RSS
Maker Faire Events and Makers By Topic
Arts | Crafts | Engineering | Food | Green | Music | Science
Music
1 to 50 of 50
1-Bit Music
Tristan Perich
1-Bit Music is a project by artist and composer Tristan Perich that combines his music with primitive, hand-programmed electronics that investigate the foundations of digital sound. Distributed inside a standard CD jewel case, the custom-built electronics synthesize an album of electronic music, illustrating the structure of the circuit and combining that transparent aesthetic with the lowest fidelity sound. (Co-located in the Maker Shed with Loud Objects.)
| Location: Maker Shed |
A Mandolin in Two Days
Fretboard Journal is bringing Rick Turner, a luthier from Santa Cruz, to build a mandolin from a template in 48 hours.
| Location: Expo Orange |
Abney Park
Abney Park
Abney Park comes from an era that never was, but one that we wish had been. An era where airships waged war in the skies, and corsets and cummerbunds were proper adventuring attire. They’ve picked up their bad musical habits, scoundrelous musicians, and anachronistically hybridized instruments from dozens of locations and eras that they have visited in their travels and thrown them into one riotous dervish of a performance. Expect clockwork guitars, belly dancers, flintlock bassists, middleastern percussion, violent violin, and Tesla powered keyboards blazing in a post- apocalyptic, swashbuckling, Steampunk musical mayhem.
Abney Park Exhibit
Here is where you will find CD's and T-shirts, and other gear associated with Abney Park.
| Location: Outdoors |
Art Lessing and the Flower Vato
We are a DIY ear-friendly music ensemble with a variety of home-made, one-of-a-kind TONAL instruments. The "Space Bass" has become legendary to some in Sacramento. We have been playing the Second Saturday Art Walk in Sacramento for several years where we showcase these creations. We are not a noise outfit or a jam band.
Bay Area Computer Music Technology Group Projects
Computer music technology projects including:
| Location: Expo Green |
Build a Guitar
Learn how to make string instruments (mainly guitars) from kits. See sample kits, a finished guitar and some cool tools.
| Location: Expo Orange |
CCRMA Musical Interactives
Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford University
See new sonic interactions that have been developed using tools--such as low-cost hardware prototyping kits and a customized open source Linux software distribution--from Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics.
| Location: Expo Green |
Crank Ensemble
From sparse "plinking" to layered, melodic loopiness to hardcore noise, these all result from rhythmic, repetitive patterns made by crank-operated machines designed by artist Larnie Fox. Each instrument has a mounted piezo (contact microphone) to amplify its sound.
Critter and Guitari
Critter and Guitari will be demoing their kits:
The Cellular Automata Video Synthesizer is a good introduction to basic video synthesis and pattern generation. It turns any ordinary TV into a color demonstration of 1 dimensional elementary cellular automata. The Pocket Piano Arduino Shield is a brand new kit that turns the Arduino board into a portable electronic keyboard synthesizer. Different synthesizer patches can be created with the Arduino software and downloaded over USB.
| Location: Fiesta Blue Maker Shed |
Culann's Hounds
Culann's Hounds
San Francisco-based high-energy, virtuosic musicians playing traditional Irish, hoe-down, zydeco, and original music. Their other influences include punk, rock, country, and reggae. Violin, Accordion, Guitar, Bass, Drums, Vocal Harmonies; jumping, dancing, rebel yells. Headliners for the San Francisco Irish festival.
Curiously Bright LED & Audio Extravaganza!
Darker Technologies and Macetech combine forces this year to bring a variety of original projects including LED grow lights, simple RGB pixel elements, a giant RGB array nearly five feet tall, an Altoids tin-based high quality stereo component system, and more!
| Location: Dark Room |
Electric Rainsticks
Using some common hardware and a contact mic, you can build an electric rainstick that delivers a surprisingly varied and subtle tone. They are fairly inexpensive to make, can be completed in less than an hour, and are loads of fun.
Electronic Drum
Build an electronic drum out of PVC pipe, guitar string, foam and aluminum tape. Connect to a cheesy keyboard or drum machine to kick some beats. Build an analog drum circuit for that 80’s disco ping sound. Members of a high school science class will show you how it’s done.
| Location: Expo Red |
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the leading organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. EFF believes protecting innovation is central to advancing our freedom and has fought to clear the way for encryption, VoIP, file-sharing software, open source HDTV tools, and much more. Visit our booth to learn about our current work and pick up some cool EFF swag including our latest t-shirt and stickers!
| Location: Expo Orange |
Exploring New Ways to Interact with Computers
I will demonstrate input (game controllers, cameras, microcontrollers) and output (sound, custom circuits) methods that can form non-traditional user interfaces. I will also show how to use things like PyGame, Pd, OSC and MIDI to quickly build these interfaces. Examples will be shown. Bring a controller, learn to use it!
| Location: Expo Green |
Extra Action Marching Band
Powerful and empowering, the Extra Action Marching Band (unamplified) seduces the pre-civilized will. They are immediate and visceral -- more of a sweaty invitation than a show. They are a parody of idioms with shattering volume -- guerrilla theater with the rug rolled up.
