36C3 - Hackers & makers changing music technology

36C3 preroll music

Herald: But thanks that you all are here.
Actually, since it's all teardown moment,

still, we have enough, we have lots of
people here. Interesting. This is as well

an interesting talk because it's Helen
Leigh who's going to present this.

Actually, give us an overview actually
about what hackers, you know, in music

meant actually in the history. So to give
an overview, if I understood this well,

she gives certain examples. And I think
she's gonna kick this a little bit further

because she's going to talk a little bit
about her current work and future

objectives. So I would fasten seat belts,
I would say. Yes. Helen Leigh. Give her a

warm applause.

applause

Helen: Hello? Yep. So I'm Helen. This is
if you want to follow my stuff or download

any of my things that I mentioned in the
talk about GitHub and various plots of my

work on Twitter. So here we go. OK. Right.
I am going to talk to you today about

we're gonna give you a story. I'm gonna
give you a story about how a group of

music hackers in the 1940s changed the
face of music technology forever and how

they didn't know anything by what they
were doing. But they still manage to do

some incredibly cool things by just
disregarding and being really awesome

hardware hackers. I'm also gonna give you
an overview of some of the coolest

projects coming out of London and Berlin
at the moment. So I've been... I'm living

in Berlin at the moment, but I was active
in the music hacking scene in London for a

long time as well. So I'm going to show
you some cool projects. And before I start

off on my story and cool projects I'm
going to just introduce myself. I am a

creative technologist, which is a
ridiculous buzzword. But people like to

put you in a box. But I'm basically a
massive nerd who really likes arty stuff,

so I'd like to smash them together. My
favorite things to smash together are

electronics and hardware and with music
technologies. And so with that in mind, I

make a lot of strange musical instrument
creations, usually very experimental in

form. I'll show you some of that as well.
This is one of my experimental

instruments. I make sonic psycho sculpture
creatures and I've taken them on

residencies in London, Shenzen and
Copenhagen. And I just really like

experimenting with what a musical
instrument looks like. And not so much

what it sounds like. I mean, I am into
other people's noise art. But for me, I

like my instruments to sound melodic. But
yeah, form, I'm very interested in

experimenting with. I also really like at
the moment - this is made out of brass.

And I've made a lot of stuff with
different metals. But at the moment, I'm

on a big soft circuit kick. And so I'm
experimenting with electronic embroidery

and soft robotics to make kind of kinetic,
sculptural, squishy creature things. And

I'll show you some of that later, too. And
obviously, this doesn't pay my rent,

shockingly. So I also do some product
design and a lot of curriculum based

things, remember, I'm a writer as well. So
this is a product that I designed. That's

actually my hand on the box. Very
exciting. And it's a wearable instrument

for children sold by PIMORONI and Adafruit
and et cetera. And it's a DIY wearable

gesture based instrument for children to
learn how to code with. And I designed

that with Imogen Heap. And I'll tell you
about that cool project later. But that's

something I do. And I also do a lot of
writing. This is a still from one of my

books I wrote recently. Last year it came
out, one called The Crafty Kid's Guide to

DIY Electronics, where I teach basic
electronics through the medium of paper

craft, origami, sewing and kind of like
DIY robotics as well. I also write for

Hackaday. I've written for blah blah blah,
doesn't matter. I write words for money

sometimes. Anyway, that's me. I am going
to tell you as one of my favorite stories

of music, tech history. I'm going to start
off here with this rather pretentious

quote from a rather pretentious man who I
still kind of love is a guy called John

Cage, who most people know him for his
experimental compositions and his many

and varied writings on on the subject
of what is sound and what a sound artist.

But he was also pretty early on a hardware
hacker. He made experimental instruments.

Actually, one of his first famous pieces
was him like smashing up a piano and

changing that. So he was a composer, but
he was also an experimental hardware

artist. I mean, he said this. There is no
noise. There is only sound. And the reason

I put this quote up there is to kind of
make you... remind you that all music is

made up. Okay. All instruments are
inventions. The violin wasn't a violin

until probably the 13th century when
various instruments that came before it

converged and someone using new
techniques, new tools. And it starts and

it keeps revolving through the ages.
Right. And I think you could think of an

instrument as a - as a specific thing, but
it's really not. We've been messing around

with science since we've been humans,
basically, and deter with compositions.

