Items by Eliot Van Buskirk
Wired: Top Stories
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China Blocks YouTube, Google Tries to Reinstate Access
Posted: March 24th, 2009, 4:51pm EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
Tags: [edit]
Google doesn’t know why China is blocking access to every video on YouTube, but says it’s trying to end the blockage as soon as possible. -
SXSW: Social Networking Rocks — But Only for Some Bands
Posted: March 21st, 2009, 12:37am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
Tags: [edit]
Expert agree that social networking tools help bands win over fans, book bigger shows and make more money. So why do some of them resist? -
SXSW: Social Networking Rocks — But Only for Some Bands
Posted: March 21st, 2009, 12:37am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
Tags: [edit]
Expert agree that social networking tools help bands win over fans, book bigger shows and make more money. So why do some of them resist? -
New Musical Instruments Battle for $10K in Prizes
Posted: March 20th, 2009, 12:00am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
Tags: [edit]
: Photo: Ben Keyserling It was like a low-stakes X Prize for music as musicians, inventors and hobbyists competed against each other in the first annual Guthman Musical Instrument Competition at Georgia Tech for cash prizes of $10,000.
More than 60 people applied, and 25 were chosen to show off a stunning variety of musical instruments of their own devising.
The judges — Harmonix co-founder Eran Egozy, Georgia Tech professor Parag Chordia and Wired.com's Eliot Van Buskirk — had to evaluate a diverse field of worthy competitors. Meet the contestants and judge the instruments for yourself.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Jaime Oliver's Silent Drum uses a technique somewhat akin to shadow puppetry to create stunning and engaging music.
As his fingers press the flexible drum head, it forms black shapes in front of a white background. Those get picked up by a video camera and piped to a laptop where Max/MSP software turns the shapes into sound in real time.
The patches are pre-programmed, but Oliver's analog, light-based interface offers a surprisingly expressive range and precision. The judges were impressed; Silent Drum took home the $5,000 first prize.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Second-place Eric Singer's GuitarBot performs guitar parts for Lemur (League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots), but it's also capable of surprisingly complex solo compositions.
A single electric-powered fret slides up and down each string, while four-sided rotating picks pluck the strings. The instrument's distinctive sound comes partly from the frets that arrive just in time to play some notes, giving transitions a slightly pitch-bent quality.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Berkeley University professor, electronic music veteran and third-place winner David Wessel performs on the Slabs.
Like many of the instruments at the Guthman Competition, Slabs is an interface for the Max/MSP audio program. Interlink VersaPad touch pads allow for a level of expression not found on most electronic instruments; each pad tracks X and Y coordinates and fingertip pressure levels.
A homegrown ethernet audio driver transmits this torrent of data to a Linux PowerPC Mac, which assembles it directly into sound. Wessel says the high-bandwidth approach is "the future" when it comes to ultra-expressive electronic instruments because it allows so much performance data to be captured.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Finalist Neil Feather's Vibro Wheels rotate vibrating pellets and batteries at varying speeds, from glacial to dizzying. The wheels whip past guitar pickups with the help of a modified drill. This generates harmonic drones that move in and out of phase with each other, based on each wheel's ever-slowing rotation and the remaining juice in the batteries.
The sonic inspiration for this instrument came from the sound of a motorcycle engine, and a motorcycle's limited cargo room inspired its size (Feather needed to make Vibro Wheels small enough to carry on his motorbike).
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Jan Perschy's SGSX-H 750 is just what it looks like: a motorcycle engine with a keyboard attached.
As the teeth of the engine's gears travel at varying speeds past pick-ups that normally detect piston position, they generate tones that can be controlled with a keyboard. The third component, pictured to the left of the keyboard in the photo, is the voltage-controlled amplifier (VCA) that makes up for relative discrepancies in volume.
Perschy said his goal was to play the gears in a motor the same way that a Hammond organ plays its spinning tone wheels. The VCA module wasn't working when we made the recording below, an apparent victim of rough travel, but this was still a fascinating display.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Before Hye Ki Min can play her Sorisu, she must solve a game of Sudoku using wooden blocks.
Each block has contacts on the bottom edge that lead to an inner resistor. The resistors correspond to various digits, so the board knows which plays she has made and adjusts the music. Successful gameplay adds pleasing layers of melody, while a misplayed block triggers jarring dissonance.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Finalist Arvid Tomayko-Peters' The Toob is like a trumpet on acid. It tracks the air pressure generated by the player's mouth, while six buttons control and manipulate homegrown software on a computer.
Tomayko-Peters coaxes some otherworldly sounds out of the instrument, embellished by his polished stage performance and a synchronized video.
Some of the finest moments of Tomayko-Peters' performance involved adding live vocal samples in real time with the microphone. But sadly our audio sample below does not capture these.
Audio courtesy Arvid Tomayko-Peters " bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=16981716001&playerID=1815813330&domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="350" height="283" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Finalist Skot Wiedmann's untitled instrument houses discrete modular synthesizer circuit boards connected by a neural network of wires in a star-shaped interface. It has oodles of knobs for sound-tweaking.
The instrument's somewhat unpredictable nature is mitigated somewhat by performance controls: Rotating dials and blue touchpads shape and add elements to the sound, from theremin-like whines to shuffling beats. Imagine this magnificent contraption providing live accompaniment to a silent science-fi film screening.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Craig Hanson and Mike Gao built the Lumi consoles for mixing and remixing music on the fly. In their demonstration, Gao recorded a piano riff and was able to chop it up into a 16-step sequence, reconfigure it and match it to a beatboxing sample he also recorded live.
These multiapplication consoles can be networked, so one player can light up buttons on the other's board. The teams says this helps keep both players on time and in the same key, and it can facilitate teaching. With some refinement, the Lumi could come soon to a DJ table near you.
" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=16993807001&playerID=1815813330&domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="350" height="283" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Kathrin Stumreich's fashion background inspired the Fabric Machine, a loop-based instrument that runs fabric at controllable speeds through lasers that react to thread count, thickness and seams.
