Hasta La Gadget!

Zoe Keating makes entrancing, hauntingly beautiful music using a traditional French cello, a MacBook, and an arsenal of audio-crunching software and scripts.

“My music is the fusion of information architecture and classical music,” Keating says in this Wired.com video. “The way that you problem-solve in the world of technology … really lends itself to problem-solving with the kind of music that I do.”

She’s one of a growing group of musicians who use computers to record snippets of music as they play. The computer records these snippets and then plays them back in loops, allowing Keating to create complex, layered compositions.

Keating, who was an information architect during the dot-com boom, sees work of making her music as similar to that of planning and building websites: In both cases, she says, she’s building large structures out of simple building blocks.

“It’s really neat when you build up all these little, small things, you can make something that is otherworldly,” Keating says.

A Keating performance is the audio equivalent of watching a bricklayer build a house: Her compositions start out simply, but as they progress, she adds successive layers of sound, stacking and removing them to create music that without computers would require a dozen musicians or more.

She makes it all happen using a MacBook Pro running Ableton Live and SooperLooper. She controls the computer primarily with her feet, tapping on a bank of 10 MIDI foot pedals near her chair. The pedals activate custom AppleScripts she has created, which in turn control the audio software, enabling her to create and play back sometimes dozens of simultaneous loops.

Wired.com visited Keating’s Bay Area studio to find out how she makes her music, what technology she uses, and whether becoming super-popular on Twitter (where she posts as @zoecello) has changed her life.

If you want to know more, you can watch the longer, director’s cut version of Wired.com’s Zoe Keating interview (playing time: 10 minutes 15 seconds). We also have a bonus video below: Zoe Keating performing a new composition, “Escape Artist.”

You, like me, are the perfect shopper. When we go to the store to buy a gadget, we’re all about the businesslike efficiency. We have researched our options on the internet (most likely by reading the excellent Gadget Lab) and are going to the store because we want the item today (or in my case, because online retailing sucks in Spain). The only time we’ll take is to perhaps compare the feel of a few different items in the flesh.

Like I said, we’re perfect. It’s that other guy who wastes time, and means you have to wait on line for half an hour to make a two-minute transaction. I have been watching these people, and they fall into a few distinct categories:

Reassurance Guy — Gonna Buy it but Needs His Hand Held

This chap is a good bet for the store on a quiet afternoon — he will buy eventually, but it’s going to take a long time to get him there.

He’ll be asking question after question, even though he has likely done his research and already knows the answers. He might even contradict the clerk, but eventually, after much foreplay, he’ll pull out his credit card.

Think of it like a first date: You have to go through hours worth of dinner-buying, listening with feigned interest, hand holding and such before you get to put the cash in the register, as it were.

Annoyance factor: 3/5

No Internet Guy — Questions and Never Buys

This is the guy I get stuck in line behind all the time. He drifts from store to store, usually on a Saturday afternoon (hey, it’s not like he has a girlfriend to hang out with) and asks questions. They’ll range from lamely open “Which camera should I buy” to pointlessly precise, designed only to show that he knows something “So, this has the 12 bit RAW, but this one has 14 bit RAW, compressed. Which is best?

The worst part is that everyone knows this guy won’t buy anything, and the clerk still has to be polite and answer the never ending inquiries. This guy takes longer than anyone, and you never know when it will end. It’s like an episode of Columbo — “Oh, one more question.”

Annoyance factor: 5/5

Online Buyer Try-Out Guy

This one is a pain for the stores, but great for other customers. Online Buyer Try-Out Guy has already done his homework online and narrowed the selection down to three items. He is in the store merely to get a feel for the kit and decide which one to order from Amazon. You’ll recognize him as the businesslike fellow who tells the clerk that he “can’t decide” between the, say, a few cameras, and wants one last look before buying. At every stage hell tease the clerk that he’s going to make a purchase, but the clerk knows the score.

Us other customers love this guy as he moves quietly off to the side to play with the kit, freeing up the clerk to quickly run our credit card.

Annoyance factor (for customer): 0/5

Annoyance factor (for store clerk): 5/5

Quick Question Guy — It’s Never Quick

This one is a real pain. You know the guy — he skips to the front of the line just as you arrive at the counter and says to the clerk “Hey, buddy, a quick question!” How can he refuse? If you were hoping it would be a quick “Do you sell [brand A] batteries? Great, I’ll get back in line.” then you are a gullible fool. Quick Question Guy always manages to make it long, either rattling off more questions or just acting as if he was at the front of the queue in the first place. I hate this guy.

Annoyance factor: 5/5

The Player

This one doesn’t trouble us at all if we are perfectly focussed and there just to buy. The Player is the guy who spends hours in a store playing with the goods. He seems to be able to use the display-model Eee PC for hours at a time, despite it not actually being connected to the internet. This is far longer than an Eee PC owner can manage, even with internet. Lord knows how he gets the leisure time or the stamina (unlike No Internet Guy, who only shops on Saturdays, The Player is an all-week-long phenomenon).

The player has no special other characteristic, although he may still live with his mother and is often wearing a baseball cap. Normally, I wouldn’t have noticed this guy as I, like you, am perfectly organized and execute my shopping trips like in/out SWAT operations. Because of my job, though, sometimes I have to actually be the player, getting a hands-on with new hardware for the benefit of our esteemed readers.

Of course, I’m a professional, so he should get off that 17” unibody MacBook Pro right now and let me play. And by the way, I have a girlfriend and I don’t live with my mother, m’kay?

Annoyance factor: 1/5

Photo: ioerror/Flickr