Laptop Battle

New Year, New Hosts

2007-07-26T18:47:00.000-07:00

The Atlanta Laptop Battle events are now being hosted by Threv of Nophi and The Mobius fame. For up to date info and details, please check here: Laptop Battle's New Home.

Best of luck to the new host and all of this year's contestants. Watch out for Dr. Rheinhardt--this year I'm no longer a host--I'm a contestant.

--Matt

2006 ATL Laptop Battle Finals - Wrap Up

2006-10-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came out to support the Atlanta Laptop Battle Finals last night. This was by far the most successful Laptop music event the city has ever seen. A huge thanks is owed to Bean and Lenny's for believing in us, to our panel of expert judges (Richard Devine, Omar Torres, and Craig Dongoski) and to all of the contestants who put it on the line to make the event what it was.

The judges didn't have an easy job picking from the eight finalists from our last two battles. Every contestant stepped up his/her game, and while the judges didn't always agree with the popular vote of the audience, it's hard to fault the kind of expertise we had on our judging panel.

The double elimination format allowed each contestant ample opportunity to move forward. I enjoyed the drama that resulted from brackets collapsing and rematches becoming inevitable.

Once again, we had about as diverse a group of sounds as one could hope for with a pool of only eight competitors. From Reaktor to Fruity Loops, Live to Pluggo, and some crazy shit that Graham Coleman was using that flipped everyone out, it was fun to see that everyone had his or her own approach. While there are different techniques to playing most instruments, the laptop has got to be the single most versatile and powerful performance tool for a battle.

I was particularly impressed with Minidestroy's approach of calling out his opponents with samples of their names--drawing out the true nature of the BATTLE. Likewise, it was great to see Graham Coleman find a balance between out-geeking everyone and making people dance at the same time. Merkatroid summed up the dirty south better than just about anyone else I've seen with a vicious mashup of crunk hip hop and country and noise that far out-stepped anything he did in the previous battle.

Somehow though, the night belonged to the two former Secret Life guys. After an earlier defeat at Threv's hands, Tricil managed to work his way through the Losers' bracket to meet his former band-mate again in a rematach for the title. Having navigated through the top bracket without a loss, Threv needed to be beaten twice to lose the night to Tricil. Utimately, the judges spoke, and the only man to perform in every one of the Atlanta Laptop Battles, Threv, proved a fitting victor.

Now, Threv is making plans for Seattle as he no doubt wonders what he should do with all of the new software he's won. The Atlanta Laptop Battle series for 2006 is over. Will it be back in '07? Probably, in some form or other. Stay tuned.

Below are audio clips of the performances. The first few battles didn't make it to the hard drive (apologies to those contestants' whose tracks I did not capture,) but everything else is here for those who missed out or for those who want to relive the madness.

Laptop Battle Audio
Tricil
Battle 2 v. Threv (L)
Battle 3 v. Recompas (W)
Battle 4 v. Minidestroy (W)
Battle 5 v. Merkatroid (W)
Final Battle v. Threv (L)

PH
Battle 2 vs Recompas (L)

Recompas
Battle 2 v. PH (W)
Battle 3 v. Tricil (L)

Threv
Battle 2 v. Tricil (W)
Battle 3 v. Merkatroid (W)
Final Battle v. Tricil (W)

Minky Boodle
Battle 2 v. Graham Coleman (L)

Minidestroy
Battle 1 v. Minky Boodle (W)
Battle 2 v. Merkatroid (L)
Battle 3 v. Graham Coleman (W)
Battle 4 v. Tricil (L)

Graham Coleman
Battle 1 v. Merkatroid (L)
Battle 2 v. Minky Boodle (W)
Battle 3 v. Minidestroy (L)

Merkatroid
Battle 1 v. Graham Coleman (W)
Battle 2 v. