Your first USABLE Purr Data (Pure Data) synth

Gbloink! 2020

I gave a workshop in December on writing music sketches for Android devices in Processing.

And in preparing it, I discovered that there's a new audio library that's standard in Processing 3.0, called Sound. That works on both desktop and Android apps.

So in the last couple of days I decided to try an experiment.

I got a Processing draft of Gbloink! I'd done a few years ago, that didn't play its own sounds, just sent OSC messages to a PureData patch - which worked but was a faff to set up - and swapped out the OSC messages for playing simple notes using this new Sound library.

And, it works.

Obviously, it's not a sophisticated sound at the moment. And not even as rich and varied as old Windows MIDI from the original Gbloink! which is now 22(!!!) years old.

Nevertheless, it's a promising start. It feels like finally it might be possible to produce a reasonable new version of the program that can run more or less out of the box, and be fun and pleasant to listen to.

I'll be working more on this over the next few months. And on some other "Sound Toys" I've made, that have only ever existed as slightly klunky experimental versions for live use, but weren't packaged for general consumption.

I have a feeling that this year, that will change. And I'll finally have something fun for you all :-)

If you want to try the new Gbloink!, it's currently available for Windows and Linux from this page : http://gbloink.com/play.html 

When I find someone with a Mac who can make the Mac download, I'll make that too. And, obviously, I'll be working on getting it onto Android. That's the real holy grail of this.

I'm really enjoying playing with Protoplug for scripting your own VST plugins in Lua.

This sketch uses 3 scripts with the plugin.

My own Waveflavours synth (playing the ever-evolving drone chords). The default "midi chordify" (that chord isn't programmed, it's being generated automatically from single notes) and another self-written variation that chooses random notes from a chord which is driving the u-he's "Triple Cheese" plugin.

All these scripts are hosted in FL Studio, which is also providing the drums.

Protoplug is really exciting to me, because I can finally turn FL Studio into something scriptable, and which I can use more like the way I was using Sonic Pi, to experiment with algorithmic composition.

Update : You can find my scripts for ProtoPlug on GitHub

Gbloink! on Scratch

Nice one! A 16 year old re-implements Gbloink! on Scratch.

In other news, the Gbloink! site is back up. Now just a static thing made with Bootdown.

Gbloink! Site Down

The Gbloink! site is down. Compromised by spammers probably via WordPress. I'll clean it out and it will be back soon(ish).

Arduino WaveFlavours

I've been porting my WaveFlavours synthesis technique to the Arduino.

Here's the project on GitHub.

And here's an example drone :

 Arduino WaveFlavour Drone by Mentufacturer 

WaveFlavours @ Sublime Loop

I've been playing with a simple synthesis technique I'm call WaveFlavours. Listen to some work-in-progress at Sublime Loop. (BTW: for people who are seriously into the Sublime Loop this is hardcore minimalist : 8 mins of the loop unadulterated with other melodies etc.)

SublimeLoop (WaveFlavours) by Mentufacturer

Zewp! is the anti-Gbloink!

Gotta agree with Bowkett. This is awesome!

(Apart from the not so inspiring music, obviously. Intro tune is quite nice but falls off badly.

Update : Scratch that. Is that some kind of autotuned version of Beastie Boys Intergalactic? It is nice. Until it goes away.)

Chess Board Tracker.

Interesting discussion of the collapse of music gaming.

Quick computer art link-bin:

Google Translate used as Drum Machine

Kinect puppetry

Open Source Musician Podcast

Robot Music Podcast

Cryptmas

What's up with Phil? A quick blurst of news.

It's a long story I may go into later, but I got kind of burned-out working on the last project I was on. So I decided to take some time off and apply to go back to university. I'm now at Goldsmiths college in London, doing the MFA in Computational Studio Arts.

This is quite a departure for me. I've tried being a scientist (but really don't have the attention to detail and statistical rigour for it), hung out with philosophers (and felt tempted by philosophy), and married an artist. But I've never thought of myself as *being* an artist. Or even *wanting* to be an artist. (Despite all the music I make.) I'm not sure I do now. There's still some puritan part of my brain which finds the whole thing rather self-indulgent and disreputable.

