I'm at the Innovation Factory at Midem, about to watch the hackers demo what they've been working on over the weekend. I've seen some awesome things. Leap motion Bieber swatting. Awesome, complex webgl visualisations, powered by an echonest music sync library. A way to DJ using track sources from Spotify. Awesome hacks all round, focusing on all different kinds of applications and using a wide variety of technology.
For my hack, I tried to make a synthesizer (which I did) that can mimic other synths based solely on an audio file (which I did not quite manage). I used Maximilian and IPlug for the first time, and it was quite easy to get a quck synth going. It would've been a lot easier if I had any experience of C++, but even still, it was quite straightforward using both of those libraries. The best bit is that you can compile your IPlug project into a standalone mac app, as well as a variety of DAW plugin formats. I really enjoyed all the DSP stuff, I do really love DSP. However. I didn't quite get to grips with C++ quickly enough to finish my hack on time. I ended up with a really weird error to do with 'EXC_BAD_ACCESS' that I didn't understand at all, which totally prevented me from progressing. I'm quite sure I'll get home and realise I have a typo somewhere. Regardless, I will persevere, figure out what's going on, and fix it - I'm hoping to use this project as a final year project at university, so I will get to do all the parameter extraction stuff.
This weekend has been awesome. I got to go to Cannes. Spent time with great people. Got lost in the building that hosts the Cannes Film Festival at 6am. Learned a shit ton of new stuff. All in all, this has without a doubt been the best part of 2014 so far! Bring on the next Music Hack Day! :D