She designed them to be played as a pair, with one machine focused on drums and the other on bass. To select a new sound, the operator slides the laser to another spot in the loop, so it picks up the next strip of fabric in the loop.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Langdon Crawford put much more into these handheld Air Guitar MIDI controllers than meets the eye. The lead guitar controllers offer a full range of notes for spontaneous shredding, while the identical-looking rhythm controllers handle chords.
Crawford and Air Band bandmate David Fastenow played Ween's "Voodoo Lady" live to a prerecorded drum track. They played guitar parts with finger combinations and strummed them with an accelerometer. Air guitar made real — at long last.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Pieter De Buck crafted this keyboard-like interface to control a rotating electrical engine that vibrates a dilapidated violin that he refers to as simply "the Instrument."
De Buck chose this format not for the violin's unique resonant qualities, but also for what he calls the "nostalgia factor." Rounding out the setup, in addition to the pictured controller, is a homegrown analog synth module with separate outputs for speakers and electrical engine.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Imagine if Edward Scissorhands' fingertips were light-sensitive transistors instead of scissors. If he pointed his fingertips at a cellphone, he may have noticed that its screen gave off a distinct frequency.
Finalist Robert Mathy, by amplifying the signals generated by his four optical sensor fingertips, plays various tones on a set of recycled cellphones while blinking bicycle lights provide the backbeat. The closer his fingers get to a light source, the louder it gets. And if someone turns on the lights, the show's over.
" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=16997013001&playerID=1815813330&domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="350" height="283" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">
: Photo: Ben Keyserling The Multi-Mallet Automatic Drumming Instrument (Madi) pounds multiple brushes and sticks on a snare drum. At the same time, its counterpart, Poly-Tangent Automatic Monochord (PAM) plays a stringed fretboard beside it. Together, PAM and Madi employ techniques that would be impossible for a human musician to replicate.
Troy Rogers, Steven Kemper and Scott Barton compose for their mechanized instruments with the goal of exploring new "temporal, timbral, dynamic and harmonic possibilities." The result sounds like no humans we've ever heard. These Ph.D. students built the instruments on their own dime, constructing Madi for a mere $200 in materials.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Peter Blasser says he built the Radio Zither from a tree that had been struck by lightning — a fitting origin, given that the rest of the instrument also incorporates traditional and electrical elements.
The Radio Zither includes pluckable strings, two theremins and a pressure-sensitive control. It's particularly effective when one of the theremins picks up the motion of the strumming hand, because you hear its motion in two ways.
" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=16989469001&playerID=1815813330&domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="350" height="283" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Andreas Haider and his partner demonstrate the Disc.o, a light-based instrument that toys with the concept of the compact disc.
The lower platform holds a circular sequencer, which holds eight spinning CDs with chunks cut out of them. Rather than reading ones and zeros on the discs with a laser, this instrument uses photodiodes to convert the light passing through each disc into an audio signal. The pair walk around the instrument, activating and deactivating CDs to alter the sequence of tones, which emanate from eight corresponding speakers.
" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=16993767001&playerID=1815813330&domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="350" height="283" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">
: Photo: Ben Keyserling To build one of the strangest instruments at the competition, Thomas Gerhardt (aka DJ Porcelain and The Plates) slapped 5-bit binary RFID chips on the bottoms of the pictured plates. The chips trigger certain samples when spun on the end of the poles. But what really makes the instrument sing are the black-and-white, yin/yang-style patterns — also on the bottom of the plates — which play the samples at varying speeds depending on the rotational velocity of the corresponding plate.
Gerhardt said this unlikely combination of concepts was inspired by a strange cocktail of influences: plate spinners on the Ed Sullivan Show, the notion of DJs spinning records and his own urge to entertain an audience while performing electronic art.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling The Tongue Music System is twofold. Hye Yeon Nam taps out a rhythm section by activating magnets inside glass cups, while Ramaldo Martin triggers any of 128 piano notes with his tongue using headgear normally used to control a wheelchair.
Both parts require that a small magnet be glued to the tongue with gentle dental adhesive so that it can activate the cups or communicate with the headgear — although apparently certain tongue studs work too. They hope their system will allow paraplegics to make music.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Finalist Dan Stowell bridges the gap between his larynx and a virtually emulated sound chip in his laptop by speaking the chip's language.
A microphone captures vocal articulations, allowing his voice to power the chip's quirky, 8-bit audio engine.
A tablet slung around his shoulder allows quick transitions between chip parameters, while an onscreen image displayed an 8-bit version of Stowell as well as everything that's happening on his screen.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Using a standard keyboard and homegrown software, Xiang Cao's instrument lets the player tap out melodies (alphabet) and chords (function keys) using guitar samples on the computer's hard drive.
One of the less ambitious designs in the Guthman competition, the Key Board Band makes up for that with pitch-bend and envelope-manipulation keys and the fact that it can be replicated using software, a guitar strap and a little glue.
: Greg Kellum uses two ancient technologies as an interface for his hypermodern Touch Plane instrument: paper and ink. An overhead camera and table-clamped infrared lasers track finger movements with only almost no latency, allowing him to use controls that are printed on a piece of paper. In one instance, he played a paper sequencer instrument. In another, he DJed printed discs of color that triggered and manipulated samples. To switch instruments, Kellum places another sheet of paper on the table and toggles to the corresponding software. He hopes to add an acoustic sensor to the Touch Plane to tell the instrument how hard his fingers are hitting the paper.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Talk about more cowbell. Juraj Kojs's fascinating performance involves playing bells that then play other, computer-modeled bells.
The handmade sheep bells are from Kojs's home region in Slovakia and his software program not only models bells, but also allows real-life bells to essentially play other bells in a virtual environment.
His instrument, "cyberbell structures created with physical modeling synthesis," is noteworthy not only for the extensive theory, technology and cultural history that went into it, but also because it works so well in practice.
" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=16993755001&playerID=1815813330&domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="350" height="283" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">
: Photo: Ben Keyserling The T-Stick is a tubelike "gestural music controller" with pressure sensors under its outer plastic membrane and an accelerometer to detect touch, taps, twists, tilts, squeezes, tilts and shakes.