You might think of classical music
mainstays like Stravinsky, Strauss or

Debussy as, as these kind of like boring
establishment figures, but actually in the

day they were seen as avant garde. People
walked out of their performances. There

were hit pieces about them in the mails.
You know, the Daily Mail of the time. So

basically, anything that sounds strange to
you now or something that's experimental

to us could well have an influence in a
long reaching way. So, yes, here we are.

Oh, I'm going to tell you. But my favorite
conspiracy theory as well. So even down to

the note A, 440 Hertz, middle A. And it's
- It was not even - it was not the letter.

Sorry. It was not 440 Hertz until the
1950s when a group of dudes met up in one

room in London. And then everybody signed
this agreement saying, OK, now an A is 440

Hertz. Before that, a flute in Italy might
sound different to a flute in France.

You'd have like this small tonal
variations. So it wasn't until yeah the

1950s that it became actually the letter
A. There's a wonderful series of

conspiracy theories around this that
actually that they chose 440 Hertz because

it's a method of population mind control
and there are alternative websites out

there, now you can literally go and if you
search for like uhm 440 Hertz

conspiracies, there are websites that are
campaigning like groups that are

campaigning for it to be changed for the
whole of modern music to be a to be

changed. There's one at 432. There's one
at 438. And if you're in the 438 camp,

because there are opposing camps as well.
So if you're in the 438 camp, you're in

luck because someone's made a music
adjustor. OK, so you can take your track

that you've done and you can put it into a
converter and it will convert all of your

music into 438. So you can do that if you
like. And there's even a radical fringe

group calling for the middle A to be 538,
which is absolutely insane. But there we

are, I love it. And so if you ever want to
go down a conspiracy theory YouTube black

hole, which you probably will do, we're
all at camp, uh congress, not camp. You

can look at that. But basically my point
here is that music is all made up.

Instruments are all inventions. So, you
know, there are no rules. I'm gonna take

you through em - one of the paths, one of
the many paths of music history and music

hacking. And we're going to look at one
piece of hacked technology and how people

who played with that and did things with
it that they weren't supposed to do

changed modern history, modern music
production. This is the magnetic tape

recorder. It's a lovely device. And it was
used popularized in World War 2 by the

Nazis who used it to chop up propaganda
and so on. And after the World War, after

the World War and the BBC took on it, took
it on themselves to try and develop a

version of this. So this is a relatively
modern technology. In the 40s and 50s,

it started becoming becoming popular and
it was used for real to real broadcasting,

right. Before this, it was grammophones.
But a bunch of - so they were used in

music studios and they were relatively
expensive. As it became cheaper, a bunch

of music hackers saw its potential to do
something more than just line it up. So

these hackers got their hands on a bunch
of these and a bunch of these magnetic

tape recorders. And as people want to do
with technology that they get their hands

on it. They started to fuck with it in a
new and very exciting ways. And what they

did is they they as a movement in Paris
and then early 1940s called musique

concrète, which was the first group of
people who were doing this. Aside from one

lonely guy in Egypt as well. But there was
like the epicenter of this was - is in

Paris. And what you do is you see the the
actual tape there. You use a razor blade

to cut it. And then you can, for example,
flip it over, tape it back together, and

then you've got one piece that's
backwards. Right. OK. And using that

technique, I'll show you how actually you
this is it.

sounds playing
OK, so not only can you chop things up and

turn them around, you can speed them up
and slow them down. This gives you - this

seems - so, basically, if you do it
faster, it will give you a higher tone.

And if you do it slower, if you slow it
down, it will be lower. OK. We all know

this kind of instinctually now. But back
then, this was fellow. This was completely

revolutionary. You could make sounds that
were not existing in nature. Take, for

example, the plucking of a violin string,
okay, you pluck a violin string. And it

comes on quick. It's like boom. And then
if you let it die off, there's a "laaa".

So what we call that in music is a sharp
attack on a long delay. And that's how a

lot of musical instruments or natural
science will work. OK. They will fade off,

OK. But using this technology, you could
switch it around. So it had the

opposite effect. So like "uooom" the long
attack and a short delay. So you could

create sounds that are not found in nature
now, which is extraordinary. And at the

same time, there was the advent of
something called field recording, which

was you could go outside instead of having
to record in a studio. You could have a

physical piece of equipment that you could
carry around with you and a microphone, so

you could go and record sounds outside.
Found sound is what we call that. Then you

could take it back to the studio, chop it
up with a scalpel, sellotape it back

together, rerecord it, and you could
create... This is just you know, it's just

a huge, vast new set of tools that you can
work with as somebody who's making music.

Now the first people doing this were, as I
say, these French guys in Paris

and in musique concrète. And they
were doing it. And due to modern music,

digital preservation techniques, you can
hear these, the sounds they were making on

YouTube. You can spend some time and
listen to that. And I won't lie, they

sound pretty awful. Nobody wants to listen
to that. I mean, unless you're a true

enthusiast. But it's not it's not about
the music they were making, is about the

techniques that they were creating, their
experimentation sounded terrible but

actually was incredibly influential. We
use sampling now as just an ordinary

thing, but this was the technology behind
it. It really came to a head in the 1960s

when Beatle - the Beatles were the first
people to use this technique on "Tomorrow

Never Knows". Now, normally, well, I would
play this, but when I did, at a talk

similar to this at the Hackaday Super
Conference, they uhm they pulled my

livestream because there was a 10 second
snippet of the Beatles. So I've decided

not to risk it today. But you can look up
"Tomorrow Never Knows" and you can hear

these "woauum, woauum, woauum" kind of
sounds. And that's actually flipped.

That's just flipped sounds that the - all
of the Beatles brought in sounds from

their home. They flipped it around,
speeded up and slowed it down. There's a

famous like very high pitched
"hiehiehiehiehie" sound in that song and

it's just Paul McCartney laughing and
they've manipulated it using sticky tape

and scalpels. Anyway, so that was the
beginning of these new production

techniques, right? You can use these in
modern music, you know, when you're in

your Ableton or your Logic or whatever.
You know, those are just standard

features. But this was the beginning of
it. And it's incredibly influential. I could

follow it down this path. But I'm
actually going to take this and

leave them to go on with modern mainstream
production. And I'm going to talk about

this woman instead. Who was one of my
favorite things about hacker culture is

the way that we learn from each other and
the way that we rev off of each other's

work. And so I'm gonna go slightly
sideways and talk about this artist and

engineer. Her name is Daphne Oram, and
who's heard of Daphne Oram? All right.

Like ten of you. Which is more than usual,
actually, to be honest. So Daphne Oram is

- everyone should know her name and that's
why I never shut up about her. She was a

musician and physicist, an electronics
engineer who was unfortunate enough to be

a woman. And was - has a pretty tragic
work history. But she... she's one of the

iconic figures of early electronic music.
She should be as well-known as any of the

- as Moog or whatever. But anyway, so
she's a trained musician and she got a job

at the BBC queuing up these reel to reel
magnetic tape recorders, which is actually

a pretty big deal at the time for women as
well. So she would. She went on a training

course to Paris and - just studio
recording techniques. You know, standard

corporate training. Right. And while she
was there I believe she met some of the

people behind the musique concrète. And
she was basically and they showed her what

they were doing. And it totally blew her
mind. She was like, oh, my God, I will

take this back to the BBC. It's gonna be
so cool. I'm going to revolutionize

everything. It's gonna be awesome. She
took it like that. And predictably enough,

everyone was like, no, go back to pressing
buttons. So she did. But she also would

run around at the BBC late at night after
hours stealing bits of equipment from

other people's studios and wheeling them
into her own studio. And she would

experiment with all these musique concrète
methods. And she was an electronics

person, as well, and she was one of the
first people in the world to make purely

electronic music, because she was one of
the first instances of someone who

recorded her oscilloscope and then started
using that for compositional purposes as

well. And she was doing this for maybe
five, six, seven years. And at the end of

that, she started to get some interest.
She managed finally to convince somebody

to give her a commission to create some
incidental music for a piece of - for a

show. And erm and it was a success. Also
people hated it. Of course. But enough

people wanted her to repeat it that
eventually the BBC gave her her own studio

which is like absolutely, you know, out of
the question for someone in the fifties,

