Now, as the vinyl format is enjoying a comeback, materials scientists at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have worked with a team of artists and recording engineers to boost the quality of analog music reproduction through a new surface coating that both improves sound quality and prevents wear. The patented technology led to the creation of a one-of-a-kind Bob Dylan record that recently brought $1.8 million at a Christie’s auction.
The studio recording of Dylan’s 1963 classic “Blowin’ in the Wind” is the first of a new generation of unique archival records with spectacular sound quality and the capacity for a thousand plays (or more) without deterioration. For musician and producer T Bone Burnett, the goal of the effort was to provide musical artists with a new medium – and an opportunity to set the value of their work themselves.
“Recording artists have had the value of what we do determined for us under the shorter and shorter-term technologies of mass production and distribution by organizations, governments, distributors, streamers, and others, but we have not had a way to find the value of an individual work of art,” said Burnett, a long-time Dylan collaborator who played guitar on the recording. “If we are able to help establish a music space in the fine arts through the making of these archival discs, musicians will be able to find real value for their work.”
The new record format, which Burnett has dubbed an “Ionic Original,” was made possible by a unique coating of sapphire and quartz applied to a layer of nitrocellulose on an aluminum disc. The coating was developed with help from GTRI materials scientists Jud Ready and Brent Wagner.
“We helped them develop a way to put a hard oxide coating on top of the nitrocellulose lacquer to protect it during play,” said Ready, a GTRI principal research engineer and deputy director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for Materials. “That includes silica (SiO2), better known as quartz, and alumina (Al2O3), which is known as sapphire. With other ingredients and variables, it’s a gradient designed to produce the best sound quality and resist the wear that would otherwise happen to the nitrocellulose acetate.”
A hard coating is needed because the stylus “needle” used to play the record on a conventional turntable can be made of diamond, which is even harder than quartz or sapphire. Playing a traditional vinyl record causes abrasion in the much softer grooves where the music is stored, causing wear that degrades the sound quality over time and also creates annoying pops and noise – issues that led to adoption of compact discs which are played with a non-contact optical reader.
But digital formats – CDs and streaming files – provide listeners a digitally sampled version of the original analog sound rather than more fully reproducing what was created by the musicians. Though most consumers won’t notice, the difference can be heard – which helps account for the renaissance of analog records.
“Analog music travels in actual waves – not sampled and simulated – and sounds more resonant, deeper, and truer,” Burnett explained. “Analog records more atmosphere. It is closer to the human. An Ionic Original is the equivalent of a painting, hand-made and retouched by the artist. A digital stream is the equivalent of seeing a copy of a photograph of a painting.”
In 2013, Ready and Wagner worked with Burnett and recording engineer Barak Moffitt to develop the coating technique, which was patented. The patent is now owned by Ionic Recording Company LLC, which bought it from Georgia Tech. Separate from the original work that led to the patent, Ready more recently worked as a private consultant with Ionic to support refining the new process and identifying a company that could coat the record.
“The issues were in the thin film coatings – the time, the density of the coating, the ratio between the two elements – and the pre-cleaning process before the coating was put down,” Ready explained.
Ahead of the quartz-sapphire coating process, production of the record proceeded much like any other analog record. Dylan recorded the song in 2021; it was mixed in Los Angeles and Nashville, and finally mastered in Memphis by Jeff Powell, one of the world’s top vinyl cutting experts.
“When an artist like Bob Dylan, a producer like T Bone Burnett and a recording engineer like Mike Piersante went into a project like this, they knew the desired result was a pristine vinyl master lacquer that would go through the Ionic coating process and sound as good or better than any vinyl record ever made even after 1,000 plays,” said Powell.
Several 10-inch-diameter discs were made and compared by Piersante, who graded them all on a scale of zero to 10. The best one was sent to Virginia-based Blue Ridge Optics for application of the thin-film coating. After that, the disc flew by private jet to California, where it was analyzed acoustically and presented to the media. Finally, it went on to London for the Christie’s auction.
Ready’s bread-and-butter research involves thin-film coatings, but this is his first foray into the entertainment industry.
“We would normally put these down for optical coatings and to protect microelectronic devices,” Ready explained. “It’s a hundred nanometers or so of silica and alumina – a nanometer is a billionth of a meter – to create the scratch-resistant coating. At GTRI, we apply these coatings with a commercial-scale tool that is commonly used to put anti-reflective coatings on eyeglasses and on equipment used in space.”
Working as a consultant, Ready visited Burnett’s studio to compare the sound of the same song played from magnetic tape, vinyl, CD and finally, streaming files.
“The amount of resolution that goes away is incredible,” he said. “Whole instruments disappear. You could hear the faintest of different sounds on the tape and vinyl – but they were gone. There are ways that the CD recording is taking the sinusoidal analog waves and breaking them into lots of little rectangles. No matter how skinny you make the rectangle, you are always going to be losing some sound or adding noise.”
The 2021 Bob Dylan recording of “Blowin’ in the Wind” was just the second ever to be made in the studio. Written by the artist in 1962 and released on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in 1963, it is a protest song that asks a series of questions about peace, war, and freedom. The song has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and, in 2004, was ranked 14th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."
What’s next for the process? Burnett believes the technique may generate interest among music archivists who may want to store recordings protected from wear. He promises there will be more one-of-a-kind records, including “several” additional Dylan cuts.
“We are speaking with interested people about private sales, and with other artists about making further Ionic discs,” he said. “Perhaps there will be other auctions. We remain open to seeing where this path leads.”
