on top of an audio track and sometimes we follow the score depending on the tracks. The tracks all have set duration so we never improvise the ending sounds and patterns — we just have a grasp of the finishing point from the composition and the monitor. Sometimes we add sound effects by hitting the drums during the tracks so that’s why you can hear all kinds of organic sounds as well.

Details at pingmag. Via picdit