On Thursday 1st of March, Jagannathan will present din is noise: a Free software musical instrument.

From Jag’s website:

“If Puredata and Supercollider are two synths,
din is a synth of a 3rd kind.

It forgets history,
To not repeat it.

It doesnt hide analog music hardware,
In digital music software.”

 

 

Andrew McPherson (Queen Mary, University of London) will present his work extending and enhancing the piano keyboard. The presentation will include a live demo of a multi-touch capacitive sensor system to detect the location of fingers on the key surfaces. The system can be installed on any acoustic or electronic keyboard, giving the player multiple dimensions of continuous control over each note.

The evening will also include a short video demo of the magnetic resonator piano (MRP), an electronically-augmented acoustic grand piano that uses electromagnets to induce vibrations in the piano strings. Both of these projects aim to preserve the traditional advantages of the piano (polyphony, tactile feedback, rich acoustic sound source) while adding new dimensions of musical control.

The evening (9/02/2012, 7pm) will be a retrospective look at ‘traditional’ analogue synthesis systems, with some demonstrations and comparison between a pre-configured vintage hardware analogue synthesizer (probably a Roland SH101) and a modular analogue synthesizer (Blacet Research kit). Why the vintage synth is arranged as it is, and how you would emulate this arrangement with the modular.

Discussions of the advantages and disadvantages of pre-configured and modular systems, and also the influence that these systems have had on music software packages and software synthesizers. Comparisons between analogue and digital synthesis systems in terms of sound quality and operation. Also, If anyone has analogue synthesizer instruments (particularly +5v CV/gate systems) that they would like to bring along, they would be most welcome – we’ll have a small mixer/speaker arrangement, and I’m sure that we can figure out a way to hook everything up 😀

Bioni Samp demonstrates his Hive Synthesiser on 16/02/2012, 7pm.

Talks about its making, modular 6 oscillator design and its use in creating his experimental electronic music. ***Numerology of bees and beehive habitat patterns, hive logs and cycles are used as circuit starting points to make Music For Bees*** Followed by a short performance.

Bioni Samp is an artist, producer and video maker originally from Leeds, Yorkshire and currently resides in London. His electronic music has been published since 1995 and has had releases on various labels including, Aconito (UK/Italy), EMIT (UK) Harthouse (DE) Philtre/Kompakt, Instinct, Minimalizm (USA) and Noise Music (BR).