[Photo: Anne Helmond]

Crackle-canvas is an ongoing electronics project of the Netherlands-based media artist Tom Verbruggen (aka token). This endeavour playfully challenges the conventions of artistic consumption by reimagining gallery space as an interactive musical playground rather than an arena of sullen observation. Each Crackle-canvasis a modular ‘synthesizer painting’ equipped with switches and knobs that allow rudimentary control over the sound generated by the device. While these objects can be played individually, things get considerably more interesting when they are patched together into a collaborative cacaphony. Verbruggen has developed several iterations of these devices that range from stark white minimalist surfaces to more colourful, user-friendly controllers complete with graphic prompts for novice operators. While there is an abundance of video documentation of the artist performing on arrays of these controllers, the work is most interesting when there is are participants involved – the above image from a recent exhibit in Paris speaks to the type of engagement these objects engender.

Continue reading.... Crackle Canvas [Environment, Sound]

From the creator of SunVox and a number of other very interesting apps for the iOS platform, Alexander Zolotov, comes an old school pixel experimental synth for both iPhone and iPad. The app includes multitouch arpeggiator and it is possible to draw waveform and play it at the same time. Simple yet beautiful and a lot of fun. See video below.

Platform: iPhone/iPad (Universal)
Version: 1.0
Cost: $0.99
Developer: Alexander Zolotov

/found via prostheticknowledge

If you liked the ‘Extending the Touchscreen’ project by Michael Knuepfel here are a few experiments by Benjamin Gaulon using displays to convert light to sound waves. He writes:

Research and recent innovations have led to an amazing increase of types and uses of visual displays and screens; indeed, in our predominantly visual culture, they are everywhere. A typical person carries at least one device with a screen, is presented with them in public places, uses them at work and in many leisure activities. They are so ingrained in our everyday acts and habits that we don’t even notice them anymore. L.S.D invites its users to engage in a new perception of their daily environment. In ecology this class of relationship is called commensalism.

L.S.D feeds on light via two LDR (light depending resistor) mounted on a suction cup, allowing the sensors to be mounted on any screen surface. An analogue synthesizer converts the light input to sound waves. This device can be used in many different configurations and feeds from any light sources. Even if L.S.D can be controlled by any light source, its design is aimed at screen reading/listening. More videos on Ben’s vimeo.

Project Page

Benjamin Gaulon is a researcher, artist with a broad experience of acting as art consultant, public and conference speaker, graphic designer and art college lecturer. Issues like e-waste, obsolescence and disposable society have been the focus of his practice and theoretical research. ‘Recyclism’ research seek to establish an inter-disciplinary practice and collaborations by creating bridges between art, science and activism, and by doing so, shifting the boundaries between art, engineering and sustainable strategies.

Circuit Synth is a very simple and fun modular synthesizer for the iPhone. It allows you to hook up to six modules up in any order. The interface is very easy and friendly and even people not familiar with synthesis might have some fun with it and may even learn a thing or two. The offered modules are basic – no filters, just standard oscillators and modifiers. See video below.

About:
Design your own instrument by wiring up simple modules. Included are three kinds of oscillators (sine wave, square wave, and sawtooth wave), a noise generator, and modules for combining and modifying signals. Dabble in techniques like additive synthesis and frequency modulation just by choosing different arrangements and wirings.

Platform: iPhone
Version: 1.0.1
Cost: $3.99
Developer: Michael Daines

See also Jasuto – a more in depth modular synthesizer.

Audiotool is a fantastic example of why Adobe Flash is still relevant in a world where many web developers are calling for it’s early demise. Audiotool.com is a fairly complete electronic music studio in web app form. It’s something that would have been impossible just a couple of Flash versions ago, but since Adobe added the ability to generate realtime audio without hacks, creative coders have been seeing how much Digital Signal Processing they can accomplish in a scripting language. Amazingly, the answer is quite a bit. Audiotool is a modular environment – it features boxes such as 808 style drums, 303 emulations, a slew of effects boxes and other interesting modules such as tone grids and poly-synths. Any of the units can be hooked up in any order giving great flexibility. Songs can be sequenced, complete with parameter automation. It’s like a simpler version of Reason full of features you normally expect to find in an expensive desktop studio app, not a free web app. Songs can also be saved and shared online and you can open other people’s songs to check out their arrangements. Things are simple enough that someone new to electronic music should be able to figure things out with a few minutes of fiddling around.