Fossil Fool
Fossil Fool, the Bike Rapper, is the only MC who rocks the mike while he rides his bike. With his trusty sidekick, the Choprical Fish, a neon-encrusted pedal-powered party bike he built, he rolls up at sunset and creates spontaneous mobile parties.
FrankenBot Drum Triggers and Electric Tap Shoes
Austin Giles
I build drum triggers out of piezo elements and create sculptures/ Electrified tap shoes with the drum triggers.
Gowns
Ezra Buchla
From the ashes of West Coast spazz combo the Mae Shi and legendary woodworking noiseniks Amps for Christ has emerged a Frankenstein assembly of minimal percussion, a cappella harmonizing, and raw folk melodies christened Gowns. Erika Anderson and Ezra Buchla have married personal, intelligent lyrics and homemade bent electronics to create remarkably haunting drone-pop masterpieces. Their whispered vocals mingle with hushed instrumentation, only to collide, explode, and slowly burn a hole in your frontal lobe by the night's end.
- flavorpill
Huge Tesla Coils and Tower Electronique
Three huge Tesla Coils with lots of electricity and a Tower Electronique, a musical instrument that plays in the air. Also, flying balls machine, solar energy musical machines, and much more.
| Location: Dark Room |
Kid Beyond
Looping his voice live onstage, Kid Beyond layers his soulful lyrics over his own beatboxing and vocal instrumentation -- creating an astounding brew of pop electronica. Kid B has shared the stage with Keane, Imogen Heap, Lyrics Born, Buckethead, String Cheese Incident, Spearhead, Widespread Panic, Amon Tobin, KRS-One, Sage Francis, Particle, and many more.
Laser Harp
Built using the Arduino controller, the laser harp is a musical instrument and performance piece. See
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLVXmsbVwUs">a video of Stephen's performance.</a>
| Location: Dark Room |
Lemon Lime Lights
Eastbanian junkyard cabaret.
Loud Objects
Agog and agaggle! The Loud Objects set sail for a feral reimagination of circuit bending. Loftily wielding soldering irons against a ramshackle overhead projector, these heroic lads from New York City (Tristan Perich the composer, Kunal Gupta the programmer, and Katie Shima the architect) wire up live musical circuits and gerrymander lo-fi electronic noise. The first few minutes are characterized by bleak silence as the loud objects swiftly assemble an initial circuit; thereafter a lush and percussive poetry overwhelms the arena as the trio heroically hacks microchips into a beastly swarm of 1-bit noise. These maneuverings are projected physically from the smokiness, hulking beyond the performers, gargantuan spectres stripped from the pillars of antiquated technology to their lurid and noble spirit. (Co-located in the Maker Shed with 1-Bit Music.)
| Location: Maker Shed Maker Shed |
Making Music with Arduino
Come learn how to make music with Arduino. Geared toward those getting started with the popular microcontroller, this demonstration will explore several possible methods to use for sound synthesis.
McPuzo & Trotsky
Heinrich McPuzo and Sid Trotsky are purveyors of satirical songs from the Roaring Twenties, such as "Warren G. Harding Is A Horse's Ass", and "You Wouldn't Know She Was Irish".
Microfiche
Tim Lillis
Microfiche is an instrumental four-piece from San Francisco who draw diagrams for your ears and mind. If you were to use the pinnacle of nineteenth-century signal processing technology to transpose the sounds of hope, despair, patterns, the lack of patterns, fear of mechanical men, and whale calls, you would almost have the sound of Microfiche. They have been playing together since the beginning of 2007, and are currently unsigned.
Microfiche have an old microfiche reader - turned light-sensitive MIDI instrument and an interactive LED Graphic EQ backdrop to accompany and augment their sound.
Minthesizer
Working on a synthesizer in a mint tin. Inspiration was the recent stylophone blog. I read about analog synthesizers and became hooked.
