“The Buddha Machine (by FM3) is a little plastic box that plays music. Specifically, FM3 constructed nine drones, varying from two seconds to 42 seconds, which repeat endlessly in the listener’s ear until the “track” is switched to the next drone (or the two AA batteries run out). The machine has its own built-in speaker, in case one would like to fill a room with the drones, but there is also a headphone jack for more personal meditative experiences. There’s a switch on the side that allows for traversal of the tracks, and a DC jack (though an adapter is not included) for those who would like the Buddha Machine experience be truly endless. In a way, it’s like the cheapest pre-loaded IPod you’ll ever be able to buy.” - excerpt from review at PopMatters.com. Download all 9 Buddha Machine loops (uncompressed .WAV format!!). Continue reading

Trimpin will deliver a keynote and give a workshop at The 7th International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), organized by Harvestworks and New York University’s (NYU) Music Technology Program in partnership with LEMUR and the NYU Interactive Telecommunications, June 6-10, 2007.

Trimpin, a sound sculptor, composer, inventor, is one of the most stimulating one-man forces in music today. A specialist in interfacing computers with traditional acoustic instruments, he has developed a myriad of methods for playing, trombones, cymbals, pianos, and so forth with Macintosh computers. Continue reading

LEARNING AUDITORY MODELS OF MACHINE VOICES [PDF] by Kelly Dobson and Brian Whitman (MIT Media Lab) and Daniel P.W. Ellis (LabROSA, Electrical Engineering, Columbia University).

ABSTRACT: Vocal imitation is often found useful in Machine Therapy sessions as it creates an emphatic relational bridge between human and machine. The feedback of the machine directly responding to the person’s imitation can strengthen the trust of this connection. However, vocal imitation of machines often bear little resemblance to the target due to physiological limitations. In practice, we need a way to detect human vocalization of machine sounds that can generalize to new machines. Continue reading

Here’s how to make a fun & simple wind instrument from a soda bottle: The plastic bottle, this common object of consumption, this vulgar domestic waste, can replace the noble bamboo to ape a wind organ. It only takes, with a pair of scissors, to carve a longitudinal “whistling” slit within the body of the bottle. Several sizes of slit are possible. The sound is not as pure (more or less muffled depending on types of slits) as it is with the sound of bamboo. On the other hand, the time taken to carve the slits in plastic is negligible compared to carving bamboo, moreover, the cost of the material is absurdly low.

Thanks to phillip torron

Amebeats is a project by Melissa Quintanilha that allows “people to mix sounds by manipulating physical objects instead of twisting knobs or clicking on a music production software”.

The amoeba shaped board has little boxes in its center that when moved to the arms, activate different sounds. My interest in music and design merged to create a haptic interface (based on touch) that allows people to use gesture to mix sounds with their hands. My inspiration for this robotic installation came from going to parties and seeing DJs create the music on their tables, but no one knowing what they do to make the sounds. Generating music using gesture allows for a much more expressive way of creation. [blogged by Nicolas on pasta and vinegar]

Weapons of Mass Distraction

The Earworm Assault Devices (EAD), by fur, are a set of weapons for the propagation of highly infectious sound or music (earworms).

Prologue: Sound is unavoidable (the ear can’t be shut like the eye) and evolutionary hardwired into our cognition apparatus, it can reach into the subconscious and arouse emotions. A well made sound can get stuck in the head of the hearer and loop for a varying time span. The infected person oftentimes repeats the sound involuntarily by singing, humming or whistling, eventually spreading the earworm like a virus. Messages can be modulated onto earworms like radiowaves on a carrier frequency, as a result earworms can be used to distribute messages or manipulate the individual. This fact is recognized and commercially exploited in various fields of modern life - like pop music, cellphone ringtones, audiobranding or elevator music to name a few.
Global brands are using huge budgets to propagate their earworms by means of multiple costly channels, the respectable citizen remains defence- and powerless. Until now:
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What’s New in Books

The MagicBook explores seamless transition between reality and virtual reality. When users look at the pages of a real book through a hand held display, they are able to see virtual content superimposed over the real pages, that is augmented reality. When they see an augmented reality scene they like, users can fly into the scene and experience it as an immersive virtual environment. Currently the user can transition smoothly between these two fixed viewing modes: the augmented-reality view and the virtual-reality view.

The MagicBook also features functionality that supports collaboration: When several users look at the same book page they can see the augmented reality image from their own viewpoint. When one of these users decides to switch to the Virtual Reality mode and �fly� into the virtual model, the other users are able see him or her as a virtual character in the scene.
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Household Objects Revolt!

Jean-Pierre Gauthier’s mobile sound installations express the delights of disorder. He takes daily objects out of their context, rearranges them and sets them going in autonomous movement sequences. Most of the works of Gauthier consist of objects which can be identified, but which do not trigger any emotional or cultural associations. A characteristic feature of his installations is the use of household articles and cleaning products, which may be read as a kind of commentary on prevailing social circumstances. The things make themselves independent, declare revolt and bear a symbolic reference, as a closed microsystem, to aspects of commercial exploitation and economic cycles. In his installation Remue-m�nage the artist also succeeds in involving the residual waste of the exhibition’s architecture. The analog animation movements of the gadgets lend the installation a faintly antiquated character � an altogether unusual, but deliberately chosen form in contrast to the technological development. At Transmediale 06.

Populating Physical Spaces with Digital Sound Effects

Heaven Seed is a smart plastic ball that senses its movement and generates various sound effects in real time thereby enhances the game people play with it. The motion data sensed by the ball are wirelessly transmitted to a host computer to provide rich auditory experiences. For example, if you throw it upward, it makes a whiz sound; when you catch it, it makes a flopping sound. If it’s left unused for a while, it starts snoring.

Ryota Kuwakubo, who created this artifact, says that he wanted to evoke in users the kind of feeling kids would have while playing with a miniature car � kids may make the sound of speeding with their mouths and they could get totally immersed in the play. Kuwakubo also suggests a possibility of making everyday life more “interesting” by populating our physical spaces with various digital sound effects. When you open the door, when you start a washing machine, etc. If the world around us will be the interface to the digital information spaces, Heaven Seed suggests unique possibilities of enhancing our embodied interactive experiences with creative sound design. Related websites: vector::scan; MyCom PCWEB. [blogged by manekineko on we-make-money-not]

Exploring Ways of Interacting with the Computer

HyperSense Complex–the collaborative trio of Alistair Riddell, Somaya Langley, and Simon Burton–have been working together since 2002. They’ve been exploring the notions of collaborative interactive performance in a networked computing space (essentially where members of the trio - dependant on configurations of specific performances - can influence each other’s sound, for example: by sampling each other’s output, adding effects etc). HyperSense has also been developing an alternative HCI’s using flex sensors worn on the hands (and strapped into a jacket arrangement). The project utilises data sent from the sensors through microcontrollers and passed via USB to some python scripting which handles what the sensor data should do. They then implemented OSC and are using this to send information to SuperCollider running on a separate laptop, which handles the samples and audiobased materials.