This data, along with data from the pressure-sensitive foot pads, travels over USB where it triggers and manipulates patches in Max/MSP. Built by D. Andrew Stewart (pictured) and Joseph Malloch, the T-Stick integrates the performer's movements more than most electronic instruments which leads to a lively performance.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling The Kreol instrument turns the top two rows on a computer keyboard into a musical keyboard. But unlike a normal piano, Kreol players can alter the "Do" note – the root of the scale – in order to play the same melody in a different key, sort of like a guitarist sliding a chord to a new area of the fretboard. Meanwhile, the mouse controls note length and volume.
Mike Block and his colleagues designed the Kreol software instrument to capitalize on the fact that many of us already know where all the keys on a keyboard are. Kreol also includes drums and chord modes, so with three performers you can tackle lead, chords and rhythm (see video).
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Seokhwan Cheon's Pondang instrument wasn't working during the competition – no surprise, because he had just traveled to Georgia Tech from Korea and his instrument is made mostly from water.
When it's working, the player dips his hand in the watery interface to produce a theremin-like tone while shapes float past on the screen beneath. Cheon scrambled to get the Pondang working in time for the competition, but one part refused to work, so we have no audio sample for this one. However, the video shows it in action.
See Also:
- Review: beamz Music System Lets You Compose a Symphony With the Power of Freaking Lasers
- Sneak Peek: Musical Instruments of the Future
- Robots Pass Musical Turing Test
- Sounds of Science: 8 Futuristic Musical Instruments
-
New Musical Instruments Battle for $10K in Prizes
Posted: March 20th, 2009, 12:00am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
Tags: [edit]
: Photo: Ben Keyserling It was like a low-stakes X Prize for music as musicians, inventors and hobbyists competed against each other in the first annual Guthman Musical Instrument Competition at Georgia Tech for cash prizes of $10,000.
More than 60 people applied, and 25 were chosen to show off a stunning variety of musical instruments of their own devising.
The judges — Harmonix co-founder Eran Egozy, Georgia Tech professor Parag Chordia and Wired.com's Eliot Van Buskirk — had to evaluate a diverse field of worthy competitors. Meet the contestants and judge the instruments for yourself.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Jaime Oliver's Silent Drum uses a technique somewhat akin to shadow puppetry to create stunning and engaging music.
As his fingers press the flexible drum head, it forms black shapes in front of a white background. Those get picked up by a video camera and piped to a laptop where Max/MSP software turns the shapes into sound in real time.
The patches are pre-programmed, but Oliver's analog, light-based interface offers a surprisingly expressive range and precision. The judges were impressed; Silent Drum took home the $5,000 first prize.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Second-place Eric Singer's GuitarBot performs guitar parts for Lemur (League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots), but it's also capable of surprisingly complex solo compositions.
A single electric-powered fret slides up and down each string, while four-sided rotating picks pluck the strings. The instrument's distinctive sound comes partly from the frets that arrive just in time to play some notes, giving transitions a slightly pitch-bent quality.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Berkeley University professor, electronic music veteran and third-place winner David Wessel performs on the Slabs.
Like many of the instruments at the Guthman Competition, Slabs is an interface for the Max/MSP audio program. Interlink VersaPad touch pads allow for a level of expression not found on most electronic instruments; each pad tracks X and Y coordinates and fingertip pressure levels.
A homegrown ethernet audio driver transmits this torrent of data to a Linux PowerPC Mac, which assembles it directly into sound. Wessel says the high-bandwidth approach is "the future" when it comes to ultra-expressive electronic instruments because it allows so much performance data to be captured.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Finalist Neil Feather's Vibro Wheels rotate vibrating pellets and batteries at varying speeds, from glacial to dizzying. The wheels whip past guitar pickups with the help of a modified drill. This generates harmonic drones that move in and out of phase with each other, based on each wheel's ever-slowing rotation and the remaining juice in the batteries.
The sonic inspiration for this instrument came from the sound of a motorcycle engine, and a motorcycle's limited cargo room inspired its size (Feather needed to make Vibro Wheels small enough to carry on his motorbike).
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Jan Perschy's SGSX-H 750 is just what it looks like: a motorcycle engine with a keyboard attached.
As the teeth of the engine's gears travel at varying speeds past pick-ups that normally detect piston position, they generate tones that can be controlled with a keyboard. The third component, pictured to the left of the keyboard in the photo, is the voltage-controlled amplifier (VCA) that makes up for relative discrepancies in volume.
Perschy said his goal was to play the gears in a motor the same way that a Hammond organ plays its spinning tone wheels. The VCA module wasn't working when we made the recording below, an apparent victim of rough travel, but this was still a fascinating display.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Before Hye Ki Min can play her Sorisu, she must solve a game of Sudoku using wooden blocks.
Each block has contacts on the bottom edge that lead to an inner resistor. The resistors correspond to various digits, so the board knows which plays she has made and adjusts the music. Successful gameplay adds pleasing layers of melody, while a misplayed block triggers jarring dissonance.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Finalist Arvid Tomayko-Peters' The Toob is like a trumpet on acid. It tracks the air pressure generated by the player's mouth, while six buttons control and manipulate homegrown software on a computer.
Tomayko-Peters coaxes some otherworldly sounds out of the instrument, embellished by his polished stage performance and a synchronized video.
Some of the finest moments of Tomayko-Peters' performance involved adding live vocal samples in real time with the microphone. But sadly our audio sample below does not capture these.
Audio courtesy Arvid Tomayko-Peters " bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=16981716001&playerID=1815813330&domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="350" height="283" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">: Photo: Ben Keyserling Finalist Skot Wiedmann's untitled instrument houses discrete modular synthesizer circuit boards connected by a neural network of wires in a star-shaped interface. It has oodles of knobs for sound-tweaking.