OTOH, here are two things I find really attractive :

a) the idea of being a "craftsman". That is, an expert maker of things.

And

b) the idea of artist as self-directed "gift-giver"; that is, someone who's work is inspired by what they want to give to the world rather than reacting to commission.

Of course, the world is full of programmers who say "I'm looking for a job where I can write what I want instead of having the pointy haired boss telling me what to do."

Well, artists are effectively living that dream. (Though, naturally, having to cope with the financial constraints that inevitably follow.)

So part of what I'm looking for on this course, is to stretch that part of me. Not so much the part which makes stuff up, which is fairly extended anyway, but the part which turns vague dreams into real things. A lot of it is to do with observing and modifying my own attitude and values. Even getting a bit more disreputable if it helps me push things forward ;-).

Inevitably the course is starting with some "learn to program for artists" type courses. Which aren't exactly an issue for me at the moment. But we're getting shown some nice graphics and sound related tools like Processing and openFrameworks (the latter of which I hadn't seen before).

And, soon, we'll start working with multi-touch, audio processing, and what Goldsmiths call "Physical Computing" which is all the magical, device-swarm, circuit bending electronics stuff. This is something I've wanted to get down to for a while, but haven't had the structure or time. I hope this course will give this to me. And if all goes according to plan, some of my device ideas may become reality.

Meanwhile, you can look at my ongoing course sketch-book (starting with Processing sketches.) I'll keep using this blog as my main "artistic" blog. So expect to see more art and music appearing here. I'll also use ThoughtStorms for further notes and ideas. And any swarm music I make will probably also find its way to the Gbloink site.

This evening I took a look at the official Gbloink! page, and realized it was, er, pants.

Now I've got a video on YouTube and a couple of sets of gbloink!tunes up on SoundCloud, there was a danger that Gbloink! could look and sound quite respectable.

But the site itself was an embarrassment. (Count that as a BIG failure for GeekWeaver and for my sad lack of CSS skills. OK, my general resistance to web-design and CSS naivity is a large part of it; but if I'd had a working copy of GW, then I'd have been more tempted to tinker and try to improve matters.)

So I figured : I'm paying for hosting on Webfaction. I can have as many Wordpress blogs as I like. Why not put one to some use? I quickly discovered that Wordpress is formidably good these days. Very simple to set up on Webfaction. With a huge ecology of plugins that install themselves (I didn't know that!) And great templates.

It didn't take long to find a template I liked, pull the video from YouTube, install a SoundCloud plugin, and generally make a whole new-look for the old Gbloink! material.

So, I present: the new http://www.gbloink.com.

The controversial thing I've added is the Facebook "Like" button. I'm pretty conflicted about this. On the one hand, the purist in me doesn't like to give a company as evil as Facebook more power over the web, and my online existence. On the other, there is so clearly a wave of new infrastructure being constructed by Facebook and the other internet playas, and it's at least necessary to understand what's going on. And, anyway, playing with Wordpress plugins to engage the new web trends gives me an exhilarating sense of ... keeping up. :-P

A couple of questions you may be asking :

1) OK. But Gbloink! was written 13 years ago? What's with that? When are you going to get on and either a) write a new version or b) do something else of musical interest?

2) Hmmm ... thinking of moving *all* your blogs to WP, then, are you?

To which the answers are :

1) God knows! Last night I checked out London's mind-blowing OpenLabs' OpenNight which left me wildly inspired and a little bit overawed. These are hardcore open-source, experimental music geeks who do livecoding in Scheme, hack their own electronic instruments and even sing their explanations about using Bézier curves to model sound-waves. The previous time I went, one guy was DJing with mind-control!

Like I say, a bit overwhelming. I definitely want to get in with this, and maybe do a performance at some point; but not sure if I have anything awesome enough yet.

