A Brief History of Laptop Music

A beautifull article in laptop music by Marc Weidenbaum
""There's often a vertical plane between musician and audience. The sheet-music stand paved the way for the upturned plastic shell of the turntable, and today, chances are that rectangle obscuring the face of the performer on stage is the screen of a laptop computer, which has emerged as a ubiquitous music-making tool.""



A Brief History of Laptop Music

BENT 2006

Its a video and its amaizing :)


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Petecube

Current audio/visual equipment has minimal tactile feedback while acoustic instruments however have a much richer tactile palette. It is this variety of touch sensations that PETECUBE (PETE stands for Personal Electronic Touch Experience) aims to bring into the digital realm.

via we make money not art

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Macronaut

macronaut was a proof of concept of some ideas i wanted to try out to create audio-reactive visuals which are aesthetically interesting, as well as responding well to the audio inputstream used. possibly the biggest difference to more common approaches, the underlying engine does attempt a beat detection - even if very basic - instead of visualizing the raw audio data, like iTunes does for example. this extra layer acts as "server" of sorts, providing event data and statistics of a sound fragment to the currently active visual module, which is then free to interpret this data in any possible way. those generated "beat" events are the primary source of change for the visuals. the audio data itself is (so far) only used as additional, secondary input for creating the visuals. as all of the implemented visuals are making use of 3d so far, i also focussed on "filmic" elements like camera changes and cuts as event receivers.

Macronaut

Datasound

Datasound offers an alternative and more sensual interpretation of electronic data by exploring their musical potential. Datasound is a fully functional musical instrument that enables you to hear, mix, scratch and perform digital data signals, from a picture, an old program floppy, a computer virus, a love letter, or a drawing…

On the right side of the deck stands a turntable that plays 5.25” floppy disks.The datasound mixing deck is completed with a sampler that reproduces in real time samples obtained from a variety of objects that contain or generate data: a Winchester hard drive, a neon light, a 3.5” floppy disk drive, a flatbed scanner, data cartriges, travel cards…


DATASOUND

Nimio

nimio is a system comprised of a series of physical objects designed as individual playthings, but wirelessly networked via RF to act as both input and output devices for a collective visualization of distributed activity. These hand-held, translucent silicone toys have embedded sensors (for input) and 3 colors of LEDs (for output) which allow them to be reactive to both sound and touch. Action around one of the nimios will cause the others to glow in different patterns and colors. The interaction design is deliberately open-ended, in order to allow the emergence of distinctive patterns of collaborative engagement in real groups.

We designed and built nimio for a group of ten people who manage a multi-disciplinary information technology research institute. They reside in two spacious suites across the hall from each other and so, while they are in relative proximity, they are often out of ear-shot or sight of one another.

nimio

Tenori-on

A 'visible music interface', or a digital music instrument featuring a 16x16 matrix of LED lights, allowing even non-musicians to play sounds & improvise intuitively. each LED light also functions as a touch-sensitive switch that is capable of emulating related sounds when touched. when users push a switch a short time, a ripple of light & sound spreads out. when a switch is held longer, the light dot & sound will be played repeatedly (looped). several tenori-ons can be wirelessly connected & synchronized.


Tenori-on

Fijuu

# fijuu is a 3D, audio/visual installation. Using a PlayStation-style gamepad, the player(s) of fijuu dynamically manipulate 3D instruments to make improvised music. fijuu is built using the open source game engine OGRE and runs on Linux. in the future fijuu will be released as a Linux live CD project, so players can simply boot up their PC with a compatible gamepad plugged in, and play without installing anything (regardless of operating system). This effectively turns the domestic PC into a console for game based audio performances.



Fijuu