Note to self: Serial.baud(x) vs Serial.baud(var)

It seems that in one of the revisions of the Arduino IDE I was able to do something like this:

int baud = 57600;

void setup() {
Serial.begin(baud);
}

void loop() {
// do stuff here
}

The idea with having the baud rate defined as a variable is that it can be changed quite easily between debugging via a USB serial connection and testing / using via a MIDI connection. However, this no longer seems to work as the serial function does not recognise any data. Instead, this has to be written as:


void setup() {
Serial.begin(57600);
}

void loop() {
// do stuff here
}

B00daw's 72hour Challenge!

From this thread: http://8bitcollective.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=11335

B00daw says:
"Let's let the big boys and girls have a turn to be really challenged and learn something.

What differenciates between a normal 42HC and a 72HAC is the means of which the composition is made or with what types of media it's made. Conventional chips or trackers are discouraged in order to present an educational and challenging, obstacle-ridden goal to the already skilled hacker/musician.

Can you hac it?

...

For the first challenge, I call out little-scale.

I 72HAC you to create a ~5 minute song using a single TIA and two additional mixing tracks; three tracks in all. One track must solely be the TIA and its two channels. The other two tracks can only be YOUR vocals or generated vocals. I will set no limit to what can be done with the vocals. Extreme manipulation is encouraged. However, the TIA track must remain pure. As an added but unnecessary goal, please try to make the overall melodies of the TIA sensical. (We both know it's possible... but challenging. ;D)

little-scale do you accept the 72 Hour Advanced Challenge?"




Yes, I have accepted.

My Atari 2600 interface is in pieces, but I can rebuild, I have the technology...

It has begun!

AFUM 2009 Gig Last Night

Call2Learn

Circuit bent toy phone called "Call2Learn Language". The actual bend was a very straightforward one - a resistor clock replaced with a potentiometer. However, I'm actually quite happy with the aesthetic outcome (both visually - having a big red knob point out of the phone - and sonically - the phone has a wide range of sounds).

Reminder: Hidden Village Tomorrow Night

A gentle reminder that Hidden Village are playing at the Adelaide Festival of Unpopular Music tomorrow night. The evening will consist of a live performance and some video works, including the very first Australian screening of the Paul Slocum's commissioned work "You're Not My Father".


When: 7.30 PM, Thursday 23rd April

Where: de la Catessen Gallery, Anster Street, Adelaide

Scraggy Khene

Some scraggy beats featuring my khene creative commons sample pack that i made today.

Khene Creative Commons Sample Pack

Download Here

Let's Draw A Waveform!

A simple Max/MSP patch that demonstrates how to draw the waveform of a buffer-based oscillator. Each time the waveform is changed with the mouse, the oscillator is updated. Download this patch here.

Schematics and Patches and Code for Toriton Plus

If you want to build your own Toriton Plus water instrument, you can find a good amount of information here.



You will need:
- A computer with Max 5 or Max 5 runtime installed, a spare USB port and an audio card
- This patch for Max 5 or Max5 runtime (download here)
- An Arduino board and an Arduino IDE for your computer
- This sketch for the Arduino board and IDE (download here)
- Red 1mW lasers x 5
- LDR 100kΩ - 1MΩ x 5
- 100kΩ resistors x 5
- 22kΩ resistors x 3
- 500kΩ pots x 5
- A clear bowl or cake dish (I bought one for $20 from my local HomeBasics retail store, however if this is too expensive I have seen equally suitable vessels in antique stores and discount variety stores)
- Some way of mounting the lasers so that they are pointing diagonally through the clear vessel onto the LDRs
- You might need a suitable table or if you want to be fancy you can build all your electronics, sensors and mounting equipment into the table like me
- Some water
- Please note that the Toriton is powered by the USB cable going from the computer to the Arduino board



Hardware Setup:

How to wire the keypad:

The idea of the digital scanning of a keypad is very simple. The keypad in question has twelve buttons, set up in four rows of three (like a phone keypad, for example). Each button has two connection points – one point goes to a row pin, and one point goes to a column pin. Therefore, seven pins are connected between the keypad and the Arduino – four for the rows and three for the columns. When a button is pushed, it connects the two points – a column pin and a row pin.