Writer: John Toon
GTRI Communications
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Atlanta, Georgia USA
About GTRI: The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Founded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 2,800 employees, supporting eight laboratories in over 20 locations around the country and performing more than $700 million of problem-solving research annually for government and industry. GTRI's renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, the state, and industry. For more information, please visit www.gtri.gatech.edu.
Michelle Gowdy
Michelle.Gowdy@gtri.gatech.edu
404-407-8060
]]>But he’s not like any performer you’ve ever seen. He’s not even human.
Shimon, the marimba-playing robot, has learned some new skills: He sings, he dances a little, he writes lyrics, he can even compose some melodies. Now he’s taking them on the road in a concert tour to support a new album — just like any other musician.
The new album will have eight to 10 songs Shimon wrote with his creator, Georgia Tech Professor Gil Weinberg. It will drop on Spotify later this spring.
“Shimon has been reborn as a singer-songwriter,” Weinberg said. “Now we collaborate between humans and robots to make songs together.”
[Listen to Shimon's first single, "Into Your Mind]
Weinberg will start with a theme — say, space — and Shimon will write lyrics around the theme. Weinberg puts them together and composes melodies to fit them. Shimon can also generate some melodies for Weinberg to use as he puts together a song. Then, with a band of human musicians, Shimon will play the songs and sing.
“I always wanted to write songs, but I just can’t write lyrics. I'm a jazz player,” Weinberg said. “This is the first time that I actually wrote a song, because I had inspiration: I had Shimon writing lyrics for me.”
Weinberg and his students have trained Shimon on datasets of 50,000 lyrics from jazz, prog rock, and hip-hop. Then Shimon uses deep learning, a class of machine learning algorithms, to generate his own words.
“There are lots of systems that use deep learning, but lyrics are different,” said Richard Savery, a third-year Ph.D. student who has been working with Shimon over the past year on his songwriting. “The way semantic meaning moves through lyrics is different. Also, rhyme and rhythm are obviously super important for lyrics, but that isn't as present in other text generators. So, we use deep learning to generate lyrics, but it's also combined with semantic knowledge.”
Savery offered this example of how it might work: “You'll get a word like ‘storm,’ and then it'll generate a whole bunch of related words, like ‘rain.’ It creates a loop of generating lots of material, deciding what's good, and then generating more based on that.”
When Shimon sings these songs, he really does sing, with a unique voice created by collaborators at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. They used machine learning to develop the voice and trained it on hundreds of songs.
Along with his new skills — all developed in Weinberg’s lab — Shimon has some new hardware, too, that changes how he plays and moves on stage. To be clear, he’s still mostly stationary, but he has a mouth, new eyebrows, and new head movements designed to help convey emotion and interact with his bandmates. He also has new “hands,” that have totally changed how he plays the marimba.
“Shimon plays much faster — about 25 to 30 hertz at the maximum — and also much more expressively, playing from a soft dynamic range to a strong dynamic range,” said Ph.D. student Ning Yang, who designed all-new motors and hardware for Shimon. “That also allows [Shimon] to do choreography during the music being played.”
For example, Shimon can count in at the beginning of songs to cue the band, and sometimes he’ll wave his mallets around in time to the music. New brushless DC motors mean he has a much greater range of motion and control of that motion. Yang accomplished that by bringing his engineering knowledge and musical background together to create human-inspired gestures.
“It's actually a very, very good example at Georgia Tech that we can actually combine tech and arts together to create something that's brand new,” Yang said.
He worked closely with fellow Ph.D. student Lisa Zahray, who created a new suite of gestures for the robot — including how he uses those new eyebrows.
“We have to think about his role at each time during the song and what he should be doing,” Zahray said. “We also want to make sure he's interacting with the other musicians around him to give that feel that he's performing with people.”
That partnership with people is key for Weinberg. Teaching Shimon new skills isn’t about replacing musicians, he said.
“We will need musicians, and there will be more musicians that will be able to do more and new music because robots will help them, will generate ideas, will help them broaden the way they think about music and play music,” Weinberg said.
Shimon, Weinberg, and the entire band are building a touring schedule now with the goal of taking their unique blend of robot- and human-created music to more people. Weinberg said he hopes those shows will prove to be more than a novelty act.
“I think we have reached a level where I expect the audience to just enjoy the music for music’s sake,” Weinberg said. “This is music that humans, by themselves, wouldn't have written. I want the audience to think, ‘There's something unique about this song, and I want to go back and listen to it, even if I don't look at the robot.’”
Shimon was originally developed with support from the National Science Foundation Cyber-Human Systems program, grants No. 0713269, and 1017169.
]]>404.894.6016
]]>Zicarelli might be biased: his lifelong career is music technology.
Since the 1980s, he’s worked on interactive composition technology. “I think the intersection of music and technology and creativity is a really cool problem, just something that is endlessly interesting to think about.”
But there’s also something incredibly practical about it, he said. “Instead of spending your entire life learning to play a very difficult instrument, you can participate in and make music more readily with technology.”
While the concept of music technology is fairly well-grasped by the modern world, Zicarelli said, as an industry he and his peers aren’t as easy to pin down.
“Music Technology is a big space. There’s not one community. In my experience, there are a lot of different communities that tend to focus around a particular tool or approach,” he said. Often they meet each other at large events like Moogfest or the Ableton Conference, focused on creativity or learning new technical skills.
They also come to the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition at Georgia Tech, for demonstrations in performance and technology innovation. This year, Zicarelli will judge the contest as well as cohost the Music, Art, and Technology Fair.
“I was fortunate enough to attend [the Guthman Competition] a few years ago, and I still remember and am actively inspired by what I saw,” he said, “in terms of this amazing variety of creative approaches.”
