Godfried-Willem Raes Week. Part One

A week ago, I'd never heard of Godfried-Willem Raes. Then Peter sent me an email telling me he'd discovered an amazing Belgian composer, performance artist, programming-language writer and instrument pioneer. A man whose friends call him God. I asked him to make sure that he wasn't a hoax (he isn't), and I'm very proud to hand you over for the first part of a week of special reports:
Five Reasons why Godfried is a MT Hero:
1: He was thrown out of Ghent Royal Conservatory in 1971 for being ‘antimusical’ because of his experiments in electronic music. He is now professor of experimental music composition there.
2: In 1968 he founded the Logos Foundation, which explores new musical interfaces, including “wireless gesture control, microwave radar, acceleration sensors, pyrodetectors, lightsensors, myoelectric devices, brainwaves, EEG and ECG”.
3: He’s created his own computer language for music composition, GMT which he uses to drive an orchestra of robot instruments (of which more later).
4: He wrote a symphony for bicycles
5: He has a fantastic beard, smokes a pipe, and is usually nude during performances (unless he's wearing a silver jumpsuit).
MORE GODFRIED IN PART 2: THE INVISIBLE INSTRUMENT

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Sir Mix-A-Lot is selling his Jupiter

Dave writes: Cripes! "Looks like Sir Mix-a-Lot himself is selling his Jupiter-8, used once on "Baby Got Back," and then stored for twenty years in pristine shape. Disclaimer reads, 'platinum albums not included with auction.'
Seller has just one feedback; purchased an old radio for $380. So is it the Sir himself or maybe just his studio guy? But how would the studio guy have access to the platinum records & Grammy (and his HAT)? And now I've given it enough thought to move on."

Neko keyboard set on fire at NAMM

Open Labs are trying to convince the world that their PC-in-a-big-box Neko keyboards are sturdy enough to take on tour. So, at their NAMM party, they encouraged DJ Richard Devine to set one on fire and beat it with a baseball bat. And it survived long enough to end the set. If you've got $5,000 to burn (yuk yuk) you could do the same! (I was sent this story by someone called Surplus4Less2003 who seems to sell AMD processors on eBay. Would be funny if he worked for Open Labs, wouldn't it?)Full story (with video).

New Site Feed - let me know if it works

A few people have asked me for a RSS feed for the site. I don't really understand how it works, but I'm proud to present:
  • Music Thing RSS Feed
  • Music Thing Atom Feed
    The new feed comes from Feedburner, and is supposed to work on any reader. Please let me know how it works in the comments.
  • Voodoo witch doctor MIDI controller stick

    MT reader Ego_Likeness read about Naill's DIY Pedal Board and realised how easy it is to pull apart a joystick and turn it into a MIDI controller. So he built this: "The cool thing is that its got a mercury swich of some kind in it, so in order to use it, you tilt it. So waving it around in kind of a funky fetishey witch doctor sort of way does really cool stuff if used right. Dig the hair and bone. Its all about the show baby, ya!" And he'll build you one (contact him for pricing). I'd love to see a video of this thing in action. (Thanks Justin!)

    Amazing Funky Oscilloscope from Censtron

    Sabastian at Censtron has really outdone himself this time. He's the circuit bender who goes a bit further than messing up the samples on a Casio SK1 (his greatest hits included this and this). This time he's taken an old black & white TV set and turned it into a superpowered oscilloscope, which takes the input from a 1/4 inch jack and turns it into mad patterns. He's not overselling this thing when he says: "Words can not do this justice, watch the movie and see it for yourself, you will be amazed." I was. Product page with video.
    Update: Turns out the system is called Wobblevision, and Here's how to build your own, but remember: "Do not go poking where danger might lurk."

    Looper's Delight: Free Led Zep drum tracks

    While I was away (that's my excuse), a load of bootlegged John Bonham drum tracks appeared on the web at: http://www.disndat.info/bonham/. They're completely clean tapes, recorded at Abba's studio in Stockholm in 1978 during the "In Through The Out Door" sessions. It's a sampler's dream. The site has gone down but after a LOT of Googling, I've found 8 of the tracks here (scroll down and hit 'start searching') and another one (probably the best track) here. Alternatively, celebrate the genius of John Bonham by listening to the MIDI file on this page.