Audiotool has been in development for a long time. The sound features are fairly well developed, but the community features are just starting to be introduced. One could imagine it becoming even more useful as a fun way for musicians to collaborate, remix and share musical ideas – just the kind of thing that the whole world needs more of. Since the software is totally free and available for everyone, I could easily see them building up a decent sized online community. Check it out now.

myVST Demo: AudioTool from myVST on Vimeo.

Created by Anton Marini aka vade, v002 Rutt/Etra plugin brings emulation of the classic Rutt Etra raster based analog video synthesizer to Quartz Composer.

The original Rutt/Etra machine was one of the first voltage-controlled video special effects systems and video synthesizers named after Steve Rutt and Bill Etra who designed it.

The Rutt Etra machine allowed the patching of different video sync rate oscillators to control, offset and famously “z-displace” the resulting video, an effect most memorably demonstrated in the work of the Vasulkas. (see video at the bottom of this post)

v002 Rutt/Etra plugin is an attempt to capture some of the beauty of the original hardware. vade notes it’s almost impossible to emulate an entire Rutt/Etra, as modern graphics and computer systems make fundamentally different assumptions from analog video systems. This plugin for is work in progress in attempt to make it as faithful as possible to the original but still exploring new possibilities.

The plugin comes with handy collection of example patches taking you through the basics to more complex examples. Note that to use you will need Mac OS X 10.6 (Quartz Composer 4.0) or 10.5 (Quartz Composer 3.0) with Apple Developer Tools installed (for Quartz Composer editor).

Plugin Page for Download + More Info + More examples here.

Anton Marini aka vade is a Video Artist and a Freelance Video Engineer / IT Consultant. To find out more, visit vade.info

Berna is a software simulation for Mac of a late 1950s electroacoustic music studio. Created using MaxMSP, Berna includes oscillators, filters, modulators, tape recorders, mixers, are all packed in a interface with historical accuracy.

At that time there wasn’t any electronic musical instruments market, as a matter of fact, most of the equipment was adapted from scientific tools belonging to radio engineering departments. Sometimes the equipment was built from scratch cannibalizing anything that had wires, tubes and pots, more rarely, the studios used the few commercial instruments available in those days, such as the Melchord, the Trautonium and the Theremin. Contrarily to what happens today, electronic music then was everything but fast and easy to create. A few minutes of electronic composition could take more than one year of work.

You can try a version before you buy but the full version, available post purchase will cost you around $10.

Are you ready to meet the grandfather of the synthesizer? Berna

(via DigitalTools)

SunVox is a modular sequencing application that has been ported to almost every platform under the sun (sorry, terrible pun). It’s especially targeted to mobile platforms – in addition to working on Windows, Mac and Linux, it also works on PalmOS, Windows Mobile, and now the iPhone. I spent a little time with the iPhone version and am pretty pleased with what I’ve seen so far.

The interface is split into 3 areas which can be resized more or less at will by tapping on the resizer bar. This is very important because SunVox packs a lot of features onto one screen. The top area features a Tracker style pattern editor. Users of Buzz, Psycle, Traktor, etc. will find themselves right at home. The bottom right features a module view where you can create and link up modules and the left area shows the settings for the selected module. Figuring out how stuff works is fairly easy and for the most part everything works as expected.  The tracker pattern area takes a little getting used to since you don’t move the cursor by direct tapping, but instead by dragging.  This setup makes sense  when you don’t want to obscure what you are tapping on.  Plus you can do the pinch/zoom gesture to zoom in and out.

Overall the GUI is very snappy and it doesn’t ever seem sluggish. I appreciate the nice big font in the tracker view and the overall look is nice, but could use a little more color in places to jazz it up. I also like that each pattern has it’s own user drawable icon – a nice creative touch that works great on the small screen. While the interface is good there are a few things that could be improved to really optimize the experience for the iPhone. For one – there’s no reason to display the iPhone status bar at the top. It’s very easy to hide and would free up valuable screen real estate. Second – while the resizing windows works well, I think the ‘one window’ approach would work better on the iPhone. I would have 3 icons to switch between the three windows and show each  screen full sized. Having to constantly resize your workspace depending on what you are working on is a waste of time.

My other critique has to do with the built in sound modules. While they are interesting and easy to play with, they don’t really offer much in the way of tweakable parameters. If you are looking for even a simple 1-Osc synth with an enveloped filter you may be disappointed. SunVox keeps the same modules across all platforms which is great, but I know the iPhone is capable of a little more than what’s offered. That said, the simple modules should let you hook up lots of stuff, and you can also use samples, so users should still find lots of creative alternatives. Having simpler modules also gives the app a signature gameboyish sound, which is cool.

