Amy Dickens: Inclusive Design for Digital Musical Instruments
2020-05-21 18:30 - 20:00 (Europe/London) | YouTube and Facebook
The 21st May 2020 is Global Accessibility Awareness Day. To celebrate this, we are exploring in our live-stream today the design practices to help make musical instruments (hardware and software) more accessible. To find out more about GAAD, please check their website.
Should we make instruments easier to play? This is a question that might divide professional musicians, who have acquired their skills through hardship. But for everyone else, there is little doubt that the fun should start as soon as we engage with an instrument. Making instruments easier to play is also a critical issue for people with disabilities ranging from limited mobility to visual impairment. So, if you’re thinking of making an instrument, why not consider lowering the barriers of playing them?
In this talk, Amy Dickens will shed light on the inclusive design practices for Digital Musical Instruments, and how to make music accessible to everyone. Amy will walk us through some of the standards and best practices for accessibility, as well as design considerations for music technology of all kinds. For those wanting to take part at the end of the session there will be an activity in designing some digital musical instruments for different levels of ability.
About Amy Dickens:
Amy Dickens is an accessibility ambassador, Developer Advocate, and researcher at The Mixed Reality Laboratory, UK. As well as being an audio engineer and musician, over the past five years Amy has been conducting research into accessible music technologies. Currently living in London with partner and Jack Russell (Moo Bean), Amy is working on producing a framework for accessible musical experiences and finishing their all important PhD Thesis.
On the subject of accessibility and music, check out also the great work of charity organisation Drake Music.

David Zicarelli: Fun with Complexity using MC in Max
2020-05-28 18:30 - 19:30 | YouTube and Facebook
The patches demonstrated in this video are available here

Making and controlling complex sounds on a computer where hundreds of events are happening simultaneously can be hard work. Aren’t computers supposed to make doing complex things easier? Max has a new feature called MC that can make it fun and easy to work with large numbers of simultaneous events and audio channels. You don’t need a multichannel audio system to play with MC. All the examples shown work in mono or stereo.

What is MC?

MC stands for Multi-Channel and is a way to encapsulate many audio channels, and manipulate them together. This is a very useful replacement for projects that have multiple channels of audio and require unique representations and flows for each of them. Check out below David’s presentation of MC at Loop in 2019.

About David Zicarelli
David is the founder and CEO of Cycling’74, makers of Max. David founded Cycling’74 in 1997 to commercialise Max, a programming language that had been invented at IRCAM in 1985, and licensed to Opcode for commercialisation in 1989. David worked then at Opcode and acquired the publishing rights to the software in 1997. Max grew an audience in more than 3 decades, in education and as a tool for artists. In 2007, Ableton and Cycling’74 announced Max for Live, the integration of Max into Live, allowing Ableton Live users to use Max patches in their workflow. Cycling’74 was then acquired by Ableton in 2017, and Max for Live is seeing a lot of improvements since, opening up possibilities for long time Max users to find new audiences among the Live user base.

Virtual drumming workshop with Shay Dyer-Harris
2020-05-30 11:00 - 12:30 | Zoom
Virtual drumming workshop with Shay!

Shayanna from Kinetika Bloco will lead a drumming workshop using household objects!
The Kinetika Bloco is a performance group with an exuberant mix of young brass and woodwind players, drummers, steel pan and dynamic dancers all in costume creating a “unique new British Carnival sound with a decidedly London edge” (BBC Radio2)
During lockdown Shay has adapted her workshops to use household objects rather than tradition steel drums.
This fun and interactive workshop requires no previous skills and all the family can join in!
About the workshop leader
Shayanna has been with the Bloco since it began. Having gone through the project from participant, to volunteer, to staff, Kinetika Bloco has a special place in her heart. Shayanna can be found running workshops or managing the team on projects with any age and all levels of knowledge. Shayanna is also a singer, songwriter and hosts shows. with the company Blue Revolutions she shares with Sam “Blue” Agard.

Working with samples in Max and Max for Live, with Darwin Grosse
2020-05-30 16:00 - 18:00 | Online
In this 2-hour workshop, Darwin Grosse (Cycling ’74) will use Max/MSP to combine audio clip playback with VST effects and Max for Live devices to create a range of soundscapes from glitchy beats to warped ambiences. The focus will be to create a personal performance system that can be tailored to your interests and style. Topics covered will be audio playback, effects processing, user-interaction development and MIDI mapping.
A basic familiarity with Max will help ensure success!

About the workshop leader
Darwin Gross is Director of Education at Cycling’74. Darwin is responsible for the tutorials and help files that can be found in every release of Max. Darwin is an experienced workshop leader, who enjoys building small music machines in Max, such as drones, rhythm generators and other re-useable projects that he can connect to hardware controllers or modular synthesizers. Darwin has been running a podcast since 2013 on Art, Music and Technology, with over 350 podcasts already released. https://artmusictech.libsyn.com/

Georgina Brett: live looping vocals
2020-06-01 18:30 - 20:00 | YouTube and Facebook
In this online session Georgina will talk about the conception and actualisation of each piece she performs, the various methods of composition she uses. With a very simple set up she creates complex rolling matrices of vocalisations and lyrics.

Georgina Brett’s music is created using her voice and effects pedals, creating instant choirs of sound, often in an hypnotic style. The point of this music is not only to captivate with extraordinary timing and melodic style but also to help the listener to relax, in our ever-increasingly distracted world. Her double album Nonsense A and Nonsense B is of purely vocal works with no ‘deliberate’ words or lyrics. The albums show the voice as an instrument, and as a vehicle for emotional expression. “So much music is made in order to make us feel something so as to manipulate us to buy or to follow.. this album let’s your thoughts be whatever they want to be.” The albums also play with the idea that we like to interpret, constantly listening for meaning instead of just listening.

Tim Exile: creating Endlesss
2020-06-04 18:30 - 20:00 | Online
Tim Exile has worked with live looping and sampling as an artist for a decade before building his own plug-ins, released by Native Instruments. His unique methods and concepts developed for live performance inspired him to build a music making flow, Endlesss, that would allow musicians to create music collaboratively.
Tim and the Endless team are preparing a special announcement on 2nd June. Our session takes place two days after, where Tim will share his journey from musician to entrepreneur, and the vision that led him to create the Endlesss app.
About Tim Exile
Musician and technologist Tim Exile founded Endlesss to bring the joy of spontaneous collaborative creativity to music-making in the way TikTok and Instagram did with other media. These platforms empowered their users to create regular short-form work in an open social space.
As a seasoned musician and producer, Tim missed the elements of spontaneity, creativity and community in his long solo studio sessions. He set out to develop his ‘Flow Machine’ instrument for electronic improvisation which would become the DNA of Endlesss. Tim saw the potential of what he’d built to unlock a new purpose for music-making – a fast-paced, live-action, game-like alternative to the complexities of music production and the competitive music industry. Tim has developed software instrument products with Native Instruments and released records on Warp Records. He’s performed live in every continent with his ‘Flow Machine’, collaborated with a diverse range of artists such as Nile Rodgers, Imogen Heap and Beardyman and has spoken multiple times at TED and TEDx conferences about music and improvisation.
Download Endlesss here (iOS only)

Building Joué instruments: meet founder Pascal Joguet
2020-06-08 18:30 | Online
If you’ve been making music for more than 15 years, you might remember the first touch screen controller destined for music application, Jazz Mutant’s Lemur. Originally launched in 2005, the Lemur was a highly customisable multi-touch screen controller, designed to create your own control user interface. The Lemur offered high definition of control by sending data over OSC, an audacious move that no major MIDI controller manufacturers ever dared to make.

I won’t dive too much in the story of the Lemur, Peter Kirn did a great job at writing its obituary 10 years ago, and you can find it here. Suffice to say that it found its demise shortly after the launch of the iPad in 2010.

Pascal Joguet was the founder of JazzMutant, and the Lemur wasn’t the last design he had in him. A few years ago, Pascal co-founded Joué, aiming to create expressive instrument with a playful design, to lower the barriers of music production.
With a successful Kisckstarter campaign on the way (ending 9th June), Joué will be launching the Joué Play and accessories in October 2020. On Monday 8th June, we will host Pascal Joguet for a livestream, where he will retrace the story of his designs in the past 20 years. Here’s the Kicktstarter video of the Joué Play.

Atau Tanaka: Making music with muscle sensors
2020-06-11 18:30 - 20:00 | Online
Prof Atau Tanaka is a well known figure in the New Interface for Musical Expression network, an international conference he helped get started in the early 2000s. Atau is both an academic (head of the Embodied AudioVisual Interaction group at Goldsmiths, university of London) and an artist who performs internationally. His artistic practice with muscle sensors spans over 3 decades and hundreds of performances.
On the 11th of June, Atau will give insights into his approach, and tips for anyone looking to create custom interfaces to control music parameters live. Live on YouTube and Facebook.

Max and Node.js: the Age of Javascript
2020-06-13 16:00 - 18:00 | Online
Difficulty level: intermediate.
Javascript is the glue of the Internet, the universal language that runs in billions of web browsers and networked systems across the world. Max’s Node support connects the Max program into the ecosystem of Node.js, a Javascript engine which can network, talk to hardware, connect to databases, run sophisticated web servers, and much more.
In the workshop we’ll look at the link between Max and Node, and how the different worlds of graphical and textual programming connect. We’ll also look at some specific Javascript coding techniques and connect them to the 3D world of Max’s Jitter and OpenGL systems. From there we will start to explore ways to attach Max to web servers, allowing Max’s data to flow into and out of dynamic web pages.
Topics:

Max
Javascript
Web technologies
Jitter and 3D Graphics

Requirements:
A good working knowledge of Max is expected, as well as an awareness of how Jitter works. Some familiarity with textual programming languages and/or web technologies would be useful, but not required.
About the workshop leader:
Dr Nick Rothwell (aka Cassiel) is a composer, performer, software architect, coder and visual artist. He has built media performance systems for projects with Ballett Frankfurt and Vienna Volksoper, composed sound scores for Aydın Teker (Istanbul) and Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, live coded in Mexico and in Berlin with sitar player Shama Rahman, written software for Studio Wayne McGregor and the Pina Bausch Foundation, and developed algorithmic visuals for large-scale outdoor installations in Poland, Estonia, Cambridge Music Festival and Lumiere (London / Durham). He also teaches at Ravensbourne University London and writes for Sound On Sound magazine.

Workshop with Ruben Dax: Live Looping with Ableton Live
2020-06-13 17:00 - 19:00 | Online
Book a ticket here
Ableton Live provides a great software environment for live looping – empowering a solo performer to bring an entire song to life in front of an audience in an engaging and relatable way. Outside of performing, live looping can also be used as a composition tool allowing you to create new music in a faster way with less distractions. Live looping using software, such as Ableton Live, affords you greater flexibility in your workflow, performance style, and mixing techniques in comparison to using traditional hardware looper devices.
In this workshop we will be diving deep into the different techniques for live looping using Ableton Live 10 as our digital audio workstation. We will progress through basic recording and layering techniques, using Ableton’s powerful ‘Looper’ device, MIDI mapping your controls, and even discovering how to craft automated (hands-free) live-looping performances.
Here’s a chance to learn the methods that for years I’ve experimented with, developed, and optimized for my own multi-instrumental live looping performances and start building your own!
Topics

Ableton Live
Ableton Live Looper device
Basis recording and layering techniques
MIDI mapping
MIDI controllers
Live looping automations

Requirements

An instrument and a way to capture sound, or a MIDI controller connected to a virtual instrument
Ableton Live 9, Live 10 or even Live Intro!
Using a MIDI controller can increase your flexibility (such as Novation Launchpad, Akai MPC, Ableton Push, ROLI Lightpad..)

About the workshop leader
Ruben Dax is a musician, multi-instrumentalist and instrument designer, who uses Ableton Live to compose songs with live loops. His YouTube channel shows a range of videos where he creates tracks with diverse sounds and instruments, aggregating them in loops to create rich, layered tracks.

SWAM: software instruments that sound real
2020-06-18 18:30 - 20:00 | YouTube and Facebook
﻿
Sound designer and musician Stefano Lucato started creating solo string libraries in 2003, and has been on a quest ever since to create the most accurate reproduction of acoustic instrument sounds, to be available in plug-in format. He teamed up with software developer Emanuele Parravicini to build a technology that they used together to release software versions of nearly all orchestral instruments.
﻿
Stefano and Emanuele created Audio Modeling in 2017, and run the business from a small village in Lombardy, Italy, between Milan and Lake Como. Their software instruments are used all over the world by composers and producers in the studio, as well as live.
On the 18th June, I will interview Emanuele Parravicini about Audio Modeling’s journey and projects, and we’ll hear demonstrations of the instruments live. Tune in on Facebook and YouTube.

Andrew McPherson: Augmenting Instruments
2020-06-22 18:00 | YouTube and Facebook
Dr Andrew McPherson is a Reader at Queen Mary University, where he leads the Augmented Instruments Lab. He invented the Magnetic Resonator piano, Touch keys and Bela, and is on a mission to empower anyone to build their own instruments. In this talk, Andrew will revisit his inventions and give tips to get started building your own. Join the live stream and participate to the live chat!

Audio chips, e-textiles, touch interfaces: 40 years of computer music research
2020-06-25 18:30 - 20:00 | YouTube and Facebook
Adrian Freed is the former Research Director of UC Berkeley’s CNMAT, the historical Californian research centre led for over two decades by the late David Wessel. At CNMAT, Adrian led a number of influential projects on computer music, including the widely used Open Sound Control (OSC) protocol, developed with Matt Wright.
Adrian published his first paper in 1975, at a time where computers were out of reach, and he started hacking with digital and analog chips. As technology progressed, he worked on the Fairlight CMI and powerful processors for the time, that would cost less than $10 today. He dedicated his research to the new field of computer music, and went on to build systems ranging from analog designs to e-textiles.
In this talk, we’ll hear from Adrian’s long career, and the exciting new project he is working on, the FingerPhone.

Sound synthesis with Max/MSP BEAP
2020-06-27 11:00 - 15:00 | Online
﻿
Level: Beginners with an understanding of the fundamentals of music technology and Max
Note: the same workshop will happen twice the same day to cover a wider range of time zones. Tickets are not for both workshops
Max and Max For Live offers virtually unlimited sound synthesis possibilities. Every copy of Max and Max For Live includes BEAP, a library of modules that emulate the function and signalling of hardware modular synthesizers, developed as a pedagogical tool for the Electronic Production and Design students at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
BEAP provides a set of higher-level building blocks that can be used to develop a myriad of sound synthesis techniques. Think of it like a modular synthesizer in Max and Max For Live. Within the landscape of sound synthesis many architectures exist, such as Subtractive, Wavetable, FM and Physical Modelling. BEAP provides modules for the majority of these architectures in an easy to implement series of high-level building blocks.
Via a series of simple signal flow style patching activities, participants will develop meta cognitive knowledge of each synthesis architecture, its sonic timbre and the techniques needed to deploy them within the wider landscape of music production.
Topics include:

Architectures
Signal path routing
Oscillators
Filters
Modulation Sources
Scopes
Sequencers

Requirements:

A computer and internet connection
Max 8 (Max 7 is ok but you might not have access to all the features used in this workshop)
A good knowledge of music technology
A basic knowledge of Max/MSP

About the workshop leader:
Phelan Kane is a Berlin & London based music producer, engineer, artist, developer and educator. For over twenty years he has been active in both the music industry and the contemporary music education sector, with a focus on electronic music and alternative bands. His specialism is sound design and production techniques such as synthesis and sampling, alongside audio processing and plug-in development. His credits include collaborations with Placebo, Radiohead, Fad Gadget, Depeche Mode, Moby, Snow Patrol, Mute, Sony BMG, Universal, EMI and Warner Bros. He holds an MA in Audio Technology from the London College of Music, University of West London, an MSc in Sound & Music Computing at the Center for Digital Music at Queen Mary, University of London and in 2008 became one of the world’s first wave of Ableton Certified Trainers. He is a member of the UK’s Music Producers Guild, holds a PG Cert in Learning & Teaching, is an Affiliate of the Institute for Learning, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and until recently was Chairman of the London Committee for the British Section of the Audio Engineering Society. He is currently running the electronic music record label Meta Junction Recordings and the audio software development company Meta Function, which specialize in Max for Live devices releasing the M4L synth Wave Junction in partnership with Sonicstate.
See Phelan’s Ableton Certified Trainer profile
Note: the same workshop will happen twice the same day to cover a wider range of time zones. Tickets are not for both workshops

Kevin Kripper: Video synthesis with Vsynth & Max
2020-06-29 18:30 - 20:00 | YouTube and Facebook
Vsynth is a high level package of modules for Max/Jitter that together make a modular video synthesizer. Its simplicity makes it the perfect tool to introduce video synthesis and image processing. Since It can be connected to other parts of Max, other softwares and hardwares it can also become a really powerful and adaptable video tool for any kind of job.
In this live-stream, Kevin will give an overview of Vsynth with examples and practical tips to get you started or go deeper into the creation of visuals. Kevin will also host a series of 4 workshops throughout July that you can book here. We highly recommend to watch the live-stream if you’re thinking of going to the workshop!
﻿

Vsynth is among the most popular third-party module of Max, with over 13,000 downloads.
Kevin Kripper (Buenos Aires, 1991) is a visual artist and indie software developer. He’s worked on several projects that link art, technology, education and toolmaking which has exhibited in festivals such as +CODE, Innovar, Wrong Biennale, MUTEK, among others. In 2016 he won first place at the Itaú Visual Arts Award with his work Deconstrucento. In addition, since 2012 he’s been dedicated to create digital tools that extend the creative possibilities of visual artists and musicians from all over the world. During 2017, he participated in the Toolmaker residency at Signal Culture (Owego, NY) and in 2018 received a mention in the Technology applied to Art category from the ArCiTec Award for the development of Vsynth.
https://www.instagram.com/vsynth74/
https://cycling74.com/articles/an-interview-with-kevin-kripper

Max and Node.js: Patching the Web
2020-07-11 16:00 - 18:00 | Online
Difficulty level: intermediate.
Javascript is the glue of the Internet, the universal language that runs in billions of web browsers and networked systems across the world. Max’s Node support connects the Max program into the ecosystem of Node.js, a Javascript engine which can network, talk to hardware, connect to databases, run sophisticated web servers, and much more.
In this workshop we’ll look at connecting Max to web browsers, and explore techniques for routing information and gestures back and forth between Max patchers and dynamic web pages, opening the door to networked or hybrid interfaces taking advantage of both the Max and the web world.
Topics:

Max
Javascript
Web technologies

Requirements:
A good working knowledge of Max is expected. Some familiarity with textual programming languages and web technologies (HTML, CSS) would be useful, but not required.
About the workshop leader:
Dr Nick Rothwell (aka Cassiel) is a composer, performer, software architect, coder and visual artist. He has built media performance systems for projects with Ballett Frankfurt and Vienna Volksoper, composed sound scores for Aydın Teker (Istanbul) and Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, live coded in Mexico and in Berlin with sitar player Shama Rahman, written software for Studio Wayne McGregor and the Pina Bausch Foundation, and developed algorithmic visuals for large-scale outdoor installations in Poland, Estonia, Cambridge Music Festival and Lumiere (London / Durham). He also teaches at Ravensbourne University London and writes for Sound On Sound magazine.

PA Tremblay: sandbox#n: playing the laptop, the bass, the studio
2020-07-13 18:30 - 20:00 | YouTube and Facebook
﻿
In this talk, Pierre Alexandre unfolds how his instrumental practice has inspired creative work with live electronics and music production in the studio. He will demonstrate his work through short performances and examples, in particular with the use of his collection of Max objects built for his live electronics, sandbox.
Pierre Alexandre Tremblay (Montréal, 1975) is a composer and an improviser on bass guitar and sound processing devices, in solo and within various ensembles. He is a member of the London-based collective Loop, and his music is also released on Empreintes DIGITALes and Ora.
Pierre Alexandre is Professor in Composition and Improvisation at the University of Huddersfield (UK), where he anchored the Fluid Corpus Manipulation project. He previously worked in popular music as producer and bassist, and has a keen interest for creative coding.
He formally studied composition with Michel Tétreault, Marcelle Deschênes, and Jonty Harrison, bass guitar with Jean-Guy Larin, Sylvain Bolduc, and Michel Donato, analysis with Michel Longtin and Stéphane Roy, studio technique with Francis Dhomont, Robert Normandeau, and Jean Piché.
When not in the studio, Pierre Alexandre enjoys spending time with his family, drinking oolong tea, gazing at dictionaries, reading prose, and taking long walks.

Jérôme Noël: A journey making music software
2020-07-16 18:30 | YouTube and Facebook
﻿
Jérôme Noël is Head of Software at Ampify, a subsidiary of Focusrite making music applications for desktop and iOS. Prior to working for Focusrite, Jérôme was co-founder and CTO of Ohm Force, the plug-ins company that also released Ohm Studio, likely the most advanced collaborative DAW.
In this live-stream, Jérôme will share his experience building music products over two decades, and in particular his thoughts on Design, UX, Collaboration and Mobile.