The Competition does two important things for music technologists, Zicarelli said. One, it shows that the invention of an instrument is a valid form of creative expression. And two, it provides an opportunity to observe emerging technologies.
“For example, Roli came and demonstrated the Seaboard a few years ago at Guthman, and now you can buy that product and have it in your house.”
As an assistant professor for the Georgia Tech School of Music and a researcher in the Center for Music Technology, Grace Leslie’s work often includes human computer interface, electrical engineering, experimental psychology, and acoustics.
“There’s a lot of different things that music technology can be,” she said. “We professors who have labs in the Center are kind of like a Venn diagram. We do work that’s at the intersection of music technology and other things.” Leslie runs the Brain Lab, where she and her graduate students develop brain-music interfaces and other physiological sensor systems.
The ways in which this year’s Guthman Competition instruments cross over into other areas of study and design are especially compelling, she said.
“This year we have a lot of really exciting instruments that are designed as assistive technologies,” Leslie said, “to help encourage and inspire people to make music, when traditional musical instruments might not be accessible to them physically.”
“It really broadens our horizon [as music technologists] in terms of what musical instruments are, and the kind of innovations that they’re able to bring to our lives. Innovation doesn’t just have to be about creativity and newness or novelty. It can also be about helping people.”
Even the Guthman Competition’s setting — hosted by a Georgia Tech school with a uniquely rigorous music technology program — is valuable for music technologists in terms of sharing ideas.
Because music technologists are used to sharing ideas in academic settings and in music venues, Leslie strives to teach her students how to communicate their work to a broader community. She fosters concerts that blend technological demonstrations with compelling musical performances. As an electronic music composer and improviser, Leslie maintains a brain-body performance practice.
As part of the Guthman Competition festivities, this year the School of Music, Cycling ’74, and the Atlanta Science Festival are teaming up with Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) for a GoSTEAM workshop.
Designed for the middle school audience, the workshop will take place prior to the Fair. Students will learn how to use Cycling ‘74’s Max/MSP software to create music. Sabrina Grossman, the science education program director for CEISMC, will help run the event.
“There’s so many opportunities with this intersection of music technology and art,” Grossman said. “I think a lot of times, students don’t even know this exists.”
“[My colleague] has a great quote. When people ask her, ‘How did you become an engineer?’, she says, ‘Well, my dad told me I couldn’t major in music.’,” Grossman said. “Ten, fifteen years ago, there weren’t many music technology programs in schools.”
But through increasingly national reach of programs like EarSketch, students with strong music preferences can envision broader career options, Grossman said.
“I definitely think that it allows them to think outside the box about music and outside the box of what their future could be in music or computer science.”
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]]>But Leff, a fourth-year mechanical engineering major, was frustrated with what he saw on the market. The existing effects were rigid and if he wanted a new sound effect he had to buy a new pedal.
“What I wanted was the freedom to customize my sounds, and I wanted that variety without having to spend a ton of money,” said Leff, who is from Honolulu.
He teamed up with Dallas Condra, a fourth-year mechanical engineering major, and Vanya Padmanabhan, a fourth-year industrial design major, and together they started a company called PedalCreator.
Their first product, disruption, is one of six devices competing for this year’s InVenture Prize, Georgia Tech’s annual invention competition. The winner will be announced March 14.
Disruption, they said, is an affordable guitar effects pedal that gives musicians the freedom to create distortion sounds. The patent-pending device is fully analog and customizable.
Their pedal system’s design includes a modular base -- smaller than a TV remote – built to house two cartridges. One is a tone cartridge and the other is a distortion cartridge and they work together to create a desired sound. The cartridges can be switched out to change the effect. They have already developed six swappable cartridge options.
Before entering InVenture, they participated in CREATE-X, a series of entrepreneurship programs for undergraduate students.
Now much of the circuitry work is done in the apartment shared by Leff and Condra. They store parts and tools on an open shelf in their kitchen. Other shelves hold canned goods and cereal.
The team went through several iterations to create the clean cartridge system design, said Padmanabhan, who is from Atlanta.
Professional musicians are trying out the device and offering feedback. The company is accepting pre-orders and they plan to attend the National Association of Music Merchants gathering this summer in Nashville.
“The InVenture Prize validates what we’re doing and shows us that we’re on the right track,” said Condra, who is from Knoxville. “We’re ready for that next step.”
]]>404-660-2927
]]>The annual Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition showcases the innovation taking place where engineering and musicianship intersect. The contest highlights what’s next in muscial instrument design.
This year’s nearly 20 semifinalists represent 10 countries. The finalists will perform a free concert at 7 p.m. on March 9 at the Ferst Center.
Think of these peculiar inventions as the X-Men of musical instruments. But these mutants are also clever devices that expand our assumed notion of what constitutes an instrument and the sounds it can produce.
Here are some examples:
Joining the semifinalists are three Georgia Tech graduate students who earned an entry to Guthman by winning the Moog Hackathon, which was held earlier this month on campus. The students – Somesh Ganesh, Lamtharn Hantrakul and Zack Kondak -- invented “Moog’s Greatest Hits,” a drum and synthesizer attached to a cardboard box.
Gil Weinberg, director of the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, has worked to grow the program into an international phenomenon.
“It is exciting to see the great quality of our semifinalists this year,” Weinberg said. “I’m really looking forward to play with these instruments myself. I hope we will see at least some of them commercialized in the future, so they can be enjoyed by everyone.”
The contest awards $10,000 in prizes, including a $5,000 first prize.
The judges consider three elements: the sound, the design, and the interaction between the musician and the instrument.
Here are this year’s judges: Mike Adams, CEO of Moog Music; Elain Chew, professor of digital media at Queen Mary University of London; and Daedelus, a music producer and performer.
Learn more about the competition here.
]]>Media Relations
404-894-6016
@LauraRDiamond
]]>The annual contest encourages and supports interest in innovation and entrepreneurship by rewarding students with cash prizes for inventions that have the potential to solve the world’s problems.
The six teams competing in the 2016 InVenture Prize finale are:
FireHUD: A real-time monitoring system and Head Up Display that provides biometric and environmental data to firefighters and officials outside a structure. The goal is to decrease the level of uncertainty firefighters face.
Inventors: Zachary Braun, computer engineering; and Tyler Sisk, electrical engineering.
FretWizard: A virtual guitar teacher for students at varying levels. This artificial intelligence system learns how to play guitar songs and teaches users what it’s learned.
Inventors: Ali Abid, computer science; and Molly Ricks, international affairs.
RoboGoalie: An automatic retrieval device that collects a soccer ball and launches it back to the player. This device gives soccer players the flexibility of practicing alone.
Inventors (all mechanical engineering majors): Siu Lun Chan, Ming Him Ko, Zhifeng Su, and Timothy Woo.
TEQ Charging: A power management system for electric vehicle chargers. The technology and design reduces cost, increases efficiency and provides greater accessibility for charging electric vehicles.
Inventors: Dorrier Coleman, computer engineering; Mitchell Kelman, computer science; Joshua Lieberman, mechanical engineering; and Isaac Wittenstein, mechanical engineering.
TruePani: A passive antimicrobial cup and storage water device that kills harmful microbes in drinking water. This invention was designed for rural India, but could be used worldwide.
Inventors: Samantha Becker, civil engineering; Sarah Lynn Bowen, business administration; Naomi Ergun, business administration; and Shannon Evanchec, environmental engineering.
Wobble: This device tests a person’s balance and will be used to improve concussion recovery assessments for athletes.
Inventors: Hailey Brown, mechanical engineering; Matthew Devlin, biomedical engineering; Ana Gomez del Campo, biomedical engineering; and Garrett Wallace, biomedical engineering.
The winning team scores $20,000 and the second-place team receives $10,000.
Both first- and second-place finishers will receive free U.S. patent filings by Georgia Tech’s Office of Technology Licensing and a spot in Georgia Tech’s startup accelerator program, Flashpoint.
A $5,000 People’s Choice Award will go to the fans’ favorite invention. Voting will be by text messaging during the finale.
The finale will take place in the Ferst Center for the Arts, and free tickets can be requested here. The competition will also air live on Georgia Public Broadcasting starting at 7:30 p.m.
The winner of the InVenture Prize will represent Georgia Tech at the inaugural ACC InVenture Prize competition.
Teams of students representing each of the ACC’s 15 universities will pitch their inventions or startups before a live audience and a panel of judges. This contest will be held on campus April 6.
Learn more about the ACC InVenture Prize here.
]]>Georgia Tech’s InVenture Prize competition is designed to encourage and support undergraduate students’ interest in innovation and entrepreneurship. Once again, more than 500 students signed up for the competition.
This year’s six finalist teams have invented ways to make our lives safer, healthier, and a bit more fun. The teams are:
FireHUD: A display and data monitor that will track and display real-time information to firefighters in hazardous conditions. The goal is to decrease the level of uncertainty firefighters face.
Inventors: Zachary Braun, computer engineering; and Tyler Sisk, electrical engineering.
FretWizard: A virtual guitar teacher for students at varying levels. The inventors designed the site to give people a simpler and more intuitive way to learn how to play songs on the guitar.
Inventors: Ali Abid, computer science; and Molly Ricks, international affairs.
RoboGoalie: An automatic retrieval device that collects a soccer ball and launches it back to the player. Similar to a batting cage, this device gives soccer players the flexibility of practicing alone.
Inventors (all mechanical engineering majors): Siu Lun Chan, Ming Him Ko, Zhifeng Su, and Timothy Woo.
TEQ Charging: A power management system for electric vehicle chargers. The technology and design lowers the cost of installing current charge stations and increases efficiency by sequentially charging vehicles.
Inventors: Dorrier Coleman, computer engineering; Mitchell Kelman, computer science; Joshua Lieberman, mechanical engineering; and Isaac Wittenstein, mechanical engineering.
TruePani: A household sanitation solution, consisting of a passive antimicrobial cup and storage water device that kills harmful microbes in drinking water. This invention was designed for children in rural India who are most affected by waterborne illnesses, but it also could be used in underserved communities worldwide.
Inventors: Samantha Becker, civil engineering; Sarah Lynn Bowen, business administration; Naomi Ergun, business administration; and Shannon Evanchec, environmental engineering.
Wobble: A device to test a person’s reactive balance. It works like a mechanical bull in that it spins and tilts. It can be programmed to different levels of difficulty, which makes it useful for determining return-to-play protocols for athletes who have suffered a concussion and also for evaluating the risk of falling for elderly patients.
Inventors: Hailey Brown, mechanical engineering; Matthew Devlin, biomedical engineering; Ana Gomez del Campo, biomedical engineering; and Garrett Wallace, biomedical engineering.
The winning team scores $20,000 and the second-place team receives $10,000.
Both first- and second-place finishers will receive free U.S. patent filings by Georgia Tech’s Office of Technology Licensing and a spot in Georgia Tech’s startup accelerator program, Flashpoint.
A $5,000 People’s Choice Award will go to the fans’ favorite invention. Voting will be by text messaging during the finale.
The finale will take place March 16 at the Ferst Center for the Arts. Tickets are free and can be requested here.
The event will also be aired live on Georgia Public Broadcasting.
]]>If you’re in the mood for a hypnotic surround sound, try playing the Yaybahar with its fretted strings, coiled springs and drum skins.
Maybe you’re searching for a different type of harp. How about one made from a two-dimensional grid of laser beams. What about a 25-string harp that uses electromagnetic actuation modules to produce completely acoustic music.
These are just a few of the 22 inventions in the annual Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. The competition, hosted by the Georgia Institute of Technology, showcases the best new ideas in design, engineering and musicianship. Contestants compete for $10,000 in prizes.
“Our semifinalists are all inventors, musicians, designers and engineers who bring their interdisciplinary skills and talents to create the next generation of musical instruments,” said Gil Weinberg, director of the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology.
The center — along with the School of Music, the College of Architecture and the Office of the Arts — sponsors the competition.
Inventors use technology and scientific discovery to create nontraditional sounds and musical interactions that enhance the way society plays and thinks about musical instruments.
Some of the instruments resemble sleek, modern sculptures that belong in museums. Others look like they were assembled in the land of misfit toys.
Judging the semifinalists are: Allan Kozinn, a music critic and teacher; Pat Metheny, a Grammy award-winning jazz guitarist and composer; and Marcelo Wanderly, professor of music technology at McGill University in Montreal.
Prior to the competition, the School of Music will host the first Moog Hackathon, a 48-hour competition that runs from February 26-28. Contestants will design and build musical instruments using Moog platforms and other software and hardware prototyping tools provided by Georgia Tech.
Participants will compete for $5,000 in prizes and the top winner advances as a semifinalist in the Guthman Competition.
The Guthman Competition will be held March 2 and 3 at Georgia Tech’s Ferst Center for the Arts.
The finals, which will be held at 7:00 pm on March 3, are free and open to the public. John Biggs, an editor with TechCrunch, will host the finale.
More information about the contest can be found at http://guthman.gatech.edu.
]]>These inventions are among the 20 semi-finalists competing in an annual competition to find the next generation of music instruments.
The Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, held at the Georgia Institute of Technology, seeks to find the world’s best new ideas in musical instrument design, engineering and musicianship. Entries represent a dozen countries and expand our assumed notion of what constitutes an instrument and the sounds it can produce.
“This year we have seen a tremendous variety of high-quality submissions – from beautifully designed acoustic instruments to sophisticated electronic instruments utilizing wearable, mobile and robotic technologies,” said Gil Weinberg, director of the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology.
The center, the School of Music, and the College of Architecture sponsor the competition. Contestants compete for $10,000 in prizes.
“In its seventh year, the competition has established itself as the place to go for those who want to get a glimpse of the future of musical performance and expression,” Weinberg said.
During this year's competition organizers will honor Richard Guthman, who recently passed away. Guthman, who graduated from Georgia Tech in 1956 with a degree in industrial engineering, founded the Margaret Guthman Keyboard Competition in 1988 as a tribute to his wife. The event evolved into the current musical instrument competition.
Judging the 20 semi-finalists are: DJ Hurricane, a producer and rapper who is best known for his work with the Beastie Boys; Graham Marsh, a Grammy award-winning producer, mixer and engineer who has worked with Ludacris, Bruno Mars and CeeLo Green; and Joe Paradiso, a physicist who designs electronic music synthesizers and directs the MIT Media Lab’s Responsive Environments Group.
And for the first time, the competition will also include a student challenge. Over 70 Georgia Tech students registered to participate in the Guthman Musical Instrument Design Challenge, sponsored by synthesizer maker Moog and the Georgia Tech Office of the Arts. Student winners will receive cash and in-kind prizes valued at more than $6,000. Participants will also get the chance to present their invention during the main Guthman Competition event.
Judges for the Student Design Challenge are: Michael Adams, CEO of Moog Music; Aaron Lanterman, a Georgia Tech professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who specializes in digital signal processing; and Lee Lerner, a research scientist with the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
The main Guthman Competition will be held February 19 and 20 at the Klaus Advanced Computing Building on campus. The finals will be held February 20 from 7:00 – 9:00 pm on campus and are free and open to the public. The finals will also be live streamed. More information about the contest and live streaming can be found at http://guthman.gatech.edu.
]]>The event — whichcalls itself “a celebration of all things DIY” — will feature the skills and creationsof a variety of makers from the region, including blacksmithing, kineticsculptures, robots and 3D printers. About 50 makers will be in attendance withtheir wares, including many from the Tech community. This smaller version oflarger Maker Faires that have been held in Detroit, New York and California givesthe event its “mini” moniker.
“I thought Atlanta would be a great place for a Mini MakerFaire because there haven’t really been any in the South before, and I know theSouth is filled with just as many makers and crafters as the rest of thecountry,” said Eric Weinhoffer, the ME student organizing the event. “GeorgiaTech is an extremely good location to host an event like this, thanks to thetechnological advancements that come out of the Institute every year. Theschool itself is an inspiration to makers.”
The event is free to attend and will welcome students,faculty, staff and guests in the Manufacturing Related Disciplines Complex (MRDC)parking lot, Saturday, Sept. 10, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Most makers will beexhibiting their work, but some will have creations for sale as well. To learnmore about the makers who will be in attendance, visit the Atlanta Mini MakerFaire website.
]]>Kristen Shaw
Communications and Marketing
About 50 Georgia Tech students hammered, drilled and plucked strings as they raced to put the finishing touches on the devices they created.
The students participated in the inaugural Guthman Musical Instrument Design Challenge, sponsored by synthesizer maker Moog and the Georgia Tech Office of the Arts. The event added a student component to this week’s annual Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, which seeks to find the world’s best new ideas in musical instrument design, engineering and musicianship.
“It was important for us to expand the focus of the Guthman Competition toward our own campus and our own students,” said Gil Weinberg, director of the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology. “A student challenge, combined with an opportunity for students to present their inventions as part of the competition, seemed like the perfect way to do that.”
Students spent about a month designing their musical creations and added the electronic elements Sunday during an eight-hour hackathon. Each of the 15 teams received sensors, Arduino boards and Moog Werkstatt kits to hack, manipulate and add to the base instrument.
Raja Raman, a master’s student in music technology, belonged to a three-member team that created the “VCG” instrument, which looks like a guitar but incorporates a breath controller that functions similarly to woodwind instruments. To play it, a musician breathes into a tube attached to the instrument’s body and runs his fingers along ribbon sensors placed along the guitar neck.
“We wanted to create something that was truly playable and fun,” Raman said.
The team succeeded and won the first place prize of $1,500.
“I was blown away by what the students created in a short period of time,” said Michael Adams, CEO of Moog Music and one of the judges.
The other judges were: Aaron Lanterman, a Georgia Tech professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who specializes in digital signal processing; and Lee Lerner, a research scientist with the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
All 15 teams will present their instruments this Friday during the main Guthman Competition. That contest will be held Thursday and Friday at the Klaus Advanced Computing Building on campus.
Before the hackathon students spent hours designing their instruments.
Some constructed instruments using 3D printing, welding and other methods found in Georgia Tech’s Invention Studio, a student-run design-build-play space that offers students access to cutting-edge machines.
Other students scavenged dumpsters, yards and attics to turn found items into instruments. One team used part of an abandoned bike. Another group added sensors, an accelerometer and Bluetooth technology to a clear beach ball.
Some instruments resembled a Frankenstein assembly of parts. But that was part of the charm.
“A lot of work went into the design,” said Collin Garnett, a second-year architecture major. “This was probably one of my favorite projects.”
]]>Their inventions include a surgical device to correct drooping eyelids, an interactive tool to learn Braille and a way to make the perfect cup of coffee.
The InVenture Prize competition is designed to encourage and support undergraduate students’ interest in invention, innovation and entrepreneurship. More than 500 students signed up for this year’s contest.
"Once again we were impressed with what Georgia Tech students invent to solve some of the problems facing society," said Chris Reaves, director of Undergraduate Research and Student Innovation, and one of InVenture’s organizers. "InVenture is part of the changing culture at Georgia Tech where our students are becoming entrepreneurs.”
This year’s finalists are:
Eqip: Eqip is a website marketplace that allows musicians to experiment with expensive audio tools before committing to a purchase. Team members are Shehmeer Jiwani and Adam Szaruga, both computer science majors.
Flame Tech Grill Defender: Flame Tech is a safety device for gas grills that alerts users when gas levels become dangerous. Team members are Alex Roe, a computer science major; Scott Schroer, a mechanical engineering major; and Will Sweet, a business administration major.
Haplit: Haplit is an interactive device for teaching Braille to those who were born blind or are living with degenerative diseases. Team members are Philip Bale, a computer science major; Megan Fechter, a business administration major; and Chandler Matz, a computer engineering major.
OculoStaple: The OculoStaple is a medical device to safely treat ptosis, drooping of the upper eyelid. The team members — Jacquelyn Borinski, Mohamad Ali Najia and Drew Padilla — are all biomedical engineering majors.
QuantaBrew: The QuantaBrew is an airtight container that dispenses a set amount of coffee grounds each pour, simplifying the process of making coffee every morning. The inventor is Jack Breen, a mechanical engineering major.
Shortweb: Shortweb aims to improve the way we access information on the Internet by allowing people to highlight and save text on any webpage and share that information with others. Team members are Ricardo De Andrade, who is majoring in industrial engineering and computer science; and Miguel Oller, a mechanical engineering major.
The winning team earns $20,000 and the second-place team receives $10,000.
Both the first- and second-place finishers will receive free US patent filings by Georgia Tech’s Office of Technology Licensing and a spot in Georgia Tech’s startup accelerator program, Flashpoint.
A $5,000 People’s Choice Award will go to the fans’ favorite invention. Voting will be by text messaging during the finale.
The finale will take place April 1 at the Ferst Center for the Arts on campus. Tickets are free and can be requested here.
The event will also be aired on Georgia Public Broadcasting.
]]>"Basically, what people are doing is choosing their own adventure; they are finding their own path through this piece of music," said Freeman. "There are a lot of different fragments of music and different ways you can connect them together. I composed the piece intuitively. I decided what all the fragments were going to be and all the different ways they could connect together."
The online user is then able to choose among two or three options in between each fragment of music. Their choice directly impacts the direction of the composition. At the end of each night, the software produces a new version of the musical score that reflects the audience's choices made online.
Freeman says the solo violin piece will then be played in live concerts to give the audiences a more interactive experience.
"The Graph Theory Project forces the audience to make choices and engage in the process of making music," said Freeman. "Some of the greatest musical experiences that I've had were creating music, not just listening to it. I can't write a piece that expresses that joy unless it shares it."
Freeman says that he was inspired to create a piece that would allow people to engage in music even if they didn't have a traditional music background.
"It is hard for people to talk about music in abstract terms using layman's language," Freeman said. "I had an idea of a virtual composer residency. Instead of sitting everyone down in a room and saying that I want a piece that is loud, fast, slow, soft. There is a visual interface on the Web that structures people's input. It gives them choices that are defined. They are not defined in language, they are defined through things they can click on and move around."