    Keyboard Boomboxes

    Thanks to Chris from Audio Damage for pointing me back to the Boombox Museum. I linked there a while back but totally missed the best bit - these amazing 80s boomboxes with built in keyboards. They're incredibly rare, but get these model numbers locked into your eBay favourites: Casio KX-101 from 1984, Casio CK-200 from 1985 and Fisher SC-300 Stereo Composer. A couple of weeks back, someone tried to sell a SC-300 on eBay (here) with a 'Buy it now' of $499...

    Geology Rocks [again]

    Most veteran 'Thingies' [As all old-school MT readers like to describe thrmselves] will have fond memories of Gareth's Giant Cave Organ story. Now, as a sort of extra-deep-geek postscript, we offer the crazy stalactite music generator thingy. BoingBoing found it, but for those of you that like to baffle themselves with deep technical detail all the technical science-type stuff is over here

    Last night a VJ saved my data

    An idle Sunday breakfast riffling through Gizmodo's RSS feed turned into uproar this morning when we caught sight of the Korg Kaptivator: A video-playback and mixing device, with a form factor reminiscent of the venerable & still highly prized Akai MPC series. It features a 40gb hard drive, 2 LCDs (although they're not evident from the pics available at the moment), an 8x8 touchpad, cross-fader and ribbon controller. There's also a range of Built-in video effects and ports for video, audio, DV/FireWire, and MIDI.
    There's every chance that this could be one of those breakthough devices that engenders a whole new performance paradigm. Equally, there's a fair chance that this could become one of those hilarious white elephants that we feature a few years hence for a chuckle.
    Either way it's pretty sweet. Any Korg PR people reading this are invited to leave an 'appraisal' unit at one of our usual Safe Houses. (Of course, we saw this first at CDM, Ed)

    Double basses built from motorbike fuel tanks

    Ezra Daly from Berkeley is a psychobilly bassist who built his first bass from the fuel tank from a Moto Guzzi bike. He'll build you one, too, if you've got six months to wait. Wreck & Roll. This model is the Cycle Pole: ""Headlights come on in the dark and flash to the beat. This bass came with a custom case made from a fibreglass kayak and sled."(Thanks Dominic)

    The ultimate 303 clone for $300 (just one catch)

    Limor Fried is my new hero. She's the MIT student who built a personal mobile phone jammer as part of her masters thesis, and MintyMp3, an MP3 player in an Altoids box. She's looking for a job, but meanwhile is about to start production of the x0xb0x, a $300 kit to build a full-on reproduction of the TB303: "We have two--count 'em, two--analog electrical engineers with too much time on their hands working on this project. An original TB-303 was diassembled and reverse-engineered to verify the schematic. The original transistors were analysed using big expensive curve-tracers to determine their characteristics. We measured every waveform and counted every cycle to give you the best sound...its just like the original because it IS the original." Except they've added MIDI, USB interface and a slightly simpler programming system. $300 sounds good, but you have to build the thing yourself, and it's a pretty intimidating bag of components. (Thanks Jodi)

    The Packrat, episode one

    Double-Jupiter Dave thought that I was geeky enough to enjoy his new cartoon 'The Packrat'. Obviously I love it, as it features the Con Brio ADS200, one of the worst, most expensive and least successful synths in history... (Click on the cartoon for a bigger image)
    UPDATE: Brian Kehew of Moog Cookbook owns the only ADS200 ever made, and writes to say: "Alas the disc drive is dead, and it's a CERTAIN kind of 8" floppy that no one has! We're looking into the one man in New Jersey that MIGHT fix it."

    The hamster powered MIDI sequencer

    So there's this guy Levy Lorenzo. He's a percussionist and I'm pretty sure that this is him playing with his band 'The Teapot Dome Orchestra'. He is (or was) a student at Cornell, studying MIDI, so he decided to build a Hamster controlled MIDI sequencer. It's three note polyphonic. Each channel is controlled by two hamsters, one for the melody, one for the rhythm. The output (through a Boss Dr Synth) sounds like this. Genius! Project Page.