Still ... I'm starting to think :-)

2) Well, my immediate thought is OPTIMAES. The Ning site got flooded with spam. And now Ning plan to charge. Meanwhile it looks as if Wordpress have social network plugins. It's possible I can have most of what Ning gave me, in a space I have more control over, and am *already* paying for. So, it's likely that I'll experiment with migrating OPTIMAES there.

Keep you posted ...

Talented Friend Watch #15 : Eufrasio Prates performing holofractal improvisations in La Coruña, Spain

Woah! LMMS is a pretty good free FruityLoops clone for Linux.

Being unemployed / post-Christmas holidays are great!

:-)

Here's roughly what I'm up-to at the moment.

jQuery / Javascript / Titanium

I've pretty much got jQuery under my belt. (Not hard, really) and am playing a lot with Javascript, now in Chrome. (Which is nice and fast and hasn't caused me any problems so far Kaunda).

This doesn't, of course, mean that I'm now a great Ajax UI designer (yet); but at least it's not javascript / or DOM-wrangling (via jQuery) which is stopping me.

I've done a number of cute experiments which I hope to show you soon. And then I'll try them in Titanium which looks pretty sweet too. This could be what I was hoping for from Adobe Flex / AIR.

Django

I started playing with Django because a lot of the Python job adverts I've seen are mentioning it. (Far more than, say, Zope. And Turbogears is clearly of infinitesimal interest to prospective employers.)

The most striking thing for me is that it's almost exactly like Google Application Engine. Or rather, I suppose GAE is heavily derived from Django.

The only differences seem to be that you have a relational database behind the scenes rather than Google's own BigTable and I guess I'll need to come to terms with the templating language which I ducked out of when I was writing Mind Traffic Control.

Anyway, Django looks pretty straightforward.

A couple of days ago I was looking at the Blimpduino site. I was thinking it would be cool to have one, but my own electronics and model making skills probably aren't up to it. Same with Johnny Chung Lee's cheap multi-touch Wiimote whiteboard. I'd love to have one. And I was kind of expecting that, by now, someone would have started making and selling a pens + wiimote package for people who want this but don't want to build it themselves.

But that doesn't seem to have happened.

So I started wondering whether there's some kind of site where you can ask people in your locality to make stuff for you. Something like a cross between Rentacoder and the Alchemy part of Etsy. There are undoubtedly people with a good understanding and feel for electronics projects who could knock off a couple of IR light-pens with alacrity. Whereas I'd bumble around not doing it for months.

So where's the site which creates a market for such things? Is it Etsy? If not, and if there doesn't seem to be anything similar, I'm thinking that this is going to be my Django learning exercise. It could be a useful service. (Think that you're encouraging small-scale, on-demand local production and helping stimulate economic activity during what's going to be a pretty bad year for many people. I'll probably add the option of offering and bidding using alt.money (eg. LETS) or even barter too.)

I'll knock together a draft site over the next week or so (it *is* my Django learning exercise too) and then, as I'm off to various entrepreneurial meetups I'll talk about it to them.

If it really looks like there's nothing similar out there, I may take this further. It's a definite "should exist". OTOH I can't quite believe that it doesn't. So if someone tells me about an existing one in the meantime, I'll leave it at that.

Music

I just discovered Chuck which appears a very interesting music programming language. I've been looking for something like this for a while, and it sounds pretty good on first listen. Time to go back to some of my more simulation oriented music experiments again.

Finally, merry circuit bent christmas and new year to you all.

Currently loving my LastFM station throwing together happy unplanned juxtapositions of hauntology, outsider electronica, IDM, gypsy and music from Pernambuco. Just like my own mix-tapes, except automatic.

Update : Actually, I'm never satisfied. Back in the UK I'm also starting to listen to Radio 3's Late Junction. What I'd really like is to be able to do is mix (as in a Yahoo Pipes sense of pulling together different feeds) feeds from LastFM, Late Junction and other sources.

Johnny Chung Lee's Wiimote whiteboard has offspring.

Update : this DJ table looks incredibly fun, of course.

Update 2 : An interesting home-made multitouch input device (not screen though)

Update 3 : Audio scratch input, though, seems just nutty. If still very cool.

What is RjDj?