I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to Code And Beats. I could’ve worked on work work. I could’ve worked on non-work work. But I didn’t do either. Instead, I experimented with some visual effects in Flash — combining video, audio input, and tweets.
By 2am, here’s what I had come up with! (I’ll post the code soon eventually)
Code & Beats: Music Powered Twitter Wall from Brian Shaler on Vimeo.
Fun stuff! I’m interested in seeing this event come to Phoenix. We just need to get the organizer (+developer +designer +DJ) Avi to fly out and then round up a few local DJs with some good electro material. Un tiss un tiss un tiss…
Also, here’s a separate pic I snapped of the Twitter wall:
I should’ve put together a video showing more of the background dancing clips. Some of them were pretty excellent!
Why do you need to have to same guy who organized it elsewhere? Why not grab a local DJ, etc.and re-invent it here? If you like it, steal the idea.
To be honest, though, the description of the event sounds far less interesting than what I imagined when I first saw you mention it.
I was picturing hackers creating beats + music using code + whatever and producing their own music. What’s described on the Code & Beats site sounds like a bad Bravo TV fashion special.
Phoenix needs a hacker music fest hosted at Modified Arts or The Trunk Space more than socialites, dotcommers, and 24-hour party people. Some serious avante-garage music.
Live music for live people.
@brian – Dude, you’re awesome, I’d love to come to Phoenix and help you organize an event like this in whatever capacity I can – although we’re going to do C&B v2 in NYC again in April (plan a trip!) and then probably C&B v3 in July/Aug in SF. So maybe C&B v4 in Pheonix Sept/Oct? Who knows – your app rocks and I’ve been showing it to lots of people. Thanks for being awesome!
@james – Agreed, steal the idea or reinvent it. Luckily, the idea was the easy part, actually executing this event was the hard part. Can you imagine trying to describe it to people? Yah, programmers will work while people dance around them and that’s magic. Not everyone was so easily convinced. I think after the fact, it’s clear that what went down was special. Yes it wasn’t (yet) people coding beats in real time (I’ll do this eventually) and yes the description on the website could be more specific, but come on, it never sounded like a bad Bravo TV fashion special (and by the way, Bravo and Project Runway have ton a tremendous amount of good for the fashion industry and C&B is trying to do the same for the dotcom industry, so I’m not too offended by your off-the-cuff remark). Anywho, your heart is in the right place, help Brian get something going in Phoenix that takes code out of the cubicle.
Avi Flombaum
Avi beat me to responding to a comment on my own blog!
My reasons for preferring to bring Avi and C&B to Phoenix would be as follows:
– While coding to the beats from several DJs, Avi’s tunes were solid. A couple of the other DJs had some iffy (and almost annoying/distracting) moments.
– I’m not going to organize the event, and I can ensure that I’d be able to get someone else to share the vision and execute on it as well as Avi. I’m not a good organizer, but I’m a good supporter. I know my place and I try to stick to it.
– After being at Code & Beats v1, I feel like I’d rather support C&B and help build its credibility/awareness. I’m not strictly opposed to copycatting or inspiration, but when I can, I’d love to have the original, especially if it worked. This is personal preference here, of course.
If someone wanted to do something different or inspired by C&B, I’d still be happy to help and support in any way I can.
As for the perception of the event, the site had to go into over-hype mode to try to get people to come out. I heard about it from someone I was eating breakfast with, so I had a very different first impression.
One issue with coding beats in real-time is that (it seems) you’d have to do most of the coding in advance, or else you’ll have a very quiet beginning of the night. With the application I was building at Code & Beats, it wasn’t until after 1am that I had some real eye candy arising from the code.
I guess if you had a toolkit prepared in advance that could be manipulated on the fly, there could be some semi-live coding->beats going on.
Regardless of how such an event would work, I’ll love to see more events overlapping programming and the arts!
Avi, I happen to like Project Runway (and The Fashion Show, though I think that one had a one-season lifespan), but, seriously, referring to socialites and dotcommers gives me ’90s glitz flashbacks and the same ick feeling I get from some of the overly self-indulgent shows on that network. (BTW I’m also not too offended by the slighting of my observation as an “off-the-cuff remark”. I picked those words carefully. :) )
Since I didn’t experience the event I don’t know if the reality beat the dismal description, but I assume it did or there wouldn’t be such continued enthusiasm. Whatever works for you.
Brian, what I had in mind was hackers/musicians using whatever toolkits they had, be it circuit-bent hardware or custom synth software, or some hybrid, and showing it off. The key would be that the people making the music also had a hand in making their instruments and software.
Perhaps the performances could be combined with brief chats with the artists explaining their tools.
Regarding coding beats in real time, I plan to use something called Archaeopteryx, which a Ruby MIDI generator that is as fracking cool as it sounds. More info here: http://wiki.github.com/gilesbowkett/archaeopteryx
i love Fashion and i love Project Runway.'””
Does your blog have a contact page? I’m having trouble locating
it but, I’d like to shoot you an e-mail. I’ve
got some recommendations for your blog you might be interested in hearing.
Either way, great blog and I look forward to seeing it improve over time.