The instrument's somewhat unpredictable nature is mitigated somewhat by performance controls: Rotating dials and blue touchpads shape and add elements to the sound, from theremin-like whines to shuffling beats. Imagine this magnificent contraption providing live accompaniment to a silent science-fi film screening.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Craig Hanson and Mike Gao built the Lumi consoles for mixing and remixing music on the fly. In their demonstration, Gao recorded a piano riff and was able to chop it up into a 16-step sequence, reconfigure it and match it to a beatboxing sample he also recorded live.
These multiapplication consoles can be networked, so one player can light up buttons on the other's board. The teams says this helps keep both players on time and in the same key, and it can facilitate teaching. With some refinement, the Lumi could come soon to a DJ table near you.
" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=16993807001&playerID=1815813330&domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="350" height="283" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">: Photo: Ben Keyserling Kathrin Stumreich's fashion background inspired the Fabric Machine, a loop-based instrument that runs fabric at controllable speeds through lasers that react to thread count, thickness and seams.
She designed them to be played as a pair, with one machine focused on drums and the other on bass. To select a new sound, the operator slides the laser to another spot in the loop, so it picks up the next strip of fabric in the loop.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Langdon Crawford put much more into these handheld Air Guitar MIDI controllers than meets the eye. The lead guitar controllers offer a full range of notes for spontaneous shredding, while the identical-looking rhythm controllers handle chords.
Crawford and Air Band bandmate David Fastenow played Ween's "Voodoo Lady" live to a prerecorded drum track. They played guitar parts with finger combinations and strummed them with an accelerometer. Air guitar made real — at long last.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Pieter De Buck crafted this keyboard-like interface to control a rotating electrical engine that vibrates a dilapidated violin that he refers to as simply "the Instrument."
De Buck chose this format not for the violin's unique resonant qualities, but also for what he calls the "nostalgia factor." Rounding out the setup, in addition to the pictured controller, is a homegrown analog synth module with separate outputs for speakers and electrical engine.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Imagine if Edward Scissorhands' fingertips were light-sensitive transistors instead of scissors. If he pointed his fingertips at a cellphone, he may have noticed that its screen gave off a distinct frequency.
Finalist Robert Mathy, by amplifying the signals generated by his four optical sensor fingertips, plays various tones on a set of recycled cellphones while blinking bicycle lights provide the backbeat. The closer his fingers get to a light source, the louder it gets. And if someone turns on the lights, the show's over.
" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=16997013001&playerID=1815813330&domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="350" height="283" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">: Photo: Ben Keyserling The Multi-Mallet Automatic Drumming Instrument (Madi) pounds multiple brushes and sticks on a snare drum. At the same time, its counterpart, Poly-Tangent Automatic Monochord (PAM) plays a stringed fretboard beside it. Together, PAM and Madi employ techniques that would be impossible for a human musician to replicate.
Troy Rogers, Steven Kemper and Scott Barton compose for their mechanized instruments with the goal of exploring new "temporal, timbral, dynamic and harmonic possibilities." The result sounds like no humans we've ever heard. These Ph.D. students built the instruments on their own dime, constructing Madi for a mere $200 in materials.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Peter Blasser says he built the Radio Zither from a tree that had been struck by lightning — a fitting origin, given that the rest of the instrument also incorporates traditional and electrical elements.
The Radio Zither includes pluckable strings, two theremins and a pressure-sensitive control. It's particularly effective when one of the theremins picks up the motion of the strumming hand, because you hear its motion in two ways.
" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=16989469001&playerID=1815813330&domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="350" height="283" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">: Photo: Ben Keyserling Andreas Haider and his partner demonstrate the Disc.o, a light-based instrument that toys with the concept of the compact disc.
The lower platform holds a circular sequencer, which holds eight spinning CDs with chunks cut out of them. Rather than reading ones and zeros on the discs with a laser, this instrument uses photodiodes to convert the light passing through each disc into an audio signal. The pair walk around the instrument, activating and deactivating CDs to alter the sequence of tones, which emanate from eight corresponding speakers.
" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=16993767001&playerID=1815813330&domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="350" height="283" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">: Photo: Ben Keyserling To build one of the strangest instruments at the competition, Thomas Gerhardt (aka DJ Porcelain and The Plates) slapped 5-bit binary RFID chips on the bottoms of the pictured plates. The chips trigger certain samples when spun on the end of the poles. But what really makes the instrument sing are the black-and-white, yin/yang-style patterns — also on the bottom of the plates — which play the samples at varying speeds depending on the rotational velocity of the corresponding plate.
Gerhardt said this unlikely combination of concepts was inspired by a strange cocktail of influences: plate spinners on the Ed Sullivan Show, the notion of DJs spinning records and his own urge to entertain an audience while performing electronic art.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling The Tongue Music System is twofold. Hye Yeon Nam taps out a rhythm section by activating magnets inside glass cups, while Ramaldo Martin triggers any of 128 piano notes with his tongue using headgear normally used to control a wheelchair.
Both parts require that a small magnet be glued to the tongue with gentle dental adhesive so that it can activate the cups or communicate with the headgear — although apparently certain tongue studs work too. They hope their system will allow paraplegics to make music.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Finalist Dan Stowell bridges the gap between his larynx and a virtually emulated sound chip in his laptop by speaking the chip's language.
A microphone captures vocal articulations, allowing his voice to power the chip's quirky, 8-bit audio engine.
A tablet slung around his shoulder allows quick transitions between chip parameters, while an onscreen image displayed an 8-bit version of Stowell as well as everything that's happening on his screen.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Using a standard keyboard and homegrown software, Xiang Cao's instrument lets the player tap out melodies (alphabet) and chords (function keys) using guitar samples on the computer's hard drive.
One of the less ambitious designs in the Guthman competition, the Key Board Band makes up for that with pitch-bend and envelope-manipulation keys and the fact that it can be replicated using software, a guitar strap and a little glue.
: Greg Kellum uses two ancient technologies as an interface for his hypermodern Touch Plane instrument: paper and ink. An overhead camera and table-clamped infrared lasers track finger movements with only almost no latency, allowing him to use controls that are printed on a piece of paper. In one instance, he played a paper sequencer instrument. In another, he DJed printed discs of color that triggered and manipulated samples. To switch instruments, Kellum places another sheet of paper on the table and toggles to the corresponding software. He hopes to add an acoustic sensor to the Touch Plane to tell the instrument how hard his fingers are hitting the paper.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Talk about more cowbell. Juraj Kojs's fascinating performance involves playing bells that then play other, computer-modeled bells.
