Yesterday, Bert was invited for an interview at the Time Drone show, a weekly radio show at electro-music radio hosted by Jack Hertz.

During one hour Jack asked Bert, the designer of the AudioCubes, questions about his background, how the idea of making the AudioCubes started, as well as questions about all the applications he made for the AudioCubes.

Besides answering Jack’s questions, Bert did a live demo of EVOLVOR, the latest sound design application which was released for the AudioCubes.

The audience also had the opportunity to ask questions to Bert via chat. Every question which popped up the electro-music radio chat window was discussed during the radio show.

Check out the pictures which were taken during the interview

Jack announcing the AudioCubes Interview at electro-music-radio

Bert at Jack hertz' studio

Jack Hertz asking questions

More information about Jack Hertz:

Website: http://jackhertz.com

Patient (left) using AudioCubes during a session together with Samantha (right) Picture: Gene Ramirez (source: parramattasun)

Last week Samantha Ewart, PhD student at the University of Western Sydney, was interviewed by the Australian Newspaper, the Parramatta Sun, about her research and interests in music and health.

The Parramatta Sun article is titled: “A doctorate student is bringing the halls of The Children’s Hospital at Westmead alive with the sound of music”.

Samantha Ewart (supervisor Dr. Garth Paine) researches how new forms of interactive music technology can distract teenage patients from boredom within hospital to help promote wellbeing, and the AudioCubes are part of her research.

In the interview Samantha explains how she combined her music degree, and interests in health and disability:

“Learning about music and its therapeutic qualities has been a revelation and I’m enjoying the opportunity I have to combine my interests in health, disability and the community through the study of music therapy and music technology”

Samantha volunteers at the Nordolff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre every week. In the music therapy sessions she works with a group of adolescents with mental and physical disabilities. She says in the interview:

“I appreciate the power that music plays in ringing out creative expression and enhancing well-being”

We totally agree, Samantha Congratulations!

The article published by the Parramatta Sun can be read here: Research hits the right note

More information about Samantha Ewart:
Blog: Interactive Music for Distraction- A PhD Journey

Other blog posts about Samantha Ewart’s research:
Update on Samantha Ewart’s PhD research: Hospital day 1
First research results from PhD student Samantha Ewart
PhD student Samantha is using AudioCubes for her research

Dave Linabury

Dave Linabury is an electronic musician from Birmingham, US. Besides making electronic music and being an AudioCubist, he’s one of the leading authorities on social media marketing in the US and the author of the blog Davezilla.com.

A couple of weeks ago he wrote an interesting blog post about the importance of visuals in live music. His opinion about the importance of visuals in live music, has not always been like that. He says:

“I used to hate bands that put more time into their stage than into their music.”

Throughout the years, however, his opinion about visuals in live music has changed.

“I changed my opinion on the need for a visual aspect to live music. What made me change my mind after decades? Simple. I looked at my collection of electronic instruments and realized the choices I made in instruments involve a lot of me moving my fingers or hands and pulsating lights.”

Dave asked Mark Mosher about his opinion about the connection between visuals and electronic music. Mark Mosher said:

“I’ve found without a doubt that visual controllers such as the Percussa AudioCubes and grid controllers like the Tenori-On makes it easier for the audience to correlate my performance with the music and sound coming out of the speakers. Ultimately this deepens the connection between the performer and the audience, and the audience quickly becomes aware of the musicianship required to perform experimental electronic music live and makes them appeciate the music even more.”

Next to the Percussa AudioCubes, Dave also mentions a couple of other other gear, he says:

” they all seem to combine function with beautiful light displays that make them easy to use in a dark bar or concert hall, and fascinating for the audience to watch.”

You can read the whole blog article here.

More information about Dave Linabury:

Website: http://davelinabury.com/
Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/dave-linabury/

LostAtEMinor is an Australian online publication of inspiring art, design, music, photography and pop culture.

This week LostAtEMinor wrote a short article about the AudioCubes, in their section, new trends.

“The AudioCubes do represent an elegant solution to the age-old dilemma of how to make live performance more interesting for electronic musicians…“

Thanks a lot to the people of LostAtEMinor!

Popular Mechanics is a magazine that has existed since the early 1900s. The magazine features sections on technology as well as science topics, and is really well known in the US.

Laura KINIRY wrote a nice article this week titled 8 Insane Musical Instruments for Popular Mechanics’ website, featuring the Percussa AudioCubes, as well as work by artist Walter Kitundu, currently in residence at the Exploratorium: The Museum of Science, Art and Human Perception in San Francisco.

Here is what she wrote about the AudioCubes:

Belgian researcher Bert Schiettecatte and his company, Percussa, launched AudioCubes in 2007 … Percussa developed a sensor and communication system that allows the cubes to sense one another position via infrared. As they communicate wirelessly, the shift in position tells the software (the kind sound designers, DJs and composers use on home computers) to modulate sound … (read more at 8 Insane Musical Instruments)

Besides the AudioCubes, the article also features the Theremin, a well known instrument that has been around since the 1920s and is capable of sensing gestures (pitch and volume dimensions only), like the AudioCubes.

A big thank you to Laura and Popular Mechanics for covering our AudioCubes!

TedxKids@Brussels

During the breaks, kids as well as adults will have the chance to make music with the AudioCubes at the booth of the Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology (IBBT). IBBT is an independent research institute founded by the Flemish government to stimulate ICT innovation. They recently bought a set of AudioCubes and decided to show them at their booth at TEDxKids@Brussels, because the AudioCubes are a perfect innovation to be shown at this event.

Live Performance versus recorded music (Music Supported Here)

Results from the survey showed that 64% of the interviewees agreed that “live performance will continue to generate more revenue than recorded music“.

Definitely a reason why it’s time to start thinking about your live act and consider an audiovisual live performance tool like AudioCubes

Last week SIC TV, one of the major TV Channels in Portugal, did an interview with Antonio Machado about new musical instruments. During the interview Antonio talked about the AudioCubes as well as a number of other new musical instruments such as the Tenori-on, Eigenharp Alpha and Pico. Please have a look at the video below to watch the interview (in Portugese). To see the AudioCubes in action, scroll down to 2:03.

Antonio Machado is a very active and enthusiastic AudioCubes user from Portugal. “The cubes are simply fantastic! I’m using them more and more in different setups.” he wrote to us. For instance, he’s using them in a live theater show for kids, Ti-To-Tis, which we talked about last week (AudioCubes used in a live theater show for kids: Ti-To-Tis) . For those of you who remember, he’s indeed the Antonio who made those beautiful pictures of the AudioCubes in spring (AudioCubes in Spring pictures (: gorgeous pictures taken by an AudioCubes fan and user)

Kevin English of official.fm posted a great article about the AudioCubes here last week. Normally, official.fm only write on their blog about artists using their tools in a very cool way. However, they sometimes make an exception: “we have a soft spot for interesting technologies that are an extension of our community” as he explains.

Kevin is very enthusiastic about the AudioCubes: “Instead of feeling restricted by the existing tools for creating electronic music AudioCubes allow you to have control over the technology itself. To me, this is a brand new type of musical instrument, a new performance tool…“

A couple of weeks ago (March 2011) Bert and I were interviewed by a reporter of the Belgian channel VTM in Sunnyvale (CA). Since we were one of the companies who won the pitch competition in Belgium, the reporter was interested to learn more about our company and our experiences we had in the Bay Area.

I’m really sorry guys but the interview is in Dutch. So if you ever wanted to practice your Dutch, then now it’s the time to do it Click here to watch the video.