By setting a row pin ‘high’ (in this case, to 5V as opposed to ground which would be considered ‘low’), and reading the digital state of the columns, and then repeating this process for the four rows, it is possible to see which button on the keypad is pressed at a given point in time.

The hardware setup is very simple – only the keypad and three 22kΩ resistors are required. Connect Arduino digital i/o pins 2 to 8 to the keypad. Pins 2 – 5 are for rows 1 – 4 respectively and pins 6 – 8 are for columns 1 – 3 respectively. Connect each of pins 6 – 8 to ground via a 22kΩ each.


How to wire the LDRs and pots:
Of course, you will most likely want to use a more permanent solution than a breadboard. Each resistor is 100k. Each pot is 500k. Each LDR is 1MΩ in the dark.

Finally, each laser can be powered from the Arduino's 3.3V output.



How to use the Max/MSP patch:
Basic Use:
- Make sure your serial port A is your Arduino port
- turn the DAC ON
- make sure data is coming in (the multisliders should move)
- set your max point in the data (ie. move the water around after having toggled the max toggle). untoggle the max toggle
- set your max point in the data (ie. make the water still and then toggled the min toggle). untoggle the min toggle
- press keypad keys 1 to 5
- set the exp factor to between 1 and 1.09
- turn up the gain



Max Patch Customisation:


- Each of the ampy objects outputs scaled and interpolated data from its right outlet. Should you wish to use this data for other processes besides the built in synthesis, simply take this data output and scale it and send it to your other process (eg. scale between 0 and 127 for MIDI, 0 and whatever for OSC etc).


- Change the serial port letter from a to something else if your Arduino board uses a different port assignment
- Set the arg for speedlimFive lower should you wish to have a quicker response from the data.
- The rest of the patch is quite messy but if you have any specific questions, please ask me.

Buildings on Hindmarsh Island, South Australia

Kangaroo Flats

"I Am Sitting In A Room" (Lucier, 1970) for MacBook and TextEdit

An audio/video version of Alvin Lucier's seminal work "I Am Sitting In A Room" for acoustic spaces, recording devices and spoken voice can be found below. It features a MacBook and TextEdit.


I Am Sitting In A Room (MacSpeech and TextEdit Version) from sebastian tomczak on Vimeo.

AFUM 2009: Tristan Louth-Robins (20/04)

Tristan Louth-Robins presented an interesting live set at the AFUM last night. The exploitation and exploration of artefacts and limitations is something that lies close to my heart, and as such the acoustic soup of run-out grooves and snippets of speech and melodies alongside the iPhone music apps worked really well.

With a strong grounding in performance, Tristan certainly delivered throughout his set with some excellent transisitons and manipulations. The rhythmic repetitions worked especially well, building up clusters of sounds in real time using the record player and an assortment of records as source material.

Milkcrate 29: Noises In The Woods by Brian Green

Brian Green presents the first session of 2009 with a very special ambient milkcrate using materials found in the woods outside of his home in South Carolina, USA. Only thirty seconds of source sounds were used to construct the thirty minute work.

Get it here: http://milkcrate.com.au/sessions-details-029.html

Mr Green Is Doing A Milkcrate

http://www.seeyouinsleep.com/blog/2009/4/18/milkcrate-noises-in-the-woods.html

This is a landmark milkcrate in that it is the first session not to be directly connected to the Adelaide group of milkcraters in some way.

The sounds that he has going so far are great! Let's wish him luck on what is surely going to be an intense journey.

Recession Party

Lauren and I went to a Recession-themed party last night. Perhaps this time next year we will be going to a Depression-themed party. Photos courtesy of Andrew Hill.

Video Rompler: Three-voice Acoustic Guitar

I've been working on a simple three-voice video rompler featuring the same acoustic guitar three times. Here you can see it being controlled by Ableton Live. The video is quite small and clear - and looks much better on the real computer. I think I've been inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's Rama II, which I read over the Easter break.

sto.Cells Update - PSX Dance Mat Support

I've added PlayStation Dance Mat support for my sto.Cells Max/MSP patch. The results have been great, freeing the user from always looking at the screen and pressing buttons, and actually listening to the audio outcome. Maybe that is a bit of an extreme way of putting it, but I'm sure you understand what I mean. Above you can see Lauren jamming with the patch using a shamisen.