The handmade sheep bells are from Kojs's home region in Slovakia and his software program not only models bells, but also allows real-life bells to essentially play other bells in a virtual environment.
His instrument, "cyberbell structures created with physical modeling synthesis," is noteworthy not only for the extensive theory, technology and cultural history that went into it, but also because it works so well in practice.
" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=16993755001&playerID=1815813330&domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="350" height="283" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">: Photo: Ben Keyserling The T-Stick is a tubelike "gestural music controller" with pressure sensors under its outer plastic membrane and an accelerometer to detect touch, taps, twists, tilts, squeezes, tilts and shakes.
This data, along with data from the pressure-sensitive foot pads, travels over USB where it triggers and manipulates patches in Max/MSP. Built by D. Andrew Stewart (pictured) and Joseph Malloch, the T-Stick integrates the performer's movements more than most electronic instruments which leads to a lively performance.
: Photo: Ben Keyserling The Kreol instrument turns the top two rows on a computer keyboard into a musical keyboard. But unlike a normal piano, Kreol players can alter the "Do" note – the root of the scale – in order to play the same melody in a different key, sort of like a guitarist sliding a chord to a new area of the fretboard. Meanwhile, the mouse controls note length and volume.
Mike Block and his colleagues designed the Kreol software instrument to capitalize on the fact that many of us already know where all the keys on a keyboard are. Kreol also includes drums and chord modes, so with three performers you can tackle lead, chords and rhythm (see video).
: Photo: Ben Keyserling Seokhwan Cheon's Pondang instrument wasn't working during the competition – no surprise, because he had just traveled to Georgia Tech from Korea and his instrument is made mostly from water.
When it's working, the player dips his hand in the watery interface to produce a theremin-like tone while shapes float past on the screen beneath. Cheon scrambled to get the Pondang working in time for the competition, but one part refused to work, so we have no audio sample for this one. However, the video shows it in action.
See Also:
- Review: beamz Music System Lets You Compose a Symphony With the Power of Freaking Lasers
- Sneak Peek: Musical Instruments of the Future
- Robots Pass Musical Turing Test
- Sounds of Science: 8 Futuristic Musical Instruments
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How We Bungled the Digital Television Transition
Posted: February 20th, 2009, 3:55pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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America's transition to over-the-air digital television signals, which netted the government $19 billion in a wireless spectrum auction, was doomed from the start, thanks to a flawed voucher program and a time frame that left the country stranded between administrations. -
Remixable iPhone Album Points to the Future
Posted: February 13th, 2009, 10:45am EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Recent musical developments in the iPhone app store promise to make the MP3 look tired by comparison. Witness the latest: a $3 iPhone app with 10 songs from a Grammy-award winning electronica artist, all of which can be remixed live on the iPhone. -
The Shorty Awards: Why Nerds Hate Twitter
Posted: February 12th, 2009, 5:06pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Twitter hits the mainstream, where people are using it for all sorts of practical purposes. Where's the fun in that? We interview six Shorty Award winners and nominees to find out. -
Live Nation, Ticketmaster Merger Risks Antitrust Scrutiny
Posted: February 10th, 2009, 6:44pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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The proposed merger of two of the entertainment business' biggest forces is certain to attract the attention of federal regulators. The industry has been a frequent target of the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission. -
House Delays Digital TV to June 12
Posted: February 4th, 2009, 4:18pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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The U.S. House of Representatives voted to push the nationwide switch to digital television back almost four months to June 12. -
Report: Live Nation, Ticketmaster In Late-Stage Merger Talks
Posted: February 4th, 2009, 10:26am EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Live music behemoths Live Nation and Ticketmaster are negotiating a proposed merger, according to the Wall Street Journal, after the ticketing contract between the two companies ended at the beginning of the year. Although neither board has approved the deal, the talks are said to be in a fairly late stage, the newspaper says. -
LimeWire Creator Brings Open-Source to Urban Planning
Posted: January 30th, 2009, 10:02am EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Entrepreneur Mark Gorton wants to do for people what he already helped do for files: move them from here to there in the most efficient way possible using open-source tools. You might call it a "P2P-to-people" initiative -- these efforts to make cities more people-friendly are partly funded by people sharing files. -
How Video Will Save the Audio Star
Posted: January 9th, 2009, 3:35pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Audiophiles, rejoice: Sound quality is about to get much better, thanks to high-definition video standards.
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RIAA to Stop Suing Music Fans, Cut Them Off Instead
Posted: December 19th, 2008, 10:30am EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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After five years of lawsuits against music fans, the RIAA will have ISPs throttle the internet connections of alleged infringers. The strategy could allow the RIAA to circumvent a legal system that has hindered its anti-sharing efforts.
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TV Studio in a Box Enables Long-Tail TV
Posted: December 18th, 2008, 1:00pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Niche broadcasters from high school sports teams to the lead singer from Yes embrace NewTek's TriCaster. The compact device lets amateurs produce pro-quality live TV programs for the airwaves or the internet at a fraction of the cost.
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Top 5 Disruptive Music-Making Technologies
Posted: December 16th, 2008, 9:00am EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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To quote Yogi Berra, the future isn't what it used to be. Meet five technologies that are empowering people to make music in unprecedented ways.
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Why Movies Disappear from iTunes and Netflix
Posted: December 12th, 2008, 11:00am EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Movie studios routinely pull films from both iTunes and Netflix's streaming movie rental system, due to the legacy of "release windows" that give temporary exclusives to cable companies. The strategy works today, but it's not sustainable.
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DRM-Free iTunes Seems Unlikely, Despite Report
Posted: December 9th, 2008, 12:37pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Music fans, iTunes users and Steve Jobs have wanted three major labels to let their music be peddled in the store without digital rights management. Rumor has it that iTunes will finally remove copyright protection from all its music today, but we're not so sure.