for a woman in the 50s. And so she she was
starting to make this but she erm

unfortunately at this point she got the
BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which is one of

the most iconic sound design workshops and
studios in the whole history of music

technology. So she starts this workshop,
the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, but a year

later she leaves to start her own artists
practice because they - they said she said

they wanted my ideas and they wanted my
work but they didn't want me. So she had

to leave her life's work. And she was
largely erased, actually, from everything

that she did, even though she founded this
iconic this absolutely iconic workshop.

And she went off and created. She didn't
have a sad life after that. She - she went

off and created em, this wild synthesiser,
which is in the London Science Museum. And

I was like instead of she she loved
looking at wave forms of music. So she

thought she would use watercolor to draw
the wave forms and then have a synthesizer

interpret those wave forms. And that's
called the Oramics Machine is like

absolutely wild. You can look that up on
the Internet as well. It's cool to look

at. So, yeah, she's becoming a bit more
popular now because of the work of some of

the guys at the Radiophonic Workshop who
still exist. Some of the old guys who go

around telling cool stories about them.
And but also because of the woman she

helped bring in who stayed after she left.
And she's quite famous now because of

something I'll show you. It's this lady.
And this is Delia Derbyshire, who's head

of Delia Derbyshire. A lot more of you. I
thought so. Now, Delia Derbyshire again

the same? She's got a maths and music
degree. She couldn't get a job, but she

ended up basically pestering them into
letting her do some interning at the

Radiophonic Workshop and eventually got a
job there. And then she was the arranger

and made the instrumentation for this. Now
I'm going to play this for you. Before I

do, I want you to think about the fact
that at the time every sound had to be

physically cut and sticky taped together,
every sing-. And there's no multi-track

recorders back then either. OK. So you
have to. It's an absolutely enormous

process of recording the sounds,
stretching the sound, cutting the sounds,

sticking it back together, making on a
reel, recording that onto a separate reel.

Then you've got this and then you add more
sounds and then you have like several

tapes that you have to condense into each
other without multi-track technology. OK.

They're literally on different machines
shouting "Go" at each other. And that's

how they recharged multi-track. But she
was very blasé about it. It was kind of amusing

because it seems ridiculous to me now
to be able to compose a piece of music

like that, like a jigsaw puzzle. But
she just shrugged and said, well,

seemed to work. I find that kind of charming
but yes. So that's. Oh, no. Why didn't it play?

low volume static noise

Oh, no. Huh, goddamned. Well I'm gonna
play it for you anyway.

Oh, it's playing! Oh good, it just took a minute.

Doctor Who Theme playing

[over the music] No theremin. No
synthesizers existed. This was literally

just tapes. And she also made her own
instruments so she [inaudible], including

my favourite which is called the
wopulator(?). And that just a good name

Yeah, so uhm, they actually used a lot of
electronic engineering gear in their work.

Anyway, we know how this goes. And I don't
want to get another copyright violation.

Doctor Who Theme stops
So let's move on. I did actually want to

play one of her own songs, so that's her
commercial work. But she was also an

electronic experimental musician of her
own and on her own accord. And she I think

you kind of forget that music in the 50s
and 60s actually kind of was wild as well.

Let's see if we...
Music playing

[talking over music]
This is one of her tracks from the 60s.

Kind of a banger.
[making sounds]

You might even recognize this track,
because someone did sample it.

Die Antwoord literally just rapped over the
top of that and then released it as a

track. She made this for a science fiction
show that was based on an Asimov story and

this remains, but the Asimov story that it
was made for has been deleted from the BBC

archives, which I find to be an absolute
tragedy. I would love to watch that. If

you uhm if you flip it back, the robotic
sound is singing "praise be to the

master".
Music stops

Thank you, Daphne. And so that's the
that's my story of the BBC Radiophonic

Workshop. But I wanted to leave you with a
quote from one of the BBC Radiophonic

Workshop engineers. Unfortunately unnamed
in the documentary that I watched and I

just thought this was kind of a cute
sentiment because they were making things

up. They weren't - they weren't the
experts in the room. They didn't know what

they couldn't do. So they just basically
managed to mess around with stuff and

ended up with something really special and
really cool and something that was just

iconic. You know, some of the biggest
electronic music acts in the world today,

still say that the work at the BBC
Radiophonic Workshop was one of the big

influences in life as well. So. So, yeah,
that's the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. And I

think it's very important that we allow
for ridiculousness in technology and we

allow for ugly noises and we allow for
stupid things that don't fully - you don't

really see what they're for. Like the
power of them allowing for experimentation

that isn't very successful at first or
doesn't sound successful. The idea is

really important. Yeah. So outsiders,
hooray. That was a golden age. We've got

the invention of a new technology and what
resulted in democratization. You know, the

availability of a new technology to a
reasonable number of people led to this

uhm to this amazing sea change in the way
that people made music, made digital music

and analog back then. But, you know, the
way that we make music was changed by

these experimenters. It was definitely a
golden age for - for new techniques. But I

think that we're currently in a golden age
for people who are working with

experimental instruments and experimental
sound in general. And I think that we. So

we've got loads and loads of really
exciting new technologies that are

available. We've got cheap
microcontrollers. We've we can make our

own PCBs. We can make our own
synthesizers. We can access people, which

is which is really crucial. I mean, think
about Daphne. She didn't learn about

musique concrète and she didn't find the
BBC Radiophonic Workshop until she had a

spark of an idea from somebody else. So
really, it is learning tools, learning

type, you know, gaining access to tools,
learning new techniques and learning and

being inspired by other people is really,
really critical for anything to to really

change and to really and to happen. But I
think that at the moment we've been

really, really cool, accessible new
technologies that more and more people are

learning how to use and more and more are
becoming much simpler as well. And and

crucially, people are more accessible. So
people share, particularly in our

community, people share their knowledge
and very freely. And you don't have to be

in the same room to do this. I know a
bunch of people are listening on the

livestream right now. So you don't have to
be here to learn about things.

And you don't have to be in the room to
lend it - to attend a workshop with

somebody. Right. There's these wonderful
YouTube tutorials now for sharing

information. Niche communities are just
way more accessible through online places.

And we've got an incredible community and
abundance as well. So this is I mean, I

shouldn't have put this slide in here but
it doesn't matter. Uhm so this is this is

one of my old hacker spaces. It's Machines
Room. In uhm in London. And it was where -

where the music, technology, one of the
places where the music tech community in

London was centered. And they did some, it
was there on the London hackerspace, but

we did a lot of things. But there's a
community called the hackoustic that I was

involved with. And we used to do a lot of
events there. I'm saying that the reason I

put this slide down was just just to show
that hacker spaces and maker spaces often

have some kind of music technology
partnerships and those kind of central

spaces where you can share things and
share knowledge and get inspired by each

other's work and also hold events is
really, really crucial. Actually, I do

know why I put this slide in. So, so this
slide the - this this was a wonderful

space for uhm for three years. And then
the landlord raised the rent four times

and this amazing community of artists and
designers and music hackers was removed,

and at the same time, the London hackspace
moved from central London to west London

and a bunch of other hacker spaces and fab
labs closed as well just because of how

expensive the center of London had had
become. And there's just as a direct

result of that, I moved to Berlin. So like
this is there by, by, uhm by allowing this

kind of gentrification of our hackerspaces
we actually do destroy community as much

as we can create community online as well.
Like this. So this is uhm this is an

example of awesome online community. This
is, um, YouTube uhm video from someone

from the London music tech hacker scene
and probably the most famous person from

it. And it's a guy called Sam who goes by
"Look Mum No Computer" on the Internet.

And he he's an electronic engineer and
general purpose weirdo. Which is why I

like him. And this is one of his
creations. He made a Furby synth, which is

as horrific as you imagine, if not more
so. So don't look that up. I mean, do look

that up. But it is genuinely be prepared
to not have a nice time. But he doesn't

just show his instruments. He doesn't just
perform with them. He he does really

awesome electronics teardowns as well. So
I've learned a bunch of stuff from

watching his videos and looking at
actually how he's done them. And that's

something that's really exciting. I mean,
like maybe 20 years ago, I wouldn't have

had access to this kind of knowledge. I
just would have I probably wouldn't have

even known that I like this kind of stuff,
you know, wouldn't have been exposed to

it. And then I certainly wouldn't... You
know, I've been going down my my local pub

saying, hey, he wants to work on, uh, on a
weird Furby instrument with me. And they'd

be like, well, no. So it's kind of nice to
be able to show your weird passions with

the people on the Internet. And then, of
course, we have, we're at one of these.

This is me and my friend Phoenix. We've
done a fair bit of music tech hacking

together. And this is actually the British
version of Congress, EMF camp. I guess

it's the version of Chaos camp, actually.
But so yeah, EMF camp, which is actually

in 2020 this year. It's a yes. It's really
cool small hacker festival or but these

kind of spaces and these kind of events
really allow. I mean, I've learned so much

just by being here the last couple of
days. And every time we do this, we should

cherish and we should cherish the hacker
spaces and the events. And we should also

support people like Sam, who makes his
living through Patreon and on YouTube, you

know, so by supporting maker spaces and
events and also by supporting individual

people who are putting the effort in to
create and share work, I think and we can

cherish this community. OK. Onto the final
bit. I'm going to show you some - some of

the cool projects that I've been working
on with other people. But the reason I've

chosen the ones that I'm showing you is
because they are also using some of my

favorite ways that you can hack on
instruments. So I figured I'd show you a

project, but also show you how to make,
you know, how you can have a go at it. So

recently I've lived in London and Berlin,
and one of my favorite things to do is

when I'm in a space is to make an
instrument in the context of two people's

work, two or more people's work. I always
find like my work is always way better if

I'm collaborating with somebody else. So
you know what they do and what I do

smushed together to create something
that's better than either of us could have

done on our own. And I think this is a
good example if it will play and this is

one of my first sonic soul circuits
sculpture creatures.

plucking sounds
This started off as a hack just overnight

hack with my composer friend Andrew Hockey
and Drew Fustini from Oshpark and myself,

obviously, and we worked together
overnight to create this. This is a

circuit sculpture. If you don't know what
a circuit sculpture is, it's basically uhm

instead of putting your circuit inside of
a box, all of the parts or the key parts

of it are shown and are actually
celebrated as art in their own light. And

so that's what a circuit sculpture is. And
there's a couple of wonderful people and

there is this guy called Mohit(?) who
makes really beautiful things. He's living

in San Francisco. And then this guy called
Giri(?), who is in Prague, I want to say.

And they make really, really awesome,
tiny, neat things. But I I'm not tiny and

neat, so I make big, massive and messy
things. So this is the first one I made.

It was really interesting to me. I really
like capacitive touch as a technology and

it's can be unreliable, but I find it kind
of really fun to work with. And it's very

intuitive for a musician. And then that
led to me developing a second creature.

And I'm really inspired by kind of utopian
science fiction. And I wanted to make a

series of creatures that inhabited the
same world and sung when you touch them.

So this was the second in the series. This
is a more traditional instrument. I mean,

obviously, it's still weird. It's more
traditional in the - past one, the second

one, the first one was generative in some
way, like semi generative. And this one is

more like one note per limb with two modes
of modulation. This is a bass.

synth bass sound playing
"wobb wobb wobb".

Helen chuckles
So that's my base creature, which I'm

actually developing for a real musician
now and a woman, amazing bassist called

Ayse Hassan who is the basis for the
Savages and just was on tour with the

Pixies and I'm going to - I'm making her a
stage presence one. And so she's going to

be able to play it, but that's gonna be
more generation based as well. But it's

kind of interesting to to try and create
something that in its functionality is

very traditional, but in its form is
really weird. And that's kind of fun to

play with. But now my latest one is
another creature. But this is kind of like

an abstract sensicle pod. It's gonna be
human sized. And each of the limbs will

pay a different part of the choral
arrangement. And then there's like some

kind of like sunlight feature at the top
where you can modulate it by touching the

copper rods. I've actually made a
prototype, which you can listen to. So

this is this is the latest version of one
of the limbs of the tentacle, which I made