Gripes aside, SunVox is a really nice platform for sketching out musical ideas. I had a little tune up and running within minutes.  I can see this app really appealing to fans of other hand-held sequencing platforms, like the Gameboy, PSP and DS, and anyone who’s longed for a handheld version of Buzz. The fact that you can hook up Generators and Effects however you like should allow for a lot of fun experimentation. This app is a lot deeper than most iPhone apps and is really worth exploring.

Platform: iPhone
Version: 1.4.5
Cost: $4.99
Developer: Alexander Zolotov

From the creators of iOSC, an iPhone application that can communicate with other compatible hardware and software nodes on your network, come two new sound application: Powon and NNN Mono. Considering Powon is a free app, this makes it a must download. If you are looking for creative synthesiser app, NNN Mono definitely deserves a closer look. There are plenty of videos on the site (see some below), that should give you a good overview of features the app includes. Here is some more info on each app.

NNN Mono, a more complex monophonic synthesizer and musical instrument. Costing $3.99, the app includes a number of oscillators (with OSC output), low pass, high pass, band pass, band stop filters, three envelope generators, a number of modulations, arpeggiators, delay and other features wrapped in a gorgeous minimal interface. You can save your settings and your creations are created in 44.1kHz stereo. To see full specification and tutorials, check out this instruction booklet (PDF) and plenty of videos available on the site, two of which are embeded below.

Platform: iPhone
Version: 1.0.1
Cost: $3.99
Developer: OKAHON

Powon

Powon is a sound toy, a free app that allows you to generate sound using waves. You can play simple music with 1 octave. It includes eight kinds of sounds, you can change the screen color, adjust the wave movement, use as a simple OSC controller by entering the iP address and port number. You can remote control the middleware such as Max MSP, Processing, ActionScript (FLOSC) and many other devices that support the OSC protocol from your iPhone. There is also an application for Windows, Mac that can be operated with Powan and you can download it here (see video below)

Platform: iPhone
Version: 1.0.1
Cost: Free
Developer: OKAHON

Created by Retronyms, DopplerPad is an iPhone sound application that allows you to quickly create and perform musical hooks, phrases and loops with a variety of custom synth and sample-based instruments.

DopplerPad offers a unique take on mobile music production. It’s clear that it was designed solely with iPhone in mind, and doesn’t attempt to follow desktop music apps too closely. The first thing you’ll notice about Dopplerpad is it’s beautiful presentation. It’s a minimal, high tech look but very colorful and inviting. Buttons are just the right size and the interactions feel great. The screens are laid out very logically and slide smoothly between each other. You will never feel lost in this app. DopplerPad centers mostly around live recording rather than sequencing. Just pick an instrument, press record and start tapping. Each time you tap, DopplerPad produces animated squares to show your notes and these get played back with the recording as well. The result is both nice to look at and listen to. One of the cool things about DopplerPad is that it can figure out how hard you are tapping the screen and adjusts the velocity of the note accordingly. The ‘Y’ position on the screen also controls a modulation parameter for each instrument, such as the filter. All the sounds seem like pretty basic synthy sounds and you can’t tweak them, which may be a bit limiting for some people. However, they give you more than enough sounds to have fun with. There are also a couple drum kits. Hopefully the devs will be adding more sounds as time goes on (some realistic instrument samples might be cool).  DopplerPad also has an intuitive arpeggiator/gate to help you stay on time. I have a couple criticisms with the note input model – one is that it can be hard to hit exactly the right note. It’s tempting to just click and drag around, but that will just produce atonal experimental sounding music. It would be cool if you could set up a musical scale and have the pitches snap to that, like you can do in Bebot. My other criticism – no multitouch? DopplerPad is capable of playing back many sounds at once, but you have to input them seperately. I’d love to be able to input chords.

DopplerPad also sports the ability to sample sounds using the microphone and to replay them starting at any point in the sample. This feature is a lot of fun to experiment with and opens up a lot of possibilities.

The other main screen in DopplerPad is the ‘Mixer’ page and it’s very reminiscient of a DJ mixing console. Here you can mix between two DopplerPad loops. You can also copy loops and pick which ones are playing. It’s very intuitive and DJ’s will be right at home here.

To conclude – DopplerPad is a very enjoyable app. It’s intuitive and easy to pick up, it’s nice to look at, and you can do some interesting stuff with it. $10 may sound like a lot, but when you compare that to what you would pay for a desktop version of the same app, it’s a steal. For iPhone musicians, DopplerPad is a must have.

Platform: iPhone
Version: 1.01
Cost: $9.99
Developer: Retronyms