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Gallery: Gizmodo Shows Off Gadget Prototypes From the Past
Posted: December 5th, 2008, 12:00am EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comNEW YORK – Popular technology blog Gizmodo has set up shop in a Manhattan art gallery to showcase some of the rarest and most intriguing gadgets from the past hundred years or so, including never-released Apple prototypes, the first Sony Walkman, a flying aerial surveillance camera and more.
The Gizmodo Gallery opened Thursday at the Reed Annex (151 Orchard St.), but we snuck in Wednesday night to photograph the most fascinating stuff on display here. The show runs through Sunday afternoon, giving New Yorkers, tourists and gadget freaks a chance to gaze upon important pieces of our technological history, and interact with some more recent gadgets.
: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comNico Reyes of the Reed Annex sits blissfully unaware of the Draganflyer X6, a flying surveillance device that "makes crane shots obsolete," according to its creators. That may be the case, but we can't fight off our initial impression that this could be the last thing we will ever see.
With an expert at the remote control, the aerial carbon-fiber shutterbug navigates tight indoor spaces with ease according to Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam, who said the beast is capable of holding steady in winds of up to 18 mph. A "failed motor logic" system keeps the system in operation even if two of the motors crap out.
Lam said the Draganflyer X6 accepts a night-vision camera or HD camera in addition to the vanilla flavor, and communicates its location to the remote using a GPS. As great as this gadget is for filmmakers and photographers, its potential application as a weapon is a bit worrying in a Terminator sort of way.
: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comHere's the portable audio player that started it all: the original Sony Walkman, on loan from Sony's archives in Tokyo. Initially panned by critics, the Walkman became a worldwide sensation, eventually selling 340 million units.
Oddly, the device that kicked off the portable-audio revolution includes two headphone jacks for sharing music — surely, unintentional prescience on the part of Sony, which could never have predicted the later connection between portable music formats and music sharing.
Model Alyssa Miller holds the original-model Walkman.
: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comLegendary Silicon Valley design firm Frog Design lent Gizmodo a couple of Apple prototypes to display, including this MacBook Tablet mock-up, modeled here by Paulo.
Apple and Frog Design conceived this prototype using their Snow White design language, according to Gizmodo's Brian Lam. Although this portable tablet computer never saw the light of day, echoes of its design can be seen in the Apple IIc.
: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comAtari never released a portable version of the Atari 2600 game console, but if it did, it may have ended up looking a lot like this Atari 2600 VCSp, seen here in the hands of writer Lisa Katayama.
The Atari 2600 VCSp is the work of hacker extraordinaire Benjamin Heckendorn (better known online as Ben Heck). This model is the first Heck ever made; he went on to build scores of vintage gaming mods that earned him a following among geeks and fans of vintage gaming.
: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comThis double-sided MIDI controller allows musicians to build loops of sound by pressing LED buttons arranged in a 16-by-16 grid.
This video explains how it works, but the gist is that you control which loops play, and when they start and stop, by activating and deactivating the lights.
Unlike some of the other gear on display, the Tenori-On will be playable by gallery-goers who can listen to their own performances through a pair of headphones.
: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comGizmodo’s Brian Lam told us that the original Dyson vacuum cleaner was initially crippled in the U.S. market because manufacturers were worried it would cannibalize the multimillion-dollar market for replacement vacuum bags.
Luckily for inventor James Dyson, this version of his design was manufactured in Japan starting in 1983, giving Dyson the financial wherewithal to start making them himself. Twenty five years later, the descendents of the original Dyson are probably the world's most coveted model — itself something of an accomplishment. Who would have predicted that vacuum cleaners could become such a hot topic?
Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan wields this original Dyson.
: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comOne of the largest Lego sets ever released, this Death Star was destroyed on its way from Lego to the Gizmodo expo. Luckily, the company introduced Gizmodo to Lego enthusiast Jonathan Lopes of Brooklyn.
The self-described "Lego nerd" arrived on the scene to perform a reverse Luke Skywalker on the Death Star, rebuilding it in time for it to be displayed Thursday morning — no small feat, considering that it's made from 3,800 pieces and that he worked only from a picture of the fully assembled version.
: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comAnother Apple prototype loaned to Gizmodo by Frog Design, this early '80s conception of an Apple phone featured a handset and a monochromatic screen and stylus, allowing the device's potential owner to sign checks electronically over phone lines.
When Apple finally released its first phone in 2007, it didn't even come with a stylus, and the screen was much smaller.
Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan picks up the handset.
: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comOne of the most useless pieces of electronics we have ever laid eyes on, Thanko's USB tie and gloves provide you with heat or cool when they're connected to your computer's USB port — perfect for commuting and outdoor sports, assuming your USB cable is long enough.
The gloves heat up, while a compact fan located in the necktie's knot generates a gentle breeze — worthwhile in theory, if not in practice. As Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan points out, "All USB gadgets are awesome in some way."
: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comWhen this Bell Labs Picturephone debuted at the 1964 World's Fair, many of those who saw it in action, paired to an identical model in Disneyland, probably thought that every phone would feature video by the year 2000. They were close; instead, nearly every modern computer is capable of live videoconferencing, while home phones still largely resemble the models of the past.
A 1956 version of the Picturephone was capable of transmitting one picture every two seconds. This one apparently improved on that frame-rate by adding another two lines to the connection. This (nonfunctional) unit was borrowed from the AT&T Archives and History Center.
Adam Lam uses the Picturephone pictured here to attempt contact with gadget freaks of the past, or so we imagine.
: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comGoggles that let you watch video on a little virtual screen have been around for years, but many of them are plagued by poor image quality, low resolution and headache-inducing optics.
This pair, from the widely respected camera-lens manufacturer Zeiss, is an exception, with 640x480 resolution and an individual diopter for each eye that allows eyeglass-wearers to use the goggles. Battery life is four hours — enough for all but the longest films.
In this shot, Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan watches a video stored on a video-capable iPod Nano.