I will also have about 20 different circuits that I have built in mint tins
| Location: Expo Orange |
Multi-Touch Table
We built a multi-touch table-top display for about $500 in materials. It uses infrared LEDs, a web cam and a sheet of acrylic. We have a multi-touch enabled music sequencer, plasma/lightning simulation, physics simulation and pong game.
| Location: Dark Room |
Music Instrument Controllers with Fiber and Malleable Materials
Adrian Freed
New materials like conductive thread, piezoresistive textiles and carbon fiber make it possible to build compelling new musical instrument controllers in minutes and hours without the carpentry skills traditional lutherie require. I will show you how to build these new instruments and invent your own.
| Location: Expo Green |
Onyx Ashanti: Live Laptop Beatjazz Performance
Onyx Ashanti
I am a beatjazz artist, which is a style of music i created that is equal parts live looping,laptop performance, post modern improvisation and sound design. I start with a wind controller and a virtual rack of synths and create complex arrangements that vary in type, tempo and style depending on my aritistic perspective.
Pipe Organ Forest
Pipe organ pipes, with pneumatic air, inside a forest of trees. I will record the pipes and alter the sound with Max MSP. The air may be created by a pump generated by a bicycle.
| Location: Expo Yellow |
Portable Guerrilla-Gallery
Adam Holm
The portable Guerrilla-Gallery is a space that can be rolled off the back of a truck and inflated to 400 sf of interior space in less than 10 minutes. The material of the project consists of used vinyl billboards, while all the fans are salvaged off scraped swamp coolers and grease fans.
| Location: Outdoors |
Purl Drums
Corey Fogel
Purl Drums is an experiment intersecting my two favorite activities: drumming and knitting. The point of intersection is the implements. I try to keep each craft as authentic as possible, with few creative leanings towards either.
| Location: Craft Zone |
Rabbit's Rum and Chris Warren
Bay Area Computer Music Technology Group
Rabbit's Rum and Chris Warren collaborate in a live creation of orchestral electronica and ambient soundscapes at Maker Faire. Instrumentation will feature Chris Warren's feedback piano in interactions with live cello and laptop.
About the performers:
San Francisco orchestral electronica band RABBIT'S RUM ( http://www.rabbitsrum.com ) swings moods from tight electronic song forms to spacious harmonic ambient soundscapes recollecting Goldfrapp (Supernature), Massive Attack (Mezzanine), and Bjork (Vespertine). Rabbit's Rum features the vocals and cello work of conservatory classical musician gone renegade Kristina Forester and the sound design, beat craft, and custom code of SF underground alumn and polymath Noah Thorp (founder of audio think tank record label Listen Labs and the Bay Area Computer Music Technology Group). The duos collaborations include work with the Capacitor dance troupe (Capacitor.org), composer and producer JMage, Arcade Fire & Tom Waits saxophonist Colin Stetson, Stanford Laptop Orchestra founder and composer Ge Wang, and many more. Rabbit's Rum innovates on and off the stage with custom built software and instruments from SuperCollider and Max/MSP to hacked Wii controllers and bent circuits. As the enigmatic duo sharpens the edge of culture, Rabbit's Rum enchants while breaking the rules.
CHRIS WARREN (http://www.alloyelectric.com) is a Master's student at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University where his main interests are interaction design in new musical instruments and sound design. When not playing 8-string bass or coding VST plugins he can usually be found napping in public, snoring loudly. He is headed to San Diego this fall to begin his Ph.D. in Computer Music at UCSD.
Shake Your Peace
A folk band based out of camping tent on the roof of a pink house in San Francisco's Mission District. The band aims to be more and more sustainable: touring on bicycles (without a support van) and using public transportation, powering its P.A. system with human/audience power via bicycle, planting a tree for each CD it
makes, and more.
Steampunk Spectacular Group Table
Libby Bulloff
Participant in the group space arranged for Jake von Slatt, Datamancer, and Steampunk Magazine to present our wares and talk to general passers-by about steampunk. I will be representing Steampunk Magazine with Magpie Killjoy and showing my artwork.
| Location: Outdoors |
Street Musician
John Walmsley
I play acoustic and electric guitar, violin and keyboards, write songs (folk/trance/electro/chill/grooves/experimental) and sing. I'm pretty good at improvising and vocal harmony -- a quick read so to speak. Interested in performing either solo or with other musicians at Maker Faire. I have several nifty Victorian / Steam Punk costumes and am part of the NeverWas Haul crew. Lemme know if I can be of service.
Streetbeats!
