Kids on DSP

“Music doesn’t get much more futuristic, or more fun, than this.” The Guardian, UK

London based Kids on DSP worked closely with artists Carl Craig and Acid Pauli. The application features 8 scenes which all play in the reactive minimal techno domain with a twist on microphone input. The acoustic surrounding of the listener is seamless integrated with minimal techno beats in realtime. The Kids really take mixing and sampling culture into the augmented reality dimension.

Use this app to

download

  • get a sonic rush

  • create your augmented mixes

  • send an individual and special mix to your friends



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Interview about the making of Timecruising




The kids don’t play guitar, they don’t play keyboard and they don’t sing, their playground is the realtime signal, they play dsp. They highjack your perception, dub it, bitcrush it, twist it, pitch it, process it, put it back together and inject it right into your brain. The kids are thief’s who sneak into the signal domain of your environment, rewire it and make it pulse and groove and mash it with beats. The kids are the music you can’t think of. The kids don’t give a s**t.


“While Oasis took their final bow as a Beatles covers band, minimal techno act Kids on DSP are set to genuinely push the boundaries of music by releasing their debut album solely in the terrific new RjDj format. You’ll only be able play the album’s atmospheric electro noodlings on an iPhone or iPod Touch, but the microphone capabilities of those devices allow you to completely shift and shape the music. As the duo explain in a YouTube video at, tracks gets louder in bustling environments and quieter when there’s no background noise. Better still, if you talk, clap or whistle, it seamlessly makes your noise part of the track. Music doesn’t get much more futuristic, or more fun, than this.” 


Chris Salmon, The Guardian, UK




—————————— Scenes ——————————


Dynamophone


Dynamophone is the reactive horror movie soundtrack. Best enjoyed in spooky places during the hours of darkness. There are two major parts concerning microphone manipulation. The first one produces spooky chords with lots of delay. In the second part it disorganizes temporal coherence of your acoustic surroundings. Try it in conversations.


Urban25


Urban25 is a coproduction with German Artist Acid Pauli. It produces a techno track solely out of your acoustic surroundings! There is nothing else in it. Well – we did a little bit of cheating. Once every now and then there are some additional drum samples. Make percussive sounds to change the beats and enjoy the beautiful chords generated by the vocoder.


Timecruising


The music is based on Carl Craig’s track Landcruising. But instead of cruising through land we take a dubby cruise through time. Microphone input is swirling around your head. After a while there is a point in the scene where parts of the music and your environment starts sucking backwards in time. In fact you hear reality backwards in real-time. Is that possible?


Departures


First flight to a new world of sound departing at gate…  Departures cuts your sonic environment into evolving rhythmic patterns and adapts the slices to the harmonies of the music. In some parts of the scene the pitch of the microphone input is modulated in order to play a melody.


Dimensions


A journey to a parallel sonic dimension. Some parts of Dimensions react to the loudness of the sonic environment you are in. Microphone input is turned on and off in rhythmic patterns, similar to what DJ’s call cutting. Overlay what I was saying with what I was recording and what I was hearing.


Doppelganger


Your Doppelganger is a cheeky animal, a musical beast. Talk to him, wait a bit and listen to the answer. Besides talking to you, this scene also listens to the loudness of your sonic environment. Doppelganger also likes passing motorcycles.


DrowningStreet


Drowning Street creates a deep black sea of sound out of the microphone input. The frequency spectrum of the microphone input constantly changes like slowly evolving waves. There is a funky synth in some parts, that changes its sound depending on the loudness of the streets you are swimming trough. Honestly, this is revolutionary.


We are listening


Record your views about Kids on DSP and send them to the Kids! They will listen and they will respond. Reverb and a crazy delay is added to your voice. From time to time your hear manipulated sounds snippets out of one of the other scenes.