: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.comWe wondered why two hunks of red foam and metal were included in the gallery, until Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam took a break from overseeing the construction of displays to demonstrate them.
With each step, a thunderous, robot-stomp sound emanated from his slippers, and by the end of his demonstration, we were convinced that they did in fact belong in the gallery. Sometimes, technology is as much about whimsy as it is about scientific progress.
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Modded Pianos Delight Indie Audiences, Classical Buffs
Posted: December 1st, 2008, 3:30pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Volker Bertelman discovers when he's 10 years old that he can make a piano sound like a harpsichord by sticking metal tacks into the hammers. As an adult, his penchant for piano modification gains the respect of music fans the world over.
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Guns N' Roses' 'Chinese Democracy' Launches on MySpace
Posted: November 20th, 2008, 1:02pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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At long last, you can hear what looked like the ultimate rock 'n' roll vaporware. For free.
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John McCain to Jackson Browne: You're Welcome
Posted: November 20th, 2008, 8:20am EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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John McCain has two words for Jackson Browne: You're welcome. That's the gist of a response to Browne's lawsuit that the McCain campaign's sampling of his classic (or, as they put it, "long-ago published") "Running on Empty" implied that the famously lefty singer-songwriter was endorsing the maverick but nevertheless Republican presidential candidate.
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Musebin: Twitter-Style Music Reviews With Reddit-Style Ratings
Posted: November 14th, 2008, 3:00pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Sorry, Lester Bangs, but the future of music criticism could be Musebin’s user-ranked micro-reviews. If brevity is the soul of wit, these reviews are utterly hilarious.
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How Math Unraveled the 'Hard Day's Night' Mystery
Posted: October 31st, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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A Canadian math professor solved a riddle that has haunted guitarists and musicologists for decades: how the Beatles played the opening chord of 'Hard Day's Night.' Evidently, the band got by with a little help from its friend and producer, George Martin.
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The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne Talks Kubrick, Pink Floyd and Christmas on Mars
Posted: October 23rd, 2008, 8:00pm EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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The Flaming Lips burst out of Oklahoma with deafening noise and ambition to spare and remains one of rock’s most perplexing, powerful bands. Here, Wayne Coyne praises Christmas On Mars, Eraserhead and 2001 through the blissful haze of his painkillers.
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Should You Trust an Internet Radio Alarm Clock?
Posted: October 23rd, 2008, 10:58am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Alarm clocks evolved from bells and buzzers to the clock radio, and now to the internet radio. We found one that makes the our old model seem like a technological relic. Our only concern: Would a WiFi clock be reliable enough to wake us up for work each day?
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LaLa: How Does 10 Cents Per Song Strike You
Posted: October 21st, 2008, 10:41am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Steve Jobs decreed the price of digital music to be 99 cents per download over five years ago, but competing with free has been difficult -- Jobs himself admitted that only three percent of the music on iPods was purchased from the iTunes music store. Could one problem be that the price of digital music is simply too high? LaLa hopes so.
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Who Will Facebook Partner With for Its Music Service?
Posted: October 17th, 2008, 3:55pm EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Music fans already share their tastes on Facebook using a variety of apps, but now that MySpace is launching its own music service, Facebook apparently has designs of its own with the help of an undisclosed partner. Here's our guess on which company that will be.
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Does The Long Tail Apply to Mobile Music?
Posted: October 17th, 2008, 9:45am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Mobile music hasn't yet been able to tame the long tail, according to details unveiled at the Popkomm conference in Berlin -- but that could be due to cellphone providers' inability to embrace the openness and integration that have become second nature to web 2.0 developers.
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The Bee Gee's 'Stayin' Alive' Could Save Your Life
Posted: October 16th, 2008, 4:13pm EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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The Bee Gee's 1977 hit song "Stayin' Alive" has just about the perfect tempo for performing chest compressions during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), according to the American Heart Association.
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Wal-Mart's DRM Nightmare Just Won't End
Posted: October 10th, 2008, 1:07pm EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Wal-mart has pledged to continue supporting all the digital rights management-infected music it sold to unwitting consumers over the past five years. Unfortunately for the retail giant, it could be haunted by Microsoft's failed DRM system for years to come.
Wired.com -
Applying the eBay Model to Music Licensing
Posted: October 7th, 2008, 10:52am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Licensing songs to commercials, videogames and even homemade videos could be the next area of music to benefit from the long-tail effect. YouLicense has reduced much of the friction that has been holding this back with its eBay-like market for synchronization licenses.
Wired.com -
Songwriters Submit Royalty Agreement to Copyright Royalty Board
Posted: September 24th, 2008, 11:16am EDT by Eliot van Buskirk
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Songwriters, record labels, and webcasters have reached an agreement on mechanical royalties for songs played on web radio services. Webcasters will pay 10.5 percent of their revenue to songwriters and publishers minus any performance royalties already being paid to labels. The move comes as part of music publishers' drive to start collecting mechanical royalties for compositions played online after giving online radio a free pass while business models developed.
Wired.com -
Amazon, Google Partner for Mobile Music Store
Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 9:31am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Apple's mobile iTunes store will soon face competition from Amazon's MP3 store on Google's upcoming T-Mobile G1 device. Owners of the device will be able to browse, search, preview and purchase music on the Amazon MP3 store using the phone's cellular connection.
Wired.com -
How Companies Pay Artists to Include Brands in Lyrics
Posted: September 19th, 2008, 10:09am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Songs that refer to products and brands have been with us for years. Conscious of the branding value such mentions can bring, some artists have gone so far as to approach companies with offers to include brand and product names in their song lyrics. But a wayward email from Paul Kluger of the Kluger Agency, which performs such product placements, provides a rare glimpse into this secretive market.
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MySpace Music Adds User Playlists, Amazon Links
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 10:52am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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The first aspects of MySpace Music, a major partnership between News Corp. and the three largest record labels in the world, have been revealed to be a playlist creation tool and 'buy' links to Amazon's MP3 store. Both sound more than a little familiar.