Streetbeats is an audio/visual musical feast performed by Drummer/percussionist "John F. King II." All of John's drumset and percussion instruments consist of discarded and second hand items such as cookware(pot&pans), #10 size foodservice cans, % gal. buckets, 30 gal. garbage cans, etc. All meticulously arranged in specific order that create melodic tones in line with harmonic scale. The show is hi-enrgy and fun. The music is an eclectic blend of World beats and rhythms ranging from Celtic to Afro-cuban to Jazz to American Indian to Polynesian, rock, hip-hop and more. John has become well known and developed a huge fan base as a street performer at the Ferry building on the Embacadero @ S.F.,CA
The Ballistic Cats
The Ballistic Cats are four rock n' rollers who just happen to be geeks (and former geeks) on the side. Come hear them play a tantalizing mix of blues, surf, and good old fashioned rockin' Americana.
The Bubblegum Sequencer
Hannes Hesse and Andrew McDiarmid
The Bubblegum Sequencer is a physical step sequencer that lets you create drumloops by arranging colored balls on a tangible surface. It generates MIDI events and can be used as an input device to control audio hardware and software. Finally, people can't claim anymore that electronic music isn't handmade.
| Location: Expo Orange |
The Devil-Ettes
The Devil-Ettes
San Francisco's sweethearts The Devil-Ettes will perform and teach lost and forgotten go-go dance moves from the 1960's. Sassy, sultry, yet utterly All-American, The Devil-Ettes provide good clean fun for kids of all ages!
The Image of Computers in Popular Music
A talk (with examples) by monochrom, presented by Johannes Grenzfurthner.
Bourgeois culture was paralyzed and finally overrun by modern technologies which broke through the traditional class barriers. It went into a panic and produced these very stupid technophobic manifestos and images e.g. of "the computer". Pop music discovered and explored the computer not only as a musical instrument but also as something to sing and reflect about in a less aversive way. In doing so it influenced the conception people had of computers. The public image of computers was shaped by groups such as Kraftwerk as well as through obscure Schlager songs such as France Gall's "Computer No. 3". Not only was that image influenced by high culture computer panic but also by naïve technomania, and so it delivered the very dialectics of the computer as a means of cultural technology in capitalist society.
The Lee Maverick Band
The Lee Maverick Band is a unique cow punk experience. I play an upright bass made from motorcycle parts. Our drummer has a theatrical set he made from all kinds of stuff and our singer is also a maker of sorts.
The Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk)
Bay Area Computer Music Technology Group
The Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk) is a large-scale, computer-mediated ensemble that explores cutting-edge technology in combination with conventional musical contexts - while radically transforming both. Founded in 2008 by director Ge Wang and students, faculty, and staff at Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), this unique ensemble comprises more than 20 laptops, human performers, controllers, and custom multi-channel speaker arrays designed to provide each computer meta-instrument with its own identity and presence. The orchestra fuses a powerful sea of sound with the immediacy of human music-making, capturing the irreplaceable energy of a live ensemble performance as well as its sonic intimacy and grandeur. At the same time, it leverages the computer's precision, possibilities for new sounds, and potential for fantastical automation to provide a boundary-less sonic canvas on which to experiment with, create, and perform music. Offstage, the ensemble serves as a one-of-a-kind learning environment that explores music, computer science, composition, and live performance in a naturally interdisciplinary way. (http://slork.stanford.edu)
| Location: Expo Green |
The Tarantulas Jug Band
Tarantulas Jug Band
The Tarantulas Jug Band is the official music-maker of Henry Coe State Park, playing good-time music from the 1920s to the 1950s for events at Coe throughout the year. The band’s musical repertoire spans Delta blues, field and work songs, ragtime, tin-pan-alley favorites and even old rockabilly standards. The songs are accompanied by homemade and antique string and percussion instruments played in jug band style.
In the spirit of the Faire, we will be bringing materials to make kazoos and will be showcasing other home made instruments such as cigar box guitars. It should be a lot of fun with the audience playing along.
Toychestra
Toychestra is an all-women musical ensemble that plays toys. Some are actual instruments like toddler-sized pianos and xylophones and drums. Others just make great sounds, like the pink zoo train or Boo Megaphone or the acoustic, multi-sonic Activity Center. Each instrument is individually amplified with contact microphones and the collection is mixed live for a bigger electronic sound.
TripKnight
A live music experience. Part folk, part blues, part hip hop and all experimental. TripKnight is more than just a band. It is a community with members in multiple states with a history of good times from Black Rock City, to New York City and from North Carolina to Northern California.
Yacouba Diarra and the Spirit Gatherers
West African traditional and Afro-fusion music.
Maker Faire is sponsored by:
