Contemporary
Electro-acoustic Music
Overview
Hardware and Instruments
In the Netherlands not only software, but also a lot of hardware and electronic musical instruments is developed, sometimes for one particular performer or for one specific concert situation.
Hardware
IpsonLab / IpsonComPact / Microlab / Mtv lab
Three different electronic voltage to OSC/MIDI transformers, designed and built at the electronic workshop of the Institute for Sonology of the Conservatory in The Hague. It is frequently used in installations and concerts with electronic music.
www.koncon.nl/ipsonlab
THE 192 Loudspeaker Experience, designed and built by The Game of Life Association, is a revolutionary speaker system based on an entirely new sound reproduction principle called Wave Field Synthesis (WFS). This system was designed at the University of Delft. The Game of Life applied it to the reproduction of music, allowing real spatial positioning of sound for the first time in the history of sound reproduction.
www.gameoflife.nl
Musical Instruments
In the Netherlands there are many instrumentalists who play on musical instruments of their own design, based on electronic or computer techniques. An institute such as STEIM will certainly have contributed to this unique situation. This studio actively supports building your own instrument and the idea that this is a legitimate and possible option for a composer/instrumentalist. With the support of STEIM the first successful electronic musical instruments were developed: the crackle box and the crackle synthesiser.
These days the crackle box would be described as the archetypal 'glitch'. Most likely it was the first alternative 'keyboard' that became commercially available. As the player himself is part of the electronic circuit, he operates the sound directly and feeds the instrument, which in the original design had an inbuilt speaker.
In the seventies STEIM built around 4000 of these crackle boxes which by now have become collector’s items.
A new crackle box came on the market in 2004. Once again it is very popular among a new generation of performers, such as the musicians of Mouse on Mars and Coil.
www.crackle.org/CrackleBox.htm
The Hands were presented to the public for the first time in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in 1984 by composer/performer/inventor of musical instruments Michel Waisvisz. Since then he has travelled all over the world with this unusual instrument and also other performers such as Edwin van der Heide have used The Hands in their performances. With this set of hand extensions both computers and synthesisers can be controlled in a flexible and subtle way.
www.crackle.org/TheHands.htm
The BassBox is a remarkable musical instrument and show object. Here the electronics are used to blow ordinary bamboo flutes by means of low frequency signals. The BassBox can be played in a very subtle manner by means of a specially built low frequency synthesiser. This musical instrument is used for playing compositions and improvisations. It is also possible to create a continually operating installation with these instruments.
www.schreck.nl/ned/BassB.html
The Stratifier was inspired by the crackle synthesiser and the Big Briar Touch Plate. Inventor and player Arie van Schutterhoef has developed the Stratifier for the Schreck Ensemble that has used this musical instrument for concerts and improvisations. Through the touch plates of the Stratifier the player can send a large number of parameters to the computer simultaneously, thus creating very complex and subtle sounds.
www.stratifier.nl