Freeman suggests that technology and a good graphic design make this a successful project.
"Technology is an interface through which we can connect people," said Freeman. "It allows people to be musically creative without needing to know how to play a traditional instrument."
The Graph Theory Project, which was commissioned by the Turbulence Internet art group and supported with a grant from the Greenwall Foundation, is available via the Web at http://turbulence.org/Works/graphtheory/ . Freeman is already planning several concert performances, including two in Atlanta this winter. For an updated list of concerts, please visit www.jasonfreeman.net
]]>Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have pinpointed the elusive factor that makes the ancient amphitheater an acoustic marvel. It's not the slope, or the wind - it's the seats. The rows of limestone seats at Epidaurus form an efficient acoustics filter that hushes low-frequency background noises like the murmur of a crowd and reflects the high-frequency noises of the performers on stage off the seats and back toward the seated audience member, carrying an actor's voice all the way to the back rows of the theater.
The research, done by acoustician and ultrasonics expert Nico Declercq, an assistant professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Georgia Tech Lorraine in France, and Cindy Dekeyser, an engineer who is fascinated by the history of ancient Greece, appears in the April issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
While many experts speculated on the possible causes for Epidaurus' acoustics, few guessed that the seats themselves were the secret of its acoustics success. There were theories that the site's wind - which blows primarily from the stage to the audience - was the cause, while others credited masks that may have acted as primitive loudspeakers or the rhythm of Greek speech. Other more technical theories took into account the slope of the seat rows.
When Declercq set out to solve the acoustic mystery, he too had the wrong idea about how Epidaurus carries performance sounds so well. He suspected that the corrugated, or ridged, material of the theater's limestone structure was acting as a filter for sound waves at certain frequencies, but he didn't anticipate how well it was controlling background noise.
"When I first tackled this problem, I thought that the effect of the splendid acoustics was due to surface waves climbing the theater with almost no damping," Declercq said. "While the voices of the performers were being carried, I didn't anticipate that the low frequencies of speech were also filtered out to some extent."
But as Declercq's team experimented with ultrasonic waves and numerical simulations of the theater's acoustics, they discovered that frequencies up to 500 Hz were held back while frequencies above 500 Hz were allowed to ring out. The corrugated surface of the seats was creating an effect similar to the ridged acoustics padding on walls or insulation in a parking garage.
So, how did the audience hear the lower frequencies of an actor's voice if they were being suppressed with other background low frequencies? There's a simple answer, said Declercq. The human brain is capable of reconstructing the missing frequencies through a phenomenon called virtual pitch. Virtual pitch helps us appreciate the incomplete sound coming from small loudspeakers (in a laptop or a telephone), even though the low (bass) frequencies aren't generated by a small speaker.
The Greeks' misunderstanding about the role the limestone seats played in Epidaurus' acoustics likely kept them from being able to duplicate the effect. Later theaters included different bench and seat materials, including wood, which may have played a large role in the gradual abandonment of Epidaurus' design over the years by the Greeks and Romans, Declercq said.
]]>"I am deeply saddened by this news," said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. "Tom Galloway was my dear friend and respected colleague. His profound dedication to his students and his unique contributions to the Institute are a remarkable legacy in the true tradition of Georgia Tech's outstanding leaders."
Galloway came to Georgia Tech in 1992 from the College of Design at Iowa State University, where he served as dean and professor from 1985 to 1992. He also held faculty and administrative appointments at the University of Rhode Island and the University of Kansas.
During his tenure as dean, he was instrumental in shaping the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech in light of profound transformation. Under Galloway's leadership, the College realized many changes and milestones. In 1993, the college established a new partnership for its Paris Study Abroad Program with the Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Architecture de Paris LaVillette and established the Shenyang Program at Shenyang Technological University in China. In recent years, he extended Georgia Tech's relationship with the United Arab Emirates, chairing a team that reviewed a new College of Engineering and Design at the University of Abu Dhabi and served as an urban planning consultant to the Sheik.
Galloway focused his efforts to redefine the mission of the College, strengthen its academic programs, integrate research programs with academic instruction and fully engage the College with the expanded academic, research and service missions of the Institute. The initiation of the Common First Year, the creation of two endowed chairs-the Harry West Chair for Quality Growth and Regional Development and the Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair in Architectural Design-and the increase in the number of Ph.D. students are all a testament to his leadership and commitment to interdisciplinary education and research.
"Dean Galloway was a true champion for the College of Architecture," said Thomas W. Ventulett III, friend of the Galloway family, Georgia Tech alumnus (1957, College of Architecture) and chairman emeritus of the College of Architecture Development Council, Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates, Atlanta. "His relentless work ethic and gift for recognizing and attracting talent enabled him to leave a profound legacy at Georgia Tech and in the larger community. Tom created an environment at the College of Architecture that enabled his talented faculty and staff to flourish."
Ventulett continued, "Tom was a wonderful communicator who was able to unite people on campus and throughout the built-environment professions. He was a civic-minded person who truly cared about Georgia Tech, Midtown and Atlanta as a whole."
Some of Galloway's most recent academic and professional honors include a listing among the '30 Leaders Who Bridge Practice and Education' in America's Best Architecture and Design Schools, published in the 2005 edition of Design Intelligence, and as a Lexus Leader of the Arts by Public Broadcasting Atlanta.
Tom Galloway was a loving husband, father and friend with an infectious smile and humble spirit. He is survived by his wife and best friend of 40 years, Sharon Perry Galloway, their children-Stacy and Derek Haywood, Rick and Shannon Galloway, and Kelly and Adam Eby-and grandchildren Thomas Galloway, Cara Galloway, Max Galloway, and Kace Galloway. He is preceded in death by his parents, the Reverends Ruth (Jones) and Roy Galloway. He is also survived by his beloved sisters and brothers.
