Live Electronics: a conversation with Michele Tadini

18th Festival Milano Musica
Percorsi di Musica d'oggi
@ Teatro Franco Parenti
Milan, 22nd October 2009

Michele Tadini live and work in Paris. He composes music for soloist, ensemble, orchestra, with or without electronics, for theater, dance and interactive installation, collaborates with video-makers, painters, directors and writers. He was the chief of production at AGON acustica informatica musica (Milan), co-directed Centro Tempo Reale (Florence) and, now, coordinates the activity of IRMus, Istituto di Ricerca Musicale (Milan). His music is performed all over Europe, USA, South America, Canada and Japan. He recently earned the Prix Italia with the radio-opera "La Musica Nascosta". He teaches composition and technologies in the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse of Lyon. He has an intense activity of conferences and master classes. Suvini Zerboni, Rai Trade and Edipan publish his music.

[English subtitles are shown by default, you can turn them on/off by clicking the menu button located at the bottom right of the video player]

The 'live electronics' is the real-time electronic processing of acoustic instruments and voices. This practice has infinitely expanded the horizon of compositions. Michele Tadini reflects with U.S.O. Project about the historical aspects of electroacoustic music of the last 50 years.
The concert presents works of composers Tadini, Francesconi, Manzoni, Stroppa and Boulez. It will available for deferred broadcast Sunday, January 24, 8:30 p.m. (GMT+1) on RAI-Radio 3.

Michele Tadini (1964)
...da viva Voce (2009)
for Voice and electronics
Premiére

Luca Francesconi (1956)
Animus II (2007)
for Viola and electronics
IRCAM Commission (Paris)

Giacomo Manzoni (1932)
Sei canti dal Kokin Shū (2007)
for Soprano and live electronics
MiTo SettembreMusica Commission

Marco Stroppa (1959)
I will not kiss your f.ing flag (2005)
for augmented Trombone and chamber electronics
Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik Commission

Pierre Boulez (1925)
Anthèmes 2 (1992/1997)
for Violin and electronics

Laura Catrani, Soprano
Garth Knox, Viola
Benny Sluchin, Trombone
Jeanne-Marie Conquer, Violin

Michele Tadini, sound director
Luca Francesconi, sound director
Alfonso Alberti, Keyboard
Marco Stroppa, sound projection

Special thanks:
Cecilia Balestra - Associazione Milano Musica
Michele Tadini
[www.milanomusica.org]

Computer Making Music on MAKE Magazine

Meet CCRMA, a group of musical makers who stretch the sonic boundaries by turning personal computers into an electronic symphony. Based at Stanford University, CCRMA teams composers, artists and acoustical researchers together to meld music with new technology and explore the outer limits of audio from playground-activated sounds to laptop orchestras.



[via makemagazine]

About 'Haptics'

What is Haptics?

"Haptics" comes from the Greek word Hapesthai, meaning "the science of touch."

The world of haptics is expansive by definition. It is the field of science and technology dedicated to tactile sensation, and it has applications for everything from handheld electronic devices to remotely operated robots. Yet outside of the research and engineering community, it is a virtually unknown concept. “People don’t even recognize the word ‘haptics’ yet,” says Ralph Hollis, director of the Microdynamic Systems Laboratory. “You have to spell it for them.”

In an age of digital devices that stimulate and amaze the eyes and ears with increasingly high fidelity, haptics has been employed mostly in relatively un­sophisticated applications—rumbling video-game controllers and buzzers that alert you to a cellphone call. But as our digital tools have become more complex and capable, our interfaces with these devices are beginning to run into the limitations of sight and sound. “It’s really only now that we’re seeing a migration from keyboards and mechanical switches to touchscreens and touch-sensitive surfaces,” said Immersion, a company that produces haptic interfaces. “We’re losing that tactile feel that we had before, and now we’re trying to bring it back.”

Touchable Technology

Moving haptics out of the lab can be challenging. Tactile feedback in consumer electronics must be both convincing to the user and appropriate for the device. Broadly speaking, touch can be divided into cutaneous sensing through the skin surface (feeling the pebbly surface of a basketball), and deeper kinesthetic sensing from muscles and tendons (experiencing the impact when hitting a ball with a bat). But much of the recent haptic development in consumer electronics has focused on fooling the fingertips into feeling onscreen buttons that aren’t physically there.

General consumers will first encounter haptics on these touchscreen gadgets and desktop controllers, but the most sophisticated touch technology outside of the lab is found in industrial, military and medical applications.

[read more - via popularmechanics.com]

TouchOSC

TouchOSC is an iPhone/iPod Touch application that lets you send and receive Open Sound Control messages over a Wi-Fi network using the UDP protocol.

Availabe on the AppStore now.

This allows to remote control and receive feedback from software and hardware that implements the OSC protocol such as Pure Data and Max/MSP.

The interface provides a number of different touch controls to send/receive messages:

• Faders
• Rotary controls
• Push buttons
• Toggle buttons
• XY pads
• Multi-faders
• Multi-toggles
• LEDs

[http://hexler.net/touchosc]

OSCulator's fresh news

OSCulator has been featured in issue 14 of MAKE magazine and has been described as the ultimate tweakable gateway between your Wiimote and MIDI-controlled audio, as quoting Bill Byrne the author of this article.
The next version will bring a host of new features, amongst them is the direct support of the TUIO protocol used in the reacTIVIsion software (remember those illuminated cubes on the table that Björk uses live?).
The new Presets feature in OSCulator is a way to store different routing configurations and change them on the fly, wether it is by sending an OSC message, or merely clicking in the new toolbar menu. By the press of a simple click, you can turn your Lemur into a sophisticated MIDI controller or a Keyboard controller. The possibilities are infinite.

[thanks to Cam]
[make-digital.com]

UPDATE:

OSCulator Embraces the Controller

On pages 11-14 of the June 2008 of the SEAMUS newsletter, Camille Troillard discusses the past, present, and future directions of his OSCulator software.