Marek Bereza: building hardware synths and iOS apps
2020-07-20 18:30 - 20:00 | YouTube and Facebook
Marek Bereza is one of those passionate people who can take on any challenges, as long as they pique his interest. Marek has been working on his own projects or consulting for most of his career, to the exception of a 2-year spell at Apple, where he designed prototypes with the Human Interface Devices group. He was one of the first guest of the Music Hackspace, back in 2011 (see photos of his talk here).

His main interests revolve around design, music and technology. An accomplish coder, designer and electronic engineer, he has designed guitar pedals, a guitar, and several iOS apps.

In this talk, Marek will take us on a creative journey through a few projects he’s interested in at the moment :

The Koala Sampler (iOS app)
A workflow to making a simple drum machine/rhythm box on a teensy
Live-coding with ccpsketch
Making a MIDI controller with a teensy

﻿

Watch the live-stream on Youtube and Facebook.

Video synthesis with Vsynth for Max, with Kevin Kripper
2020-07-22 18:00 - 2020-07-29 20:00 | Online
﻿
Level: Intermediate
In this series of 4 workshops, we’ll look at how to interconnect the different 80 modules that come with Vsynth, exploring video techniques and practices that can create aesthetics associated with the history of the electronic image but also complex patterns founded in some basic functions of nature.
Here’s what you’ll learn in each workshop:
8th July: video oscillators, mixers, colorizers.
15th July: modulations (pm, fm, pwm, hue, among others).
22nd July: filters/convolutions and video feedback techniques.
29th July: working with presets, scenes, audio and midi.
Book tickets for the series of 4 at a special price or book each individually.
Vsynth is a high level package of modules for Max/Jitter that together make a modular video synthesizer. Its simplicity made it the perfect tool to introduce yourself to video synthesis and image processing. Since It can be connected to other parts of Max, other softwares and hardwares it can also become a really powerful and adaptable video tool for any kind of job.
Requirements

Basic knowledge of Max and Jitter
Have Max 8 installed
Familiarity with audio-synthesis or computer graphics would be useful.

About the workshop leader
Kevin Kripper (Buenos Aires, 1991) is a visual artist and indie software developer. He’s worked on several projects that link art, technology, education and toolmaking which has exhibited in festivals such as +CODE, Innovar, Wrong Biennale, MUTEK, among others. In 2016 he won first place at the Itaú Visual Arts Award with his work Deconstrucento. In addition, since 2012 he’s been dedicated to create digital tools that extend the creative possibilities of visual artists and musicians from all over the world. During 2017, he participated in the Toolmaker residency at Signal Culture (Owego, NY) and in 2018 received a mention in the Technology applied to Art category from the ArCiTec Award for the development of Vsynth.
https://www.instagram.com/vsynth74/
https://cycling74.com/articles/an-interview-with-kevin-kripper

Oli Larkin: iPlug2, C++ framework to build plug-ins
2020-07-23 18:30 - 20:00 | YouTube and Facebook
iPlug is a free, open source audio plug-in framework that allows you to make professional quality, cross platform plug-ins with minimal code.
In this talk Oli will introduce the latest version iPlug2, which is a substantial rewrite that has many new exciting features.
﻿
Oli Larkin is an audio software developer and music technologist with over 15 years of experience developing plug-ins and plug-in frameworks. He has released his own software products including VirtualCZ and Endless Series and has collaborated with companies such as Arturia, Focusrite and Ableton. For many years he worked in academia, supporting audio research and sound art projects with his programming skills. Nowadays Oli is working as a freelancer, as well as focusing on open source projects such as iPlug2.
https://iplug2.github.io | http://www.olilarkin.co.uk

Noisy pompoms! Make an e-textile musical instrument
2020-08-08 16:00 - 19:00 | Online
Difficulty level: Beginner (from age 7+)
Bookings on Eventbrite
﻿
Important note: This workshop includes a kit that will be shipped to your address from the UK, please note that registrations will close 7 days before the workshop to allow enough time for you to receive your kit.
What’s in the kit? The kit comes with a pre-soldered printed circuit board, e-textile material, a speaker, a mixed bundle of brightly coloured yarn and one crocodile clips. Batteries not included.

What you will do in this workshop:
In this online workshop, we will craft with electronic textiles to make a new musical instrument.
The workshop will provide an introduction to working with e-textile materials and DIY craft techniques, to enable us to make a new musical instrument to play and experiment with.
In this hands-on and craft-focused workshop, we will explore ideas in e-textiles, DIY electronics and experimental music making, to learn how e-textiles can be used within an electronic circuit and how we can be creative with crafts to make a fun and playful interface to perform with.
Topics:

Electronic textiles (e-textiles)
Experimental music making
DIY electronics
Textile handcrafts

Requirements:
No prior knowledge or skills are required. This workshop is a great introduction to electronic instrument building and is suitable for any age (younger children should be supervised).
The instrument will be built from a DIY kit, which will be posted to you in advance of the workshop. The kit includes all of the materials you will need to construct the instrument.
The instrument will be made with tools found around the home. You will need:

scissors
recycled cardboard (approximately cereal box sized)
9v battery
tabletop workspace