and it just made it for the form. But then
everybody seems to really like cuddling

it. It's very comforting. So I decided to
make it purr after I'd finished

prototyping. If you want to listen to my
purring tentacle afterwards, you can. It

does sometimes work, but I should say
actually. Hello. So this is it. This is,

um. This is machine embroidered conductive
thread so that - that is able then to

detect capacity. That's a capacitive touch
sensor essentially - It's a sensicle. And

so yeah you can see that afterwards if you
want. It mostly works. I made it yesterday

so that's quite fine. But again, you know,
I would not have been able to create the

intricate sounds without the help of my
composer friend, and I would not have been

able you know this and I would not been
able to get the implementation that I

wanted onto the beagleboard whithout erm,
Drew. And so it's, it's, it's, it's really

nice to kind of like sit together and mash
up your mash up your skills.

bottles falling over
Now, these all use one of these and this

is another one of my instruments. This is
a wearable, flexible PCB, it's gonna be a

vocoder, but it's not finished yet. But.
But the reason I'm showing you that is

because that's the sensor that I use. This
is a they call it the trill. It's

essentially like if anybody viewed any of
you who used capacitive touch before, you

probably used an MPR121 sensor. This is
like an MPR121 sensor ++. It's much more..

they've got... a) it's got like 20
something pins, which is wild and it's way

more sensitive as well. So I find it
really really great. So if anybody's doing

stuff with cap touch and they're having
some problems with it: a) make sure you

ground it and b) have a go on that trail.
It's like 10 euros. I think that, that

sensor. And it is done by bela. You can
see one of their boards there. Now I'm

gonna do a whole slide about bela and Fan
Girl about them because they're my

favorite technology at the moment to use
for embedded systems, for embedded

instruments. And this is like the size,
this is this big. It is based on the

pocket beagle, which is the size of a
small Altoids tin. So it's very, very

small. But it runs, it runs, it's a full
Linux computer and is really, really

awesome. Super, super responsive, super
low latency, which is really important

when you're creating instruments. But also
the cool thing is it runs this. This is

PureData. It's a visual programing
language for sound creation. A lot of

artists and sound designers and music
creators, they use this already. You

might. This is very similar to something
called Max, actually made by the same guy.

But this one's open source. Yeah. So and
so that's bela and PureData. Definitely

worth checking out if you're interested in
instrument design. The reason the bela is

special is because, because of the
latency, but also because no other... So

you can't get a microcontroller that will
run PureData except for the Raspberry Pi

does. But the latency on the Raspberry Pi
is like meeh. So I would always suggest if

you're doing something. The bela and
PureData is a nice combo. OK. That's that

one. Then the other project I wanted to
talk to you briefly about is, is this is

Ariana Grande, who you probably don't know
who she is, but anyone under the age of 13

certainly will. And here she is demoing
and is called MI MU glove.

music playing
[talking over music]

It's a gesture control. I say yes, gesture
control. And she's controlling, she's

doing looping. She's doing effects using
gestures. Obviously, gestures, various

gestures. Thank you, Ariana.
music stops

So that's that's the that's the. This is
what she's using here. And this is coming

out of London. About of the music tech
company called MI MU, that was originated

by Imogen Heap, if you know her. And I saw
the Ariana video and something I didn't

mention is I actually do quite a lot of
teaching as well. And when I saw that

Ariana video, I just thought I was like,
oh, my God, if I showed this to a 12 year

old girl and told them we could make one,
they were going to lose their mind. So

these cost like five grand, though. So I
don't think I could get one of these in

the classroom. So I just messaged Imogen
and asked her if I could make a children's

version. And so I did. She said yes. And
she - we, this is this is a wonderful

piece of technology called the micro:bit.
And it's a DIY, it's like my first

microcontroller that is made by the BBC.
It's like 10 pounds. It's very, very

cheap. It doesn't do a lot. But what it
does, it does very well and very simply.

And I was able to make an approximation of
a five thousand dollar glove with a ten

dollar microcontroller, which is nice.
That's what the core of the product that I

made is actually in. But. I haven't got
the time to talk to you about that. That's

my leather robot unicorn. I gesture
control, but I can't tell you about that.