The family has planned a memorial service for Friday, March 16, at 10:00 a.m. in the Ferst Center for the Arts on the Georgia Tech campus. A reception will follow at the College of Architecture Atrium, West Architecture Building, 247 Fourth Street.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be sent to the Dean Thomas D. Galloway Memorial Fund for the College of Architecture in care of the Georgia Tech Foundation. Gifts of remembrance should be made out to the Georgia Tech Foundation, with the name of the fund on the memo line, or with an accompanying note and sent to:
Georgia Tech Foundation, Inc.
760 Spring Street, N.W., Suite 400
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
"This symposium focuses on music technology, and the College of Architecture Music Department just introduced Tech's first degree program in music," said Dean Thomas Galloway, College of Architecture. "The symposium helps us roll out our master's degree in music technology and demonstrates to the arts community throughout Georgia and beyond that music is alive and well at Georgia Tech."
The symposium, which will be held March 3, 2007, will highlight three areas of interest in each session. The morning will begin with a session entitled 'Technology Meets Tradition: The Impact of Technology on Music Education'. The second session discusses 'Cognition and Analysis: The "Why" of Music'. The third session,'Making Music and Performance,' will follow lunch. The final session of the day will focus on the relationship between 'Music and Architecture'.
"The Dean's Symposium is a wonderful event with a number of substantive outcomes," said Frank Clark, director of the Music Department. "Each year the event brings hundreds of visitors to the Tech campus, produces meaningful scholarship, generates debate, adds to our visibility and credibility, and celebrates the diversity and richness of the Georgia Tech College of Architecture."
Organizers are expecting a wide array of attendees, including several from other Georgia universities. Presenters include Georgia Tech professors Parag Chordia, Athanassios Economou, Jason Freeman, Ronald Lewcock, Jerry Ulrich, Bruce Walker, Gil Weinberg, and Music Department Director Frank Clark. Other presenters include David Huron, The Ohio State University; George Lewis, Columbia University; Henry Panion III, University of Alabama-Birmingham; Thomas Rudolph, director of music at School District of Haverford Township (PA); Pierre Ruhe, music critic for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and Jessica Peek Sherwood, Sonic Generator (flutist).
These scholars and practitioners will discuss ideas and demonstrate developments in areas ranging from new interfaces for musical expression and algorithmic composition to music information retrieval, music networks, and machine musicianship.
The College of Architecture has a unique relationship with its Music Department, and together they are forging a new future for Georgia Tech and music. So what's the future of Tech's music program?
"That's a question we ask every day and there are so many answers: new degree programs, new classes, new ensembles, groundbreaking research, innovative instruments, new modes of expression, and new partnerships combining music, architecture, computing, engineering, science and math," said Clark. "The future of music at Tech is ours to write, and I sincerely hope that it will be an Institute-wide composition."
The symposium is jointly sponsored by the Georgia Tech College of Architecture and the College of Architecture Alumni Committee and is organized by the College and its Music Department.
]]>Thatcher, a designer, has created everything from modulators to synthesizers to sequencers, to use in his own performances. Although he has never had the time to perfect a design to take it to market, Driscoll, a fellow music technology classmate, had just the entrepreneurial spirit necessary to take Thatcher's creations to the marketplace.
"Basically I've created a business to help designers like Travis develop their devices, finish them and sell them," said Driscoll. "Today's technology has made everything more accessible to everyone. All of our designs are completely open source. Some customers may only want the raw materials so they can put the devices together themselves, while others will want the completed piece assembled for them."
"This works out for both of us because I wouldn't have the time to enhance the instruments that I've created," said Thatcher. "I am able to put the finishing touches on many devices that I may never have the time to complete otherwise."
The two music technology alumni say the Georgia Tech Music Technology program is a big reason for their success and continued interest in the field.
"We were exposed to a whole new direction that you could take with music and technology," said Driscoll. "The fact that you could combine these two in an artistic path. For me it was like, oh, I get to be a creative engineer."
Driscoll and Thatcher say business is good right now and they plan on releasing new devices down the road. You can find more information about their musical creation at http://curiousinventor.com.
]]>"The Macy's Parade will be the most fitting way for the band to celebrate our centennial anniversary in front of 50 million viewers, as well as an opportunity for the students to shine as ambassadors for the Institute," said Associate Director of Bands, Chris Moore.
"Anyone who has been a part of the band or who has experienced the energy, entertainment and enthusiasm the band brings to the Tech community and the city of Atlanta understands what a treasure we have," said Assistant Director, Donny Allen.
The full marching band, concert band and symphonic band will all participate in the New York trip. "We are planning a large-scale concert and gala for our alumni, fans, locals and tourists in one of the major concert halls in New York City," said Dr. Andrea Strauss, Director of Bands. "We hope students get a strong sense of pride in representing the Institute and a feeling of satisfaction knowing they reach so many people through their talents and hard work."
More than 1,100 Tech students sing, play or study music each semester. They come from every major on campus, and from many nations around the world. Music ensembles provide a challenging academic and aesthetic experience for the Georgia Tech student. Directors believe that band members will have a unique opportunity while at Tech for the 2008 academic year in celebration of the band's anniversary.
The band hopes to raise $500,000 to cover the cost of the trip. The funds will cover the cost of the traveling party's air, hotel and food expenses, as well as concert hall rental. Band Directors hope this is the first of many high-profile opportunities to share their music programs with the Tech community
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