Show off your Open Source Music Chops

by Aaron Huslage - May. 25, 2008Comments (0)

Like so many things in our world, open source has contributed highly to the production of music and other media arts. Audio production tools like Pure Data, Audacity and SuperCollider are very well respected with the broader audio community. This writer is not aware of any currently operating conference where users of these programs can get together.

Liverpool, UK based SoundNetwork is trying to fix this hole in the open source landscape by holding the Open Source City conference from June 17-22. They bill the show as "micro-festival of open source practice in the production of media art and music" and it promises to be very interesting indeed. Their program includes sessions on topics from using various tools to building mesh networks. The group asks people to bring their laptops and other equipment to facilitate participation in the session's activities.

Small conferences like this continue to be very helpful in getting the word out about many open source applications. The BarCamp model has become popular for these gatherings, but Open Source City is more of a standard conference makeup. I encourage anyone in the area to check it out and report back to me on your experience.