This is another artist, got no time for
that. So we're getting onto this last one.

So basically I was able to - with one
bridge, one micro:bit and a little bit of

code to get it to work on professional
music software. And this is a musician

called Bishi who's really awesome and this
is her using my ten dollar hack.

music playing
[talking over music]

To do very similar things. To the 5000
dollar. And of course, that's not stadium

level. Ariana claimed they couldn't use
that on tour. But it's it was a fun

project that we hacked together.
music stops

And that is that's my time. I have done
all of it, by the way. All of this, how I

did that. And that's all on my GitHub. All
of the code. If you've already got a

micro:bit, you can do, you can do it
yourself or you can get the kits for like

30 bucks. It's not very expensive. So all
that's on my GitHub along with some weird

factory signs of things. And you can
follow along on on my weird electronic

adventures on my Twitter. I'm pretty
reactive. So say hi to me and I'll be

hanging around here if you want to listen
to my tentacle. So the end, okay.

applause

Herald: Helen Leigh, woo. Thank you, Helen,
for his fantastic presentation. I'm

wondering actually, how are we gonna play
that thing there? What it's like. I had a

questions here. No. Yes. Yes. Online, of
course. They are far more, more speedy

than we are. Shoot!
Signal Angel: So the question from the

Internet is: Have you ever considered
creating music without human interaction?

Helen: Yes.
laughs

Her: Okay then, next one.
Hel: Thank you. Good night. No, I mean,

I'm personally I'm a very tactile person
and so I like creating instruments that

you... that you stroke that are
affectionate almost and kind. I like

giving the things that I create some kind
of persona and that you interact with

them. However, a lot of people use...
there's a lot people doing really

interesting things with generative, non-
human interactive art. In fact, the

composer friend that I was talking about,
Andrew Hockey, who's done a lovely... He's

haked a musical marble run and that is
just automated. I mean, when the marbles

go down, the marble run. It will trigger
generative signs, which is really, really

cool. There's lots of people doing it. But
for me personally, I just I know. I like.

I like touching the objects that I make.
You know, I'm the kind of strange person

who walks around a craft store with a
multimeter kind of like touching things

and figuring out if they're conductive,
like adequately conductive.

Her: You're measuring out...
Hel: Yeah. So for example, in fabric

stores, there might be something that's
conductive. That's not actually built as

conductive. Or I'll often go to art stores
and craft stores or architectural supply

stores. And you can find you know, you
don't have to go to Conrad. You can go to

Modulor with your multimeter. If I just
like you can, you know see if it's

conductive or it's not.
laughs

Herold: We believe you. I'm just imagining
you there.

Helen: Oh, yeah. No, it's...
Herold: At a flea market.

Helen: I've had some strange looks.
laughing

Herold: That question here from number two
please here in the front.

Mic 2: Have you also created instruments
that actually work with the physicality of

the object that you have built instead of
triggering some processing?

Helen: So actually, you mean...
Mic 2: Like what if the tentacle itself,

the sound it produces would be amplified
and somehow that, the base of the

processing of the actual...
Helen: Oh, you mean more acoustic. Yeah.

Actually when the tentacle is done it will
have some kind of physical feedback loop

in it that will be reactive to its uhm, to
its space, to its personal space even as

well. So actually the cool thing about
capacitive touch technology is if you get

the thresholding right, you can not just
sense touch. You can sense proximity and

that kind of also very cool how many
people are in the room as well. So you can

get it to react quite... not uniformly,
but you can get it to react quite nicely

to its environment and also the
way that people are manipulating it as

well. And you can also code some cool
things into that as well. So basically

based on, you know, like the number of
touches. How often people have played with

it and, you know, and then and how people
have played with it. And get that type of

feedback in to the music that it's making
in a generative fashion. There's lots of

cool things that I want to do with this
next sculpture. But yeah

laughs
Mic 2: Thanks.

Herold: I'm so sad. I really have to spoil it
here. Really... we have to shut this now.

And I would like you to ask do to talk to
her personally. Here next to the stage.

Thank you all for being here. Thank you.
Thank you. And leave for this fantastic

presentation on.

applause

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