    At last! Ukelele Robots!

    The ever-reliable Mike's List Engadget alerted us to this animatronic Lego device for playing reggae tunes on a ukelele. Anything we added right now would be kind of redundant, wouldn't it? You're already there.

    It may be phallic, but it's not rock'n'roll

    This is the Music Pole. It's a length of plastic tube covered in brass contact strips (the prototype used that metal window tape for burgular alarms) which works as a particularly baffling MIDI controller. It's played with 'Thumbletz' - bits of conducting material stuck Jacko-style to your thumbs. It was designed by Ragz Tuttle a jazz pianist from Chico, California, and there's a fantastically clever theory behind the arrangement of keys around the pole. Ragz seems to mainly use it to play bass, but it can control anything. This video of Ragz in action gives you a sense of the thing. There's no price yet, but Ragz has a proper manufacturer lined up in Chico. Still, probably no need to sell shares in Fender just yet.

    Special Public Service Announcement!

    The fine people over at iPod Lounge are running a competition to win some stuff, which you might want: But that competition alerted us to another one in which you could win a home studio setup 'designed by' (read "picked from a catalogue by") the Chemical Brothers.

    There's some fairly nice kit there. We just thought you might like to know.

    Not eBay of the day: Air Guitar

    It's not at all clear what this character thinks he's selling: A Strat-shaped piece of air? The emperor's new guitar? Or just the gift of imagination.

    Any of those would be worth at least a fiver I reckon…

    Ebay of the day: Frogg Fuzz-Wa

    Thanks to Joe for alerting me to yet more vintage guitar madness. This 1970s Frogg Fuzz-Wa pedal is up on UK eBay for £820 (almost $1,600). Sure, the top two bidders have zero feedback, so may well be flakes, but there's a perfectly reputable-looking bid for £566. The pedal is super rare - Frogg was a short-lived offshoot of Foxx, who made fantastically culty velour-covered pedals in the early '70s, which were used by people like ZZ Top and Funkadelic. Just a few weeks ago, Foxx relaunched as a company, and you can buy a brand-new fuzz-covered Tone Machine for about $200. There's no word on a Fuzz-Wa reissue just yet.

    MIDI guitars = Sex. Are you sure?

    I'm left slightly speechless by the hideousness of this image, which you can buy on a poster for just $14.95. The auction description is this: "This shot entitled "Strat Players Always Get the Girls" is a terrific representation of a 1993 Fender Midi Strat from a private collection used exclusively for this image. What red blooded male wouldn't want this hanging on their wall?"

    New, handmade, British, analog synth for £500

    It doesn't look like much in the picture, but this is the Aurora AR1, a new all-analog 3 oscillator monophonic synth being built in Bedford by Adrian from Synth Restore for just £500. It's fantastically old-school, with no MIDI, a 12db filter that should sound more Oberheimy/ARPy than Moogish, and a real hardwood case. Send him £150 deposit, and he'll build you one in two weeks.
    I've been looking around for alternative analog synths with keyboards: You could get an old Jen SX1000 for around £150, but it only has one oscillator. A Sequential Circuits Pro-One is very cool, and has an arpeggiator and sequencer built in, but the sounds are more basic, they're fairly unreliable, and a clean, restored one can cost £600+. A Roland SH-101 has a definite retro charm and costs about £250, but again, has only one oscillator. The Soviet PolyVox is also very cool, and has two oscillators, but is still much more basic than the Aurora, for around £250 (plus a lot of postage). You might find a Moog Prodigy for £450, which is obviously an impressive thing to have in the house, but to get close to the Aurora's power, you'll need £1,000+ for a MiniMoog

    I don't care what it does. I want it! (Part 2)

    I can't really think what I'd do with a tiny portable audio analyser "capable of making dual-FFT measurements, time delay spectrometry sweeps and even recording high resolution impulse responses", even if it came with with phantom power mic inputs, recording to SD card, and a built in USB interface ("Features a fully isochronous Burr-Brown USB codec"). But the Terrasonde Audio Toolbox 3C is a beauty, wrapped up in bendy aluminium with a big handle on one end and a huge colour display. If I had $2,400, it would contrast nicely with this old thing.