Cats in Bathtubs

I've found out today that there is such a thing as a Flickr group called "Cats in Bathtubs". Naturally, I joined.

AFUM 2009: Christian Haines (16/04)

There is something almost magical about the power of (music) technology to help us as humans transcend the limitations of our senses and perception - whereby even a process as simple as amplifying the melting of ice must be listened to with some level of reverence, as acoustic events outside of the normal sphere of our existence are revealed.

The concept of failure aesthetics was somehow captured very nicely in Christian Haines' performance. The highlight of the show was the reinterpretation of Ligeti's Poème Symphonique for 100 Metronomes for mobile phones. Although there was some waiting involved (in order to get all of the perfomers' mobile phones set up correctly) it was well worth the wait.

I love phase-based rhythms and melodies, and so this work was a special treat especially with the unique spatialisation of having the performers as part of the crowd. The mind seems to wonder from one phase relationship to the next, and it is reminiscent of listening to a complex chord / drone for an extended period, in that one will focus on a particular part of the timbre for a certain amount of time before moving on to other elements. This was the rhythmic equivalent.

A good dose of humour was present as well.

AFUM 2009: Jason Sweeney with Tristan Louth-Robins (15/04)

Jason Sweeney and Tristan Louth-Robins presented an improvised laptop performance, consisting of droning samples, synthesis material and real time recording.

The mesmerising nature of the performance proved very successful, as the sonic material slowly drifted and traveled from one audio 'landscape' to another. With live sets like these, one can't help but to wonder about a subconscious underlying, internal narrative - perhaps not in a linear sense, but in an overall descriptive one. The use of field recordings to enhance this feeling alongside the spatialisation of the audio and the subtle sonic morphologies all gave rise to an excellent set, one which I was happy to have been present at.

"Cat"amari Damacy!

DIY Component to 15-Pin D (VGA Input)

Thanks to this page, I made a component to VGA input cable (for projectors etc that accept a component signal via a VGA input - this cable does not do any actual conversion or processing).

Fluid Sculpture

Fluid Sculpture from Charlie Bucket on Vimeo.
Via Nitro2k01:

"This sculpture, which is made out of medical tubing, reminds me of a braided basket more than anything else. Before the fluid is inserted, that is. Because that’s the briliant part, by inserting well controlled pulses of fluid in different colours you create a beautiful moving patterns. (Because of the way the tubes are arranged, repeating the same sequence of pulses will create interesting patterns in the sculpture). Longer pulses of coloured fluid will look like drawing a line, whereas shorter pulses will look like little ants crawling along the tube."

Robert Hart: HardHack

Fellow Adelaide Dorkbot co-founder Robert Hart has recently started a new website, HardHack.org.au.

""Hardware Hacking" is a term referring to either the modification, cannibalization or combination of new and/or old technologies to create something different, in order to solve a problem, convey an idea, art, experiment, or just for the fun."

The site covers many of Robert's most recent project, including his amazing DIY Cosmic Ray Detector, so go check it out!

Hidden Village: To Stare At The Sun (Piano / Video Version)

A re-imagination of a track from our Star Maker EP.
The audio from the video can be downloaded as an MP3 here.

Hidden Village Presents: Paul Slocum's You're Not My Father

Hidden Village are proud and honoured to present the first Australian screening of Paul Slocum's You're No My Father at our next concert at the Adelaide Festival of Unpopular Music.

This work was a 2007 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., for Networked Music Review. It was made possible with funding from the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

I'm in Nicolas Collins' Handmade Electronic Music Book!

Nicolas Collin is about to release the second edition of his excellent book "Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking".

For me, it is an honour to be have a little video on the included DVD of the book, because I can say that this book was the one that got me interested in doing hardware stuff in general in the first place, beyond physical computing - it is a true inspiration to read. I would strongly recommend to everyone to run out and grab the new edition, because it features so much new content in comparison to the first edition (which was already full of electronic music goodness).