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Yahoo Music Hub Aims to Leverage User Prefs Across Services
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 9:29am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Rather than cloister users into its own services, Yahoo Music plans to give them what they want -- even if that means easy access to sites Yahoo once viewed as the competition. Yahoo's motivation isn't entirely altruistic: it plans to track user preferences across these services to create what it hopes will become a calling card music lovers can use to identify their tastes and desires wherever they may roam.
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Guns 'N Roses Leaker's Fate Rests in the Band's Hands
Posted: August 28th, 2008, 10:22am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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The feds may have their hooks into him, but Guns 'N Roses leaker Kevin Cogill's real headache is still the band. Chances of him getting any jail time are slim, but Guns 'N Roses could bankrupt him -- if they want to.
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5 Ways to Survive After Muxtape
Posted: August 26th, 2008, 11:25am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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It's been a week since we started asking (and initially got the OK for) an interview with Justin Oullette, founder of the online mix sharing site, Muxtape, to find out about the site's still-cryptic RIAA-induced outage. We're hoping for the best, but just in case, here are five alternative services to help fill the gaping void in your soul where Muxtape used to be.
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China Reinstates iTunes Access -- Minus Songs for Tibet
Posted: August 26th, 2008, 9:20am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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China has lifted its general block on Apple's iTunes store, now that authorities have apparently figured out how to block one specific album -- Songs for Tibet -- without cutting access to the rest of the store.
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Most Sung-About Body Part? The Eyes Have It
Posted: August 25th, 2008, 10:44am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Quick -- what body part is mentioned more often in song than any other? The eyes have it. Visual artists Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg analyzed over 10,000 songs and built an interactive graphic work that correlates musical genres with the body parts they mention the most, as part of their ongoing Fleshmap project.
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More Olympics Hijinx: Anthem Arranger Says He Was Ripped Off
Posted: August 22nd, 2008, 10:05am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Peter Breiner, arranger of more than 200 national anthems for the 2004 Olympics, is accusing the Beijing Olympic Committee of stealing those works for this year's Games. He says he is "100 percent sure" that his arrangements are being played at medal ceremonies -- and The Washington Post's culture critic couldn't agree more.
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First Paris, Now This: Jackson Browne Sues John McCain
Posted: August 15th, 2008, 3:37pm EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Another celebrity has taken on John McCain, and this time he's bringing his lawyers. Jackson Browne, the famously left-wing singer-songwriter is suing the presumptive Republican presidential candidate for using his iconic rock classic "Running on Empty" in Ohio campaign commercials without his permission.
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One Man's Quest to Digitize Rare Vinyl, 78 by 78
Posted: August 12th, 2008, 10:45am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Cliff Bolling didn't realize what he was getting into when he picked up a copy of the first record he ever owned and realized that there was a world of music trapped on 78 RPM records. Now he's digitizing and uploading his entire collection, sharing a trove it is virtually certain nobody would have ever heard again.
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New YouTube Audio Compression Stymies Uploaders
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 5:21pm EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Google's wildly popular YouTube recently changed something about its audio-compression algorithm, making some newly uploaded music sound truly awful.
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Dude -- Are You Going to Get a Dell MP3 Player?
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 10:32am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Back when the MP3 market was young, Dell tried to be a player with the Dell DJ. Oprah liked it and, frankly, so did we. But it crashed and burned while Apple sewed things up to the point where even Microsoft's Zune is a distant also-ran. So, naturally, Dell wants back in now, five years later. We who are about to die salute you!
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EMusic Extends Into Social Networks
Posted: July 22nd, 2008, 4:12pm EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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The DRM-free music retailer eMusic has linked up with several Web 2.0 hotspots to give subscribers more bang for their buck and allow them to post album excerpts to social networks.
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FavTape: Playlists Don't Get Any Faster Than This
Posted: July 22nd, 2008, 11:05am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Got a second? That's more than you'll need to create a sharable mix of your favorite songs at Favtape. Their lightening-fast online mixtape creation tool uses your Last.fm or Pandora account to retrieve 10 songs that you have bookmarked or favorited.
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Avril Lavigne Expects $2 Million From YouTube Despite Gamed Play Count
Posted: July 18th, 2008, 9:30am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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According to her manager, YouTube owes teenybopper pop star Avril Lavigne around $2 million for playing her videos. There's just one problem: Her YouTube play count appears to have been gamed by an automated web page that generated publicity for the video.
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Sweet: Pandora's Streaming Radio App for iPhone
Posted: July 10th, 2008, 5:03pm EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Online-radio favorite Pandora has unveiled a super slick version of its interactive music service for the iPhone -- the first time Pandora has ever been available for free on a cellphone. Color us impressed.
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Pitchfork.tv Takes a Stab at Music Videos
Posted: April 4th, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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The site known for its music reviews turns its tastemakers' attention to video, serving up high-quality original interviews and performances by bands that matter. Wired.com gets an exclusive preview.
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Reznor vs. Radiohead: Innovation Smackdown
Posted: March 27th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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From giving away songs to funding fan-made videos, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails leader Trent Reznor get busy rewriting the rules of the music industry. But whose strategies are the most revolutionary?
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Celestial Jukebox Arrives, But Is It Any Good?
Posted: March 21st, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Wired.com tests the British version of Omnifone's MusicStation Max service, which offers all-you-can-eat access to major-label music.
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Listening Post: Want Better Music? Don't Stiff the Songwriters
Posted: February 3rd, 2008, 9:00pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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As new digital-distribution plans gain traction, an inevitable fight over publishing royalties breaks out. If songwriters lose, your ears will suffer. Commentary by Eliot Van Buskirk.
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Listening Post: 'U2 3D' Brings Hyperreal Arena Rock to the Multiplex
Posted: January 20th, 2008, 9:00pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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A stunning new concert film captures the Irish rockers in all their stadium-filling glory. The film might be even better than the real thing. Commentary by Eliot Van Buskirk. -
Apple Reinvents Film Biz With iTunes Movie Rentals
Posted: January 15th, 2008, 3:30pm EST by Eliot Van Buskirk
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Deals with all the major film studios could help Steve Jobs revolutionize the way people watch films at home (or anywhere, really).