    Everybody needs a Neck Sock

    Take a look at this picture, and try to work out what's going on. Any idea? No? Not a clue?
    It's a Neck Sock. You've got your guitars hanging on the wall, but you're worried that the strings might get dusty. So you need a Neck Sock: "The most useful accessory to hit the music world since the guitar strap!" Currently being used by Kings of Leon and Ray Parker Jr, they come in lots of colours, and they're planning a Neck Sock Girl calendar. So, if you're a furry-phallic-guitar-accessory fetishist, rejoice!

    Strobopick Competition: We have a winner!

    Well, I wasn't inundated with entries to the Strobopick Competition, but the quality was unparalleled. Dominic Muren wins an honorable mention for this heroic tale of circuit-bending a Teddy Ruxpin at college (Dominic is now a real-life professional toy designer).
    But the overall winner was always going to be Joshua, who grew up in Hamilton, Montana, and worked at a firing range to buy a Cort Effector guitar, which "TOTALLY HAD DISTORTION BUILT, LIKE, RIGHT IN". Joshua then realised he was left handed and had to hacksaw off a large chunk of the guitar just to be able to play it. His story doesn't end well. CLICK HERE to read it. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll contact me first if you want to secure the film rights.
    And Joshua, get in touch to claim your prize...

    Other people's studios, vol. 73

    Dave has redeemed himself for gloating by sending me this link to a great collection of geek-friendly pictures of early Peter Gabriel recording sessions. This pic is "The studio mascot; a sacrificial microphone pop filter on top of the digital stopwatch. The desk is an SSL 4000B at the Townhouse, one of the first SSLs installed anywhere."

    Man tries to sell tiny guitar bits for $450

    Perhaps inspired by the successful sale of a old power lead from an organ for $127, a gentleman in Flushing, New York, is trying to sell a some wires and pots from a guitar for $450. Admittedly they came from a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Jr, but he's had no bids yet, and it's the second time he's listed them. Good luck, chap! (Thanks, David)

    Dave has two Jupiters!

    I've noticed the start of an insidious and unpleasant trend. People have started sending me bragging emails. Knowing that I a) like expensive gear and b) have none, they send me messages and pictures like this one, from Dave: "Hi there. Today I replaced my slightly broken Jupiter-8 with a nice mint-condish one, and before sending the old one out for repairs and eventual sale, I had my kid snap this fun pic of me. Two Jupiter-8s in my hands at once...ahhh..." Thanks, Dave.
    Then there was this from Phill in Los Angeles: "My dad just got an email from a friend of his which read in part: I want to get rid of a lot of equipment. If you want it, you can have it: Juno 106 Synth, Proteus World Synth, E-Mu Sampler, Yamaha TG77, MOTU MIDI interface... This is probably a good deal, right?" Thanks, Phill.

    Ebay of the Day: Kajagoogoo's old PPG

    Drool over this beautiful, blue PPG 2.3 and Waveterm (that's the rackmount CPU unit with the big screen), which would be perfect for recreating the first Pet Shop Boys album or as a centerpiece for any stylish apartment. Two days to go and no bids yet at £1,650. Alternatively, there are tonnes of free PPG samples here at Hollow Sun.
    The PPG was invented by Wolfgang Palm, who went on to found Waldorf and create the utterly awesome looking Wave, which looks suspiciously like the Moog Voyager. Make sure you don't miss this picture of Jean Michelle Jarre on that Wave page...

