Modulate This! - Electronic & Experimental Music Tech, Technique, & People

9 Box AudioCube Casual Music Instrument Turns 1

One year ago I announced the 9 Box on Modulate This. The long name for the system is “9 Box is a Method for performance, improvisation, and spontaneous tribal jams with music, sound, and light”. In short, the 9 Box is a casual music instrument based a method and set of template patches for Percussa AudioCubes and Ableton Live.

Below is a photo of the system featuring one of my cats sitting in “Player 4” position. The FX Audio Cube is detecting his position and translating this to “Bit Crushing” strength. As you can see the the system can easily fit in a backpack as it’s basically a computer, a powered hub and 6 AudioCubes (minimum of three cubes is required).

More details here…

Highlights From the Last Year

• System launched as an open knowledge solution
• Performance test video posted showing a 2:24 system boot with a small demo
• 9 Box AudioCubes Printable Table Top Quick Start V1 Guide is Now Available
• First "9 Box" AudioCubes Edition Installation Underway at Denver Area Adams 12 STEM Magnet Lab School
• Second "9 Box" Social Musical Instrument Install Goes Live in Juneau Alaska!
• 9 Box Featured in AudioCube Jam at Electro-Music 2011
• 9 Box and AudioCubes Featured in Metro Denver STEM School Short Film
• Second metro Denver elementary school selects 9 Box for music lab
• 9 Box AudioCube Jam at Skyline High School in Longmont CO
• 9 Box mentions on Synthtopia | Controllerism.com | Sonic State | Matrix Synth | Rekkerd.org

Videos

Here are a few videos showing the system in action.

Video from a jam at Electro-Music 2011

The system is also being used as the basis for music and science labs in schools. Here is a video the system at the STEM Magnet Lab School at Metro Denver. The Lab is mentioned at 8:13. It’s so exciting for me to see the 9 Box being used to inspire students – especially k-6! Watch embedded video.

9 Box AudioCube Drone Jam at Skyline High School in Longmont, CO

 

Plans for the Next Year

• AudioCube workshop and jam featuring the 9 Box at the Mountain-Skies festival in Asheville, NC
• More videos showing the system used as a DJ system and for coordinated performances
• More videos on how to setup, play, and refill the system
• More refills
• More templates with more FX options for sensor cubes
• More schools, more jams, more music and sound…

Links

• http://9box.modulatethis.com

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
www.ModulateThis.com
Official Web Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com
Listen/Download Albums: www.MarkMosherMusic.com/music.html

I'm Returning to Electro-Music 2011 Festival to Play, Talk, and Jam with the 9 Box

I’ve been officially accepted to play a set and do a talk at Electro-Music 2011 in NY. The festival takes place from September 9-11. More links at the bottom of the post.

Looking Back at Electro-Music 2010

I had a great time at the festival last year and I’m really looking forward to returning so I thought I’d share some photos and video from last year, and offer some info on the festival in case you were considering going.

Here is a photo and video and from my show last year taken by Jeremy DePrisco.

Watch embedded video

Here is a shot of the groovy shirt from the festival which also shows a list of artist who performed last year.

 

Quick Overview

Once again the festival will be at the remote and beautiful Greenkill Retreat Center in Huguenot, New York.Checkout my detailed review of the 2010 Festival here.

Just to give you a feel I’ll share an excerpt from my review:

Vibe
Because the festival was in a more remote location than in past years there was little opportunity for walk-in spectators. The upside of this is that most of the attendees were experts. By expert, I mean seasoned artists with over 10,000 hours of experience and in some cases decades of energy put into their craft. As a result the vibe was amazing. Have you ever seen the SciFi channel show Eureka? It was like that for electronic music. It didn’t seem intimidating for newer artists either, as everyone was also very open and willing to share ideas and talk in depth about their work. There was a huge diversity in styles, performance, and approach and a whole lot of passion!