About the workshop leader:
Sam Topley is a sound artist from Leicester, UK. She works with textiles to create handmade electronic musical instruments and interactive sound art work. Her practice explores ideas in music, technology and textile handcrafts, to make new instruments such as giant noisy pompoms, knitted or ‘yarnbombed’ loudspeakers and DIY electronic musical instruments with e-textile interfaces.
Topley shares her work internationally through workshops, exhibitions, performances and presentations. Recent projects include commissioned work by Dubai Maker Faire, TEDxLeicester, Goldsmiths University of London and the University of Manchester.
Sam is a doctoral researcher at the Music, Technology and Innovation – Institute for Sonic Creativity (MTI2), De Montfort University (Leicester, UK), where she also lectures in experimental music, creative music technology and community arts practice. Her PhD is co-supervised by Nottingham Trent University and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Follow Sam on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

Andrew Leggo: Designing Instruments
2020-09-07 18:30 - 20:00 | YouTube and Facebook
You can learn the basics of building a musical instrument at a Summer camp. Just Google “straw flute” and you’ll build a flute in 5 minutes. But designing an instrument that others want to play, now, this is hard. Most musicians are not looking for a new instrument, and it’s a difficult task to convince them otherwise. After spending 10,000 hours practicing, professional musicians are not necessarily looking to start all over again.
Andrew Leggo started designing instruments shortly after graduating in the early 1980s. He was one of the designers behind the Roland AX-1 Keytar and has also designed studio equipment, mixing consoles, digital pianos and percussion controllers.

In this talk, Andrew shares his lifelong learnings as a creative designer, and the multiple parameters that one has to consider when designing an instrument.
Join Andrew live on 7th September, and ask questions on the chat!
﻿

Video synthesis with Vsynth workshop
2020-09-15 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Level: Intermediate
In this series of 4 2-hours workshop, Kevin Kripper, the author of Vsynth, explains how to interconnect the different 80 modules that come with Vsynth, exploring video techniques and practices that can create aesthetics associated with the history of the electronic image but also complex patterns founded in some basic functions of nature.
Here’s what you’ll learn in each workshop:
Lesson 1: video oscillators, mixers, colorizers.
Lesson 2: modulations (pm, fm, pwm, hue, among others).
Lesson 3: filters/convolutions and video feedback techniques.
Lesson 4: working with presets, scenes, audio and midi.
Vsynth is a high level package of modules for Max/Jitter that together make a modular video synthesizer. Its simplicity made it the perfect tool to introduce yourself to video synthesis and image processing. Since It can be connected to other parts of Max, other softwares and hardwares it can also become a really powerful and adaptable video tool for any kind of job.

Requirements

Basic knowledge of Max and Jitter
Have Max 8 installed
Familiarity with audio-synthesis or computer graphics would be useful.

About the workshop leader
Kevin Kripper (Buenos Aires, 1991) is a visual artist and indie software developer. He’s worked on several projects that link art, technology, education and toolmaking which has exhibited in festivals such as +CODE, Innovar, Wrong Biennale, MUTEK, among others. In 2016 he won first place at the Itaú Visual Arts Award with his work Deconstrucento. In addition, since 2012 he’s been dedicated to create digital tools that extend the creative possibilities of visual artists and musicians from all over the world. During 2017, he participated in the Toolmaker residency at Signal Culture (Owego, NY) and in 2018 received a mention in the Technology applied to Art category from the ArCiTec Award for the development of Vsynth.
https://www.instagram.com/vsynth74/
https://cycling74.com/articles/an-interview-with-kevin-kripper

Getting started with Max
2020-09-19 16:00 - 18:00 | Online
Level: beginners with notions of programming
In this series of online workshops you will explore the most important programming techniques and concepts when working with Max, empowering you to begin to build your own patches and devices that you can deploy in your own music and multimedia projects. Through a series of guided exercises you will engage in the pragmatic creation of a basic MIDI sequencer device that features a wealth of musical manipulation options. This series of workshops aims to provide beginner’s with suitable skills to begin exploring the Max environment.

This online workshop is interactive and you will have opportunities to work with peers and ask questions to an experienced teacher.
Timetable and outcomes
Session 1, 19th September 2020, 4pm UK / 11am EST / 8am PT

Identify key elements of the Max Interface
Create objects and route patch cables
Configure Object properties via the Inspector
Locate and utilise the Max help system

Session 2, 20th September 2020, 4pm UK / 11am EST / 8am PT

Utilise Max messages
Build lists and work with numerical data
Construct data flow and configure message ordering
Build logic circuits and apply math transformations

Session 3, 26th September 2020, 4pm UK / 11am EST / 8am PT

Configure and apply user interface objects
Build graphical user interfaces via Presentation Mode
Encapsulate patchers and sub patchers
Successfully apply data management techniques

Session 4, 27th September 2020, 4pm UK / 11am EST / 8am PT

Construct MIDI messages in Max
Utilise virtual instruments to play musical ideas
Manipulate data to create musical pieces
Explore further possibilities within Max

Phelan Kane is a Berlin & London based music producer, engineer, artist, developer and educator. For over twenty years he has been active in both the music industry and the contemporary music education sector, with a focus on electronic music and alternative bands. His specialism is sound design and production techniques such as synthesis and sampling, alongside audio processing and plug-in development. His credits include collaborations with Placebo, Radiohead, Fad Gadget, Depeche Mode, Moby, Snow Patrol, Mute, Sony BMG, Universal, EMI and Warner Bros. He holds an MA in Audio Technology from the London College of Music, University of West London, an MSc in Sound & Music Computing at the Center for Digital Music at Queen Mary, University of London and in 2008 became one of the world’s first wave of Ableton Certified Trainers. He is a member of the UK’s Music Producers Guild, holds a PG Cert in Learning & Teaching, is an Affiliate of the Institute for Learning, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and until recently was Chairman of the London Committee for the British Section of the Audio Engineering Society. He is currently running the electronic music record label Meta Junction Recordings and the audio software development company Meta Function, which specialize in Max for Live devices releasing the M4L synth Wave Junction in partnership with Sonicstate.

Bishi: a journey in music & technology
2020-09-28 18:30 - 20:00 | YouTube and Facebook
Bishi‘s talk explores her journey in music & technology, stemming from her cultural roots, charting the steps between being a musician, composer & performer to founder and technologist. The talk will feature some live Sitar midi-mapping performance.

Singer, electronic rock- sitarist, Composer, producer and performer BISHI was born in London of Bengali heritage. A multi-instrumentalist, BISHI received musical training in both Hindustani and Western Classical styles, including the study of the sitar under Gaurav Mazumdar a senior disciple of Ravi Shankar.
She has written & recorded two albums, produced by Matthew Hardern: Nights at The Circus and Albion Voice. Bishi co-produced her third album, ‘Let My Country Awake,’ with Jeff Cook.
Bishi is the founder of WITCiH: The Women in Technology Creative Industries Hub, a platform elevating Women & Non-Binary in tech, through commissions, performances & podcasts. She fronted a documentary for BBC Radio 4 exploring the future of technology in music.
Bishi’s collaborations & commissions for the stage have included The London Symphony Orchestra, The Kronos Quartet, Yoko Ono’s Meltdown, The Science Gallery, Nick Knight’s Showstudio & session work with Sean Ono Lennon, Luke Vibert, Richard Norris, Daphne Guinness & Tony Visconti. Bishi was recently a Tanpura soloist for the City of London Sinfonia, performing Jonny Greenwood’s ‘Water.’
Bishi was lead commissioned artist for Delia Derbyshire Day, who commissioned her to compose a piece of music, celebrating 50 years of White Noise ‘An Electric Storm.’ This resulted in ‘The Telescope Eye,’ an EP she co-produced with Richard Norris. Bishi fronted a documentary for Radio 4 centred around the groundbreaking tech company, ROLI. Her most recent EP ‘Of Rituals & Rites, with composer, Neil Kaczor is out on March 20th 2020, for Spring Equinox.

Build an interactive textile instrument
2020-09-30 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
This practice-led course will show you how to make an electronic textile interface for music performance. We will learn a DIY technique to craft with e-textile materials and then explore how to make music with the handcrafted interface in a number of ways. Each session will follow on from the last, developing your knowledge through a series of hands-on projects, delivered in four online workshops.
Level: beginner with notions of DIY electronics and programming

Some familiarity or experience of working with Arduino and/or Max/MSP (or similar platforms) is desirable
A tabletop space to work at
Computer, with USB port
Arduino IDE (Free – download here: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software)
Max 8 (Free 30 day trial available – you will be instructed to download this for the final session)

Availability
This workshop is available internationally. Please order your DIY kit before the dispatch date for your location. Kits will be posted using a Royal Mail tracked service.
UK dispatch date: Friday 25th September
Worldwide dispatch date: Friday 18th September
All sessions are led by a live workshop leader, and are recorded. If you miss one, you can watch it later.

We will work with the Lilypad Arduino, a microcontroller board designed for use with e-textiles and wearables projects, and Max/MSP, an object-orientated programming language for music making. The workshop series will cover the fundamentals of working with e-textiles and these technologies, giving a basis for participants to continue to develop their creative ideas when working with sound and interactive textiles.

Wed 30th Sept, 6pm UK – Workshop 1: Crafting an e-textile interface
In this workshop, we will explore an approach to working with electronic textiles and handcraft. This workshop will introduce needle felting as a DIY method of working with e-textiles. We will make an interactive and touch sensitive textile interface, to then be used in a number of ways, throughout the four sessions of this course. Through crafting the brightly coloured interface, we will explore a creative approach to interface design and learn how traditional crafts can be combined with e-textile materials to result in novel interfaces for music performance.
Sat 3rd Oct, 6pm UK – Workshop 2: Bringing your craft work to life: capacitive sensing and visualising sensor data with the Lilypad Arduino
In this session, we will transform the needle felted piece from Workshop 1 into an interactive and touch sensitive interface. We will introduce the Lilypad Arduino and explore capacitive sensing as a method of bringing your textile work to life. You will learn several approaches to visualising interaction data on screen, as well as the fundamentals of working with Arduino IDE.
Fri 23rd Oct, 6pm UK – Workshop 3: Composing through code: making an e-textile step sequencer with the Lilypad Arduino
This week, we will develop our coding skills and learn an approach to using your e-textile interface with the Lilypad Arduino, as a standalone music making device. We will write, edit and compose through code, to create a playful step sequencer that makes music as you touch the textile interface.
Sat 7th Nov, 6pm UK – Workshop 4: Interactive textiles and Max/MSP
Workshop 4 will introduce a method of using your handcrafted interface with Max/MSP. From this workshop, you will know how to program your Lilypad Arduino, to allow your e-textile interface to control parameters in a Max patch. We will make a software-based sampler, where pre-recorded sound files are triggered by touching the interactive textile interface. Some familiarity and a basic working knowledge of Max/MSP is desirable, but not essential. Participants with experience in Max are welcome to bring their own patches to experiment with.
—
A DIY kit, with all of the craft tools and materials you will need, is included in the workshop price and will be posted to your home in advance of the course.
There are two kits available, please select the kit that you will require:
Kit 1 is a full kit and includes a Lilypad Arduino and all of the craft tools and materials you will need for the course.
Kit 2 includes all of the craft tools and materials you will need to make the e-textile interface, but does not include the Lilypad Arduino and USB cable.
(Kit 2 is best suited if you already have a Lilypad Arduino or would prefer to use an alternative board. Please note that this course focuses on working with the Lilypad and so support for alternative boards will be limited and only recommended for more experienced participants.)
Kit 1 contents:

Lilypad Arduino
USB cable
10 x crocodile clips
Speaker
Wool
Steel wool
3 x Needle felting tools
Embroidery hoop
Fabric
Copper tape

Kit 2 contents:

10 x crocodile clips
Speaker
Wool
Steel wool
3 x Needle felting tools
Embroidery hoop
Fabric
Copper tape

Noisy pompoms – make an e-textile instruments
2020-10-03 10:00 - 12:00 | Online
Important note: This workshop includes a kit that will be shipped to your address from the UK, please note that registrations will close 7 days before the workshop to allow enough time for you to receive your kit.
What’s in the kit? The kit comes with a pre-soldered printed circuit board, e-textile material, a speaker, a mixed bundle of brightly coloured yarn and one crocodile clips. Batteries not included.

What you will do in this workshop:
In this online workshop, we will craft with electronic textiles to make a new musical instrument.
The workshop will provide an introduction to working with e-textile materials and DIY craft techniques, to enable us to make a new musical instrument to play and experiment with.
In this hands-on and craft-focused workshop, we will explore ideas in e-textiles, DIY electronics and experimental music making, to learn how e-textiles can be used within an electronic circuit and how we can be creative with crafts to make a fun and playful interface to perform with.
Topics:

Electronic textiles (e-textiles)
Experimental music making
DIY electronics
Textile handcrafts

Requirements:
No prior knowledge or skills are required. This workshop is a great introduction to electronic instrument building and is suitable for any age (younger children should be supervised).
The instrument will be built from a DIY kit, which will be posted to you in advance of the workshop. The kit includes all of the materials you will need to construct the instrument.
The instrument will be made with tools found around the home. You will need:

scissors
recycled cardboard (approximately cereal box sized)
9v battery
tabletop workspace

About the workshop leader:
Sam Topley is a sound artist from Leicester, UK. She works with textiles to create handmade electronic musical instruments and interactive sound art work. Her practice explores ideas in music, technology and textile handcrafts, to make new instruments such as giant noisy pompoms, knitted or ‘yarnbombed’ loudspeakers and DIY electronic musical instruments with e-textile interfaces.
Topley shares her work internationally through workshops, exhibitions, performances and presentations. Recent projects include commissioned work by Dubai Maker Faire, TEDxLeicester, Goldsmiths University of London and the University of Manchester.
Sam is a doctoral researcher at the Music, Technology and Innovation – Institute for Sonic Creativity (MTI2), De Montfort University (Leicester, UK), where she also lectures in experimental music, creative music technology and community arts practice. Her PhD is co-supervised by Nottingham Trent University and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Follow Sam on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

Arcologies: a workshop for Monome norns & grid / On-demand
2020-10-10 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
For Monome norns and grid, arcologies is a 21st century instrument for musical composition and discovery. Built by Tyler as a “2020 pandemic sanity project” and released in September it has already attracted passionate following.
Through a series of “breakout-room” team challenges you will learn how to build and sculpt evolving sound compositions with Arcologies.
We’ll cover signal flow, melodies, chords, and evolving systems with modulation, euclidean rhythms, and Turing machines.

Topics

Electronic music composition techniques.
Generative music.
monome norns
monome grid

Requirements

Monome norns
Monome grid
Arcologies installed
Curiosity!

About the workshop leader
Tyler Etters is a polymath-artist currently residing in Los Angeles. His uniquely 21st century practice encompasses a range of mediums including music, film, analog photography, and software design. He is Vice President at Highland and received his BFA in Graphic Design from Columbia College Chicago.
Links
https://tyleretters.github.io/arcologies-docs/
https://nor.the-rn.info

Artist workshop with Ned Rush: Live Sample Mangling in Max 8 – On demand
2020-10-11 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Max is Ned’s go to environment to realise concepts for sound design and performance that are not available in other programs.
In this 2-hour workshop you will learn ways to sample and loop incoming audio from the outside world. You will create a fresh sonic palette from mutating the sound, using a variety of techniques aimed at performance and improvisation, whilst also discussing and solving problems related to improvisation set-ups and how we can meet those needs.
You will explore a variety of ways to interact with sampled sound to find which method suits you best so you can realise your vision with a unique performance sampler.

Requirements
– Max 8
– Basic knowledge of Max
About the workshop leader
Ned Rush aka Duncan Wilson is a musician, producer and performer. He’s most likely known best for his YouTube channel, which features a rich and vast quantity of videos including tutorials, software development, visual art, sound design, internet comedy, and of course music.