    Brazil, home of the sound system

    So, I went to Brazil kind of hoping to stumble across a chap making great-sounding ARP2600 clones out of old coke cans and sweet wrappers and selling them for $99 each. If he's there, I didn't find him. Instead, I saw sound systems everywhere. Around carnival time, there's a 4K rig in every front garden and pick-up truck on the road, all of them playing 'Sou Chicleteiro' by Chiclete Com Banana. I didn't know where these sound systems came from until I found one back street in the market area of Belém which was full of speaker shops selling, building and repairing them. Apart from lots and lots and lots of drums, there was hardly any music gear for sale (cheap strat copies, Behringer gear and cruddy-looking-but-not-cheap Voxman effects), but the place was full of crossovers, 12v powered mixers, racks and racks of power amps and battery-powered car stereos. Unfortunately, I didn't get to my camera in time to catch the guy on a bike with a full-on sound system attached to the front and back riding down the street, but it looked about 120% less rubbish than this one...

    Now! Before you even knew you needed them! Morphcoder mangle FX!

    We're not sure what Doppelmangler actually does (it's one of that new class of plugin that defines itself) Whatever it did before, it's now doing it a little better because White Noise Audio have updated it to v.1.1: There's a demo here. The demo has noise inserted every 30 seconds to encourage you to buy the plugin - we don't think you'll notice.

    It's Curtains for keyboard players!

    Sorry about the head. It was written in a moment of weakness. Our pals at Gizmodo first alerted us to the Music Box Project a while back, so it's only right and fitting that they've also spotted this Musical Light Bead Curtain too. It's an offshoot of the same project. There's a little sensor in each bead on the curtain, which sends data back to a parent computer that handles all the audio generation and so forth. It also keeps wasps out of the kitchen, so it's a boon for jam-makers that are also keen musical experimenters.

    Holy Merchandising!

    Alright, this is a bit off-piste for Music Thing, but Tom left me the keys and I'm on a bit of a sugar rush. Although the new Batman movie isn't out for months, the flood of product tie-ins has already begun: Of most interest to MT regulars is the Batman electric guitar [pic too small to link, but it's on the manufacturer's site] and the MP3 player pictured. There hasn't been an official Bat-guitar since the 1960s Hagstrom models, so demand for these items should be pretty high across the lucrative "Musical costumed crime-fighter" demographic.

    Play that funky music, Flat Boy

    Equally happy as a graphics controller, drum pad, or [in one of the videos on the site] a jazz group interactive touchpad thing-a-ma-scope, the Flat Boy defies rational explanation, or indeed understanding. It's a blank slate upon which your wildest musical desires can be drawn. The manufacturers suggest you make your own overlays from paper, Mylar, leather, foam or even rubber: I'm going with fur.

    eBay of another day

    Come on! Who didn't want one of these when they were around? The boxy little keyboard & sinuous gooseneck fairly screams 'electro' doesn't it?

    It's only £102 at time of writing but with 5 days to go you can expect to see that price absolutely rocket. Why not put in a pointlessly low bid now? just so you can tell your pals down the Synthesizer Pub" that you did.

    eBay of the day

    I can't even work out what it is, but it's a must have! Who doesn't need a CD-ROM detailing the patents for loads of, like, drum machines and stuff.

    If anyone does buy this, can they explain what the hell it's all about in a comment?

    Ringtones: they're great, aren't they?

    Out pals at Engadget picked up on a news story about what eighties synth legend Thomas Dolby is doing now: He's composing ringtones which - as annoying as you might find them - are chosen by millions of people the world over to announce their mobile calls. Could be a great deal worse: He could have my job.

    Trailer up for "Moog:The Motion Picture"

    It's a documentary. It's about Bob Moog. There's music by Stereolab, Bootsy Collins, Moog CookBook, Bernie Worrell…

    Why are you still here? Watch the trailer!

    Music Thing: The Sex Issue

    In the giddy world of magazine publishing, whenever a title's flagging editors tend to run a special 'sex issue'. It's the same as a regular issue, but with added boobies. You can rely on a couple of thousand extra sales to people who should probably be on some sort of register.

    Sorry people, it's come to this…

    Let's cut to the chase, people…

    The point of a synthesizer is to make stupid noises and look vaguely cool. Here's something that does both, and does them well.

    "The Space*Synth is an experimental modular synthesizer that uses the authentic sound chip used in the 1980's video games like Space Invaders" it says on their site, and who are we to disagree? This is what synthesizers are all about.

    Book Ukelele

    Peter and Donna Thomas make Ukeleles (spelling monitor?) out of books. Theres lots of pics on their site. Enough said.(Via Boing Boing)

    Midi Step Ladder

    The brilliantly named Wiley Wiggins also had the decency to inform us of the TonLeiter (ToneLadder). It has sensors in the rungs which allow you and others to play music by stepping up and down which makes for some very entertaining viewing. Check out the movies and pics page. My second favourite blog, Near Near Future, witnessed a performance by the creators yesterday at Dorkbot and have some photo's on their flickr stream.

    Email Controlled Scratch Robot

    If this is your first visit to Music Thing, welcome and enjoy your stay. Tom Whitwell, the founding father of Music Thing has gone away for a bit and stupidly left the site in the hands of a bunch of amateurs, some of whom he's never even met. When he returns he'll discover that Music Thing has been turned into a hub for porn and warez and a vehicle for my self pitying shampoo-commercial indie project 'Prsiu'. Not really. We'll be just be posting more links to things like this ridiculous turntable. The email function is offline at the mo, which is a shame because I love websites that let you send stuff off to a remote computer for processing, like Rasterbator and the brilliant Face Transformer, but you can still see the turntable in action on the pictures page. And don't worry Turntablists, you're not quite redundant yet. This robot isn't going to be winning the DMC world championships any time soon.

    Jim Nollman: He Jams With The Animals

    Peter writes: “Here’s Jim Nollman in action, playing guitar to a killer whale off the coast of Russia. An artist and environmental activist, he’s founder of Interspecies Inc, an organization promoting the artistic interaction of humans and animals. Nollman got his start in interspecies music-making in the early 70s, jamming with 300 turkeys for a Thanksgiving Day radio piece. Blowing on his clay flute, he was able to induce the turkeys to gobble on key and on beat to his songs. He has since recorded interspecies music with wolves, desert rats, deer, elk, whales and dolphins. The Interspecies Inc website has various recordings of his gigs with whales and dolphins. My favourite is his early “Orca Reggae”, which I believe he recorded by playing a waterproofed guitar while sitting in a kayak equipped with an underwater speaker. As Jim points out, the whale does seem to have the chord changes nailed, and he could be right that it recalls “the way that Miles Davis soloed during his Bitches Brew Period”. You should check out the other underwater animal loops here - some solo, some interacting with instruments. I like the (Rock) Lobster and the Weddell Seal, which might make a cool bass drum sound.”

    Ebay of the day: Mego Muson Synthesizer

    Theres only two days of bidding left on this Australian ebay auction. It's small and horribly cheap looking, and even appears to be pink....although that could be my monitor. Whatever, I'd love to hear this beast in action. As I write the bidding is at $3.84 plus shipping (probably four times as much as the synth itself)

    Stringed turntable instrument

    Wiley Wiggins pointed us towards sound/visual artist, Kitundu. He works mainly with record players and amongst other things has developed a stringed turntable instrument called the Phonoharp. It sounds lovely. If you fancy hearing it played live he's performing in San Francisco on March 17th . More crazy turntables to follow...... Cheers Wiley.

    Pedal's too good to stomp on

    Barry Wood’s NAMM Oddities is just full of the most, well, odd music stuff. There’s far too many music things to discuss here, but worthy of a special mention, I thought, were these beautiful Moollon guitar effect pedals. Their intricately engraved aluminium housing reminded me of these modular systems from the Wiard Synthesiser Company. For more lovingly crafted gear of the home grown variety, check out this excellent page of links. UPDATE: Here they are for sale...

    Home Alone

    Well, Tom is away, but the show must go on. Somehow we, the Music Thing Massive must try to keep some semblance of a website alive during these three cold February weeks ahead of us (have a lovely time in Brazil, Tom). I have to admit, I feel scared, but I'm sure that with your help (keep the tips coming!), we'll manage to keep things going. So what better way to heat things up than a scorching dual-necked guitar solo from Michael Angelo Batio. (thanks to Ray for the link.)
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