Archive for the 'diy' Category

aurora Open Source DJ Mixer\MIDI Hardware w/ Ableton Live

aurora Open Source DJ Mixer\MIDI Hardware w/ Ableton Live from aurora mixer on Vimeo.
“This is a DJing demonstration using aurora to control Ableton Live. The video is an overhead shot of the user adjusting the mixer’s faders, knobs, and buttons to mix the music. The video cuts between two types of scenes. The lit scenes show a user controlling the music. The dark scenes highlight aurora’s ambient lighting system.

About aurora:
aurora is an open source USB powered mixer in a typical DJ form factor. Using Max\MSP or PD the device can control your favorite MIDI software. aurora features 24 backlit knobs, 3 linear sliders, and 8 backlit buttons. These devices are for sale. You can find out more about the project here at auroramixer.com

Song Credits:
Gabriel & Dresden - Tracking Treasure Down
Volta - Robot Needs Oil (Olivier Giacomotto Mix)
Cass & Slide - Lost Life"

kore@noisepages: Free DIY Grain Delay Reaktor Tutorial, plus Making Sense of Kore

Building and Using a Reaktor Grain Delay in Kore 2 from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.

Let’s cut straight to the reason we use this stuff: we want crazy-sounding delays we can play with. Reaktor guru Peter Dines shows just how you’d build such a thing in Reaktor from the ground up for CDM’s Kore site. He also takes it one step further by creating not only the Reaktor ensemble, but also a Kore performance preset to match. The advantage of going this route: Kore provides a way of organizing parameters for control, performance, and automation.

This is another all-free download, so have at it. Now I feel like I’m in a patching race with Peter, because I’ve got some ideas of my own for how you might modify this basic idea; let’s see if I can actually make that happen.

Making sense of Kore

The other side of the minisite is we’re further exploring what Kore is for and how to make it work. We asked readers of the minisite to tell us their thoughts on how Kore is going and how they use it, which has yielded an interesting comment thread:

How Do You Kore?

Our main focus, of course, is simply teaching people how to use the tool effectively – from there, you can decide whether it’s for you and how you want to use it. To that end, I’ve got the first half of a tutorial up that explains what for me was the biggest draw and the most initially confusing, which is the control pages Kore uses to assign automation and physical control. I walk through why you’d want this, how it works, and how you manage different levels of the control pages:

Demystifying Kore Control Pages for Automation and Performance, Pt. I: Different Page Types

We also have some important basics, like Kontakt automation, how to get a normal mixer view, and external MIDI control.

Coming soon: I’m planning some short features on each of NI’s instruments. We’ll have to call it the “get it out of the shrinkwrap” series, especially for people who got the overwhelming set of instruments that comes with Komplete.

New Turntablism Concepts: Touchscreen Decks, Crossfader Samplers, Needles

We’re seeing more and more unique ideas for reimagining DJing and the two-turntable setup. Here are two examples from opposite ends of the spectrum: one employs a non-traditional interface to do traditional DJing in a new way, while the other uses the traditional interface to produce new DJ techniques. To me, the latter is more interesting, but both are meaningful parts of the process.

From the excellent PSFK, Dan Gould finds a project by Scott Hobbs, a Dundee University (UK) student, building a project that access sampling, looping, and scratching features via touchscreens, instead of desks. (Via Gizmodo — thanks, Goldfinger!)