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# Amsterdam Music Hack Day 2012: Humor, Hardware Hacks & Much More
- URL: https://www.hypebot.com/amsterdam-music-hack-day-features-conceptual-art-and-hardware-hacks/
- Published: 2012-03-26T08:23:50.000Z
- Updated: 2012-03-26T08:23:50.000Z
- Description: The 2012 Amsterdam Music Hack Day took place over the weekend and it resulted in another unique group of projects. There's quite a bit of humor evident in these hacks. Continue reading [https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/03/amsterdam-music-hack-day-features-conceptual-art-and-hardware-hacks.html]
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Startups & Funding, Amsterdam Music Hack Day, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-01-21 10:55

[![Mhdams](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e20168e93f4fa7970c-100wi "Mhdams")](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e20168e93f4fa7970c-popup?ref=hypebot.com)

The **2012 Amsterdam Music Hack Day** took place over the weekend and it resulted in another unique group of projects. There's quite a bit of humor evident in these hacks that strike me as involving more creative whimsy than previous hack days. Also, more hacks than usual involved hardware.

I can't say this across the board in terms of the history of Music Hack Days but, of those I've covered, Amsterdam feels much more like a tech art or conceptual art gathering than any of the others.

This year's [Amsterdam Music Hack Day](http://amsterdam.musichackday.org/2012/index.php?page=Main+page&ref=hypebot.com) occured March 25 and 25 at the [Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst](http://nimk.nl/?ref=hypebot.com). [SoundCloud](http://www.soundcloud.com/?ref=hypebot.com) was the most widely used service at this hackathon. [7digital](http://www.7digital.com/?ref=hypebot.com) also made an appearance in multiple apps which is interesting given that they're primarly an MP3 download store.

A number of the following [hacks from Amsterdam Music Hack Day](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=Amsterdam%5F2012%5FHacks&ref=hypebot.com) don't have demos. In previous posts, I've featured those with demos or graphics but many of these were really interesting idea so I think they're worth including. I've divided them into hardware and concept categories but many of the hardware hacks are quite interesting conceptually. Plus, a bonus category for hacks referencing Barack Obama.

**HARDWARE HACKING** 

[ ](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e2016303496cc8970d-popup?ref=hypebot.com)

[![Mmmmm](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e20167643e5cc4970b-200wi "Mmmmm")](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e20167643e5cc4970b-popup?ref=hypebot.com)

[](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=MusixMatchMoogMaxMSP&ref=hypebot.com)[MusixMatchMoogMaxMSP](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=MusixMatchMoogMaxMSP&ref=hypebot.com)  
"(aka MMMMM), the ThereminKaraokeSystem. Uses the MusixMatch API to find lyrics & subtitles; 'sings' them by theremin-controlled VoiceSynthesis."

**[It's raining bits!](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=It%27s%5Fraining%5Fbits!&ref=hypebot.com)**  
"A musical umbrella which detects falling raindrops and turns them into 8bit music."

**[HearMyFace](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=HearMyFace&ref=hypebot.com)**  
"Two hands on you\[r\] keyboard, you always though\[t\] 'i whish i had a third hand to control all these buttons'… well you can…use you\[r\] face to control these buttons."

**[Bluetooth MIDI interface](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=Bluetooth%5FMIDI%5Finterface&ref=hypebot.com)**  
"This project is a proof of concept that you can transmit and receive MIDI over Bluetooth. Using the circuit, you can convert any battery-powerable MIDI device to a wireless MIDI device. The circuit can be powered with batteries, too."

**[Tryalogue](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=Tryalogue&ref=hypebot.com)**  
"A text to speech to speech recognition app. Let your phone talk to itself." Technically a software hack but it features hardware and the inspiration of Alvin Lucier.

