Pebble Box
Sile O’Modhrain has produced an interesting instrument called the Pebble Box, that uses collision theory and physical systems principles. Users interact with objects and sound is produced according to the movement between them.
Circuit Bent SONY XV-T33F
Clip from a videobending session using a Sony XV-T33F. Andrew Coleman has blogged how he did it on his animals on wheels website.
CreDio
CreDio is a ‘novel musical instrument that combines digital and mechanical functions to control sound synthesis algorithms.’
ConDio
Seelenlose Automaten
Generative audiovisual project by Patric Schmidt and Benedikt Groß. A sequencer controls the audio and visual output in unison. The visualisation is created using vvvv.
relpats-eht
Looks like relpats-eht has returned with a new puzzle.
5 CommentsAcoustically Visual
Three part AV mashup made by WOMP2007 using recordings of Marshall McLuhan which can be found here.
[Part 2 - Linear Tactility]
[Part 3 - Painting the Invisible]
Radiophonic Workshop
Some goodies from the Radiophonic Workshop, firstly the link to Alchemists of Sound documentary posted in the forums back in Novemeber 2005.
A documentary called Electric Music Machine I found on youtube. I found some information on it a while ago (when I first started this post) but I can’t find the source anymore…
This fly-on-the-wall documentary about five days in the life of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop has a slightly odd history. It was conceived not as a broadcast programme, but as a straight-to-video release, and was originally titled “Opus 10259″ (because the Workshop had worked on 10,259 projects by that point).
Filming took place in early 1985, but then the idea of releasing it as a sell-through video was dropped. Everything went quiet for three years, and then, after some extra filming in late 1987 (the Richard Attree segments), the programme finally saw the light of day on BBC-2 at 3.05pm on Tuesday 29th March 1988 to celebrate the Workshop’s 30th anniversary. To date, that is its one and only transmission.
It’s a nice little narration-free doco that does an excellent job of presenting a snapshot of the work that was going on in the Workshop at a time when the “traditional” methods of manipulating sounds using reels of tape were beginning to be supplanted by new technologies like MIDI.
Just so that the Who fans aren’t unduly disappointed, I should point out that this documentary about the Workshop is possibly unique in that it doesn’t make any mention of Doctor Who whatsoever, although the piece that Peter Howell is seen to be working on – for a Newsnight special called “D-Day To Berlin” – sounds an awful lot like mid-80s Doctor Who incidental music, at least in its early stages.
It’s been split into five parts on youtube:
[Part 2]
[Part 3]
[Part 4]
[Part 5]
Finally a radio documentary from 1979 called Wee Have Also Sound Horses, the title a reference to Francis Bacon’s 1626 novel ‘The New Atlantis’
Sotavento – Internet Forest of Sounding Trees
Sotavento tracks the movement of trees using two dual-axis accelerometers, fixed at the end of a branch. Sound is generated depending on the amount of movement that is detected.
Chessynthesis
Maniax Memori has designed chessynthesis where the audio output is controlled as the chess game progresses. The final version will use reacTIvision alongside processing. This video shows a visual representation of what to expect, the final release will use a real chess board.