More Themed Jams in 2011

I’ve been checking in ever few weeks to see how the schedule is shaping up. I noticed on a recent update that they will have many themed jams this year. So far they have: space jam, open jam, noise jam, technicolor jam, DIY jam (following the DIY and circuit bending workshop), and AudioCube jam.

9 Box at Electro-Music 2011

I’ll be bringing along a 9 Box System for performance, improvisation, and spontaneous tribal jams with music, sound, and light and I know at least one other artist is bringing his AudioCubes along for the AudioCube jam.

Hope to See Your There

I met a lot of great people last year and saw some amazing performances and I’m looking forward to meeting more Modulate This readers face-to-face this year.

Links

• Electro-Music 2011 Official Site
• Official Photos from Electro-Music 2010 by Hong Waltzer: 9/10/2010 | 9/11/2010 |9/12/2010.
• Show Report: Electro-Music 2010 Festival in Huguenot NY

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
Synthesist | Composer | Keyboardist | Performer

www.ModualteThis.com
Official Web Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com
Listen/Download Albums: www.MarkMosherMusic.com/music.html

Announcing 9 Box Method for Performance, Improvisation, and Spontaneous Tribal Jams with Music, Sound, and Light

Announcing “9 Box" Method
I’ve been working away at a big project I call “9 Box”.  9 Box is a Method for performance, improvisation, and spontaneous tribal jams with music, sound, and light. 9 box offers a consistent and transportable method that overlays commercially available components such as Ableton Live, Percussa AudioCubes, and Novation Launchpad. It's also a set of templates and patches that will allow players to spend more time making music and sound than configuring hardware and software.

OPEN KNOWLEDGE
I'm sharing this information under Creative Commons  so that others can adopt and extend these concepts. I soft-launched a microsite on all this earlier this week at http://9box.modulatethis.com where I started posting some some behind-the-scenes development notes, documentation, and kits. I’ll offer a brief summary of the project below but if you want to follow along as things progress you subscribe to the microsite here.

9 Box
"9 Box" refers to a 3x3 matrix of 9 clips - hence the "9 Box". Why 9 clips? After much research I've concluded that 9 is a perfect number of clips for mapping to a single AudioCube and a small enough number of clips that it's easy to keep track of the different musical or sound phrases. This number also works very well with Launchpad.

First Template – AudioCubes Edition
The first edition of 9 Box is be based on 6 Percussa AudioCubes and I just posted the beta kit tonight!

1-4    Players
The method is intended for applications in social musical jams, music education, music therapy, installations, and festivals  and supports 1-4 players per instance. Without changing any settings, or having to reconfigure controllers,  the system can organically scale from 1-4 players. Players simply decide what role they will take and re-arrange the cubes accordingly.

A Backpack-Ready Laptop Based Near Infra-structureless Jam Station
The system is very light on the infrastructure side and only requires a laptop (MAC or PAC) running the latest version of Ableton Live and - for the first edition - 3-6 Percussa AudioCubes, a few free APPs and a powered USB hub. So backpack ready. Once you understand the system, you can set it up in about 5 minutes.

Adaptable, Extensible, Endless
The 9 box system makes it easy to change the sounds and musical phrases on-the-fly by dragging refills to a 9 Box. This happens  without stopping the music making this an endless musical system with no limits other than your imagination. In my first template, I'm arranging 9 box clips so each box has a specific role, one for Tone, one for Rhythm. Clips get more complex as you move from 1-9. I've designed the 9 Boxes this way to support clear user roles for those learning the system. You are not locked into this structure of course, and can do anything you like with the 9 clips. Light Refills are also in the works.

More Info
As I mentioned, I’ve been posting a lot of raw info out to http://9box.modulatethis.com including posts on how all this work.  I’ll get more formal about the documentation as things progress.

Performance Videos Coming Soon…
I hope to record some new performance videos soon and will post some highlights here on Modulate This actual in the near future.

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
www.ModulateThis.com

patchlab.modulatethis.com
www.MarkMosherMusic.com