**CONCEPTUAL HACKS** 

[![Amsterdam-musichackday-soundwich](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e2016303496d16970d-200wi "Amsterdam-musichackday-soundwich")](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e2016303496d16970d-popup?ref=hypebot.com)

[](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=Soundwich&ref=hypebot.com)[Soundwich](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=Soundwich&ref=hypebot.com)  
"I was impressed, when I first visited the website that invited to #musichackday Amsterdam this year. They listed 17 APIs to hack with…These soundwich-recipes take data and process them through modules that are rendered as the filling of the sandwich."

**[Remix:crowdsourced](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=Remix:crowdsourced&ref=hypebot.com)**  
"Remix a track by reshuffling its bars based on how well different pieces fit together." Demo seems to be having problems but check out [this cool graph](http://remix.omid.io/coldplaypolitik/graph?ref=hypebot.com).

**[ThisIsTheirJam](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=ThisIsTheirJam&ref=hypebot.com)**  
Flips the concept of [This Is My Jam](http://www.thisismyjam.com/?ref=hypebot.com) to find a track likely to please your friends. "It's a bad idea" but the "social marketing ghost is everywhere!"

**[DongHua](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=DongHua&ref=hypebot.com)**  
"Every hour we get the hottest animated gifs from reddit/r/gifs, find out their period in seco\[n\]ds, divide by a magic number then search the echonest for tracks on that BPM. Play them all as a layed back playlist on spotify."

**[Morsecloud](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=Morsecloud&ref=hypebot.com)**  
"In an effort to party like it's 1899, this service allows you to create and share morse coded audio messages, posting them to your soundcloud account or to another soundcloud user's dropbox."

**[CitySonar](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=CitySonar&ref=hypebot.com)**  
"An entirely client-side Javascript application which pulls data from OpenStreetMap and then generates audio tones on the client using the HTML5 Audio API to convert the feature information into sound."

**[The awesometastic lyrics frobnifier](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=The%5Fawesometastic%5Flyrics%5Ffrobnifier&ref=hypebot.com)**  
"You enter a Last.fm user name, and then it contacts MusixMatch and retrieves the lyrics of your 250 top tracks (according to your Last.fm profile). It frobnifies the lyrics into a mish mash of words (existing and non-existing)."

**[EML2MLW 3000](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=EML2MLW%5F3000&ref=hypebot.com)**  
"Transform Robots' EMC Chatter to mechanical longitudinal waves and blast them to pieces. Please bring earplugs."

**BARACK OBAMA REFERENCES** 

[![Beat-barack](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e20168e93f53d9970c-200wi "Beat-barack")](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e20168e93f53d9970c-popup?ref=hypebot.com)

[](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=BeatBarack&ref=hypebot.com)[BeatBarack](http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=BeatBarack&ref=hypebot.com)  
"Experiments with Quartz Composer as a visualiser for beatboxing. On the occasion of the upcoming Beatbox Battle World Championship…On the BeatBarack patch, Getty Images' RSS feed is queried \[for\] Obama images, buffers them, and displays them on the cubes."

**[Gamedrop](http://www.michielgardner.nl/musichackday/gamedrop/?ref=hypebot.com)**  
"A music game which is an homage to name-drops, inspired by the true king of namedrops: The Game." Barack Obama is [thanked](http://www.michielgardner.nl/musichackday/gamedrop/howitworks.php?ref=hypebot.com).

**More:**

- [Standout Hacks from Music Hack Day Boston 2011](https://www.hypebot.com/standout-hacks-from-music-hack-day-boston-2011/)
- [Top Picks From SF Music Hack Day 2012](https://www.hypebot.com/top-apps-from-sf-music-hack-day-2012-based-on-marketing-potential/)
- [Music Hack Day London: Spotify Hacks & More](https://www.hypebot.com/music-hack-day-london-features-spotify-hacks/)

*Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith maintains his business writing hub at [Flux Research](http://www.fluxresearch.com/?ref=hypebot.com), music industry resources at [Music Biz Blogs](http://www.musicbizblogs.com/?ref=hypebot.com) and is relaunching [All World Dance](http://www.allworlddance.com/?ref=hypebot.com). To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact:*

clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com

.