It’s still early in development (read: it often crashes), but The Bean Machine applies nodal, patch-based development to Java. The interface is mysteriously close to Quartz Composer, down to capabilities, UI, and even the 3D cube tutorial. Personally, I use Java because it can do things Quartz Composer can’t, but it’s interesting nonetheless — and raises, again, the question of why we don’t see more tools that try to meld the capabilities of code and patches.

The cool bit: nodes are Java Beans, so you really could use this to combine the best of both worlds if it matures. No download yet, but we’ll be watching … perhaps it will inspire other developers, as well.

The project is labeled “experimental”, but could be worth a look. Developer Jerry Huxtable has lots of other goodies for Java-heads on his page, including lots of 2D image processing stuff and a map editor — Processing lovers, might want to pop this into your del.icio.us.

Bean Machine @ JH Labs

JH Labs main page with lots o’ projects

The blogosphere this week is all abuzz about the supposedly desire-inducing Upravlator. The awkwardly-named hardware comes from Art Lebedev, the mysterious designer who first promised the Optimus Keyboard, a unique “design concept” with tiny color displays under each key. That indeed sounds cool, but instead, after months of delays and promises, the shipping product turned out to be the Optimus Three, with three little displays that double as buttons. Full keyboard with displays: interesting. Three display buttons with no real function: erm? Instead of spending about US$150 on an Optimus Three, why not a Nintendo DS Lite? Which do you think would be more useful?

This week, we get the Upravlator. Imagine a powerful interactive piece of hardware that connects to your computer’s video port and dynamically displays, in full color, everything from interface widgets to graphics and video to dynamic Web content, all completely customizable for your own needs. Sounds unbelievably useful, right? Good thing we already have such a device: it’s called a monitor. Want touch input? It’s called a touchscreen monitor. Now take that monitor, divide it up into a tiny 4×3 grid, eliminating a significant portion of its usable space. Replace the full resolution of the touchscreen with 12 buttons (thousands of levels of resolution reduced to a dozen). Put it in a big bulky case, wait until 2007 to ship it (presumably for some enormous price), and require developers to rewrite software to use it. Now you’re getting the picture:

Upravlator Product Announcement [artlebedev.com official site]
The Upravlator unveiled [DVguru]
Art Lebedev explains Upravlator to five year olds, no one else [Engadget]
(and, like a zillion other blogs)

Worst of all, the Upravlator takes up lots of desk real estate and a free VGA port — two things better dedicated to a real monitor, especially when touchscreen monitors are coming down in price.

The dynamic keyboard remains a cool product. It may come in at an astronomical price, but the concept is good: take the physical feedback and ease of a great hardware input device (keyboard) and add dynamic visuals to make it more flexible. By contrast, the Upravlator and the Optimum Mini Three are useful neither as displays nor as input devices and actually reduce efficiency. We’ll wait for the Optimus-113 keyboard, if it can actually ship.

Don’t be too sad, though. You want gadget lust? Chumby’s got your gadget lust. You’ll be hearing a lot more about this homebrewed, open source, hackable gadget soon, because Team CDMo desperately wants one right now. Let’s compare:

Old, but worth mentioning . . . if for no other reason that you’re thinking about color in new ways as you stare into your green beer for St. Patrick’s Day. (Or even a green river, a la Chicago.)

The Music Animation Machine renders familiar music as series of colored bars, in still image or animated video, reminiscent of a piano roll editor in a sequencing application. Color represents harmonic area, so as you look at the piece you see form, structure, shape, and harmony in new ways.

It certainly raises some interesting questions: with new tools at our disposal, what might be a more useful (or visually exciting) way of looking at music? With interactive tools, you could even play with the resulting renderings in real-time. I’m sure I can come up with a really compelling idea if I drink enough green ale. Or, at least, I’ll start to think it’s really compelling.

Pictured: Bach Brandenberg No. 6, mvmt. 3.

“This new media stuff is great, but it’s like it’s never developed very far. It’s like it’s technology for its own sake. How do you make music?”

How many times have you heard that? One of the major causes of the “technology for its own sake syndrome” is simple: smart people are spending so much time reinventing the wheel, duplicating other people’s work, that no one gets to the stage of refinement — only early development.

Sonicforms: future DIY interfaces go open source

That’s why it’s especially good news to see things like the new Sonicforms project from our friend Chris O’Shea. Chris is doing what others have done — solving the technical problems of creating interactive “table” interfaces, on which tangible objects can be used for sound production and composition. But he’s doing something many others don’t: he’s sharing everything he’s learning, and (just as importantly) encouraging others to do the same. Sonicforms will involve:

a central repository for learning about building interfaces and sharing experiences

tools and strategies for building interfaces, including open source code for free development environments like Pd and Modeling

an actual physical installation to which others can submit content

Why it matters

Keep in mind, modern electronic music would never have come to fruition without simple, DIY projects and shared plans. Bob Moog would never have gotten into synthesis design without building Theremins in his basement. (and, incidentally, making money on the built product) In fact, usually private sector and public sector projects feed off one another in technology.

Chris’ project is, in his words “not finished by a long way”, but we’ll be watching! And, of course, I’ll do whatever I can to help serve as an additional resource here at CDM. Good luck, man! (We’d all better get experimenting, coding, and patching, too!)

Not new, but worth mentioning: fREQ
is a project exploring the conversion of drawn waveforms into sound:
visual waveforms control a drone in real-time. You can download a free
mouse and keyboard version (PC only). That's fun, but the installation
version (first shown about a year ago) is cooler: it takes an outline
of the shadow you cast on the waveform projection and turns that into
sound. fREQ is the creation of UK-based art/music/interactive coalition
Squidsoup.

Thanks to Chris O'Shea for the tip, who incidentally has a great blog on interactive technology (physical computing, installations, etc.).

Boring bits: Windows VSTi, 8-voice polyphony, two
oscillators plus one noise generator, eight envelopes, 1 filter, 2
LFOs, built-in delay/chorus FX — all important, but you've seen it
before.

Cool bits: You can drawn in your wave shapes, and it's free. Now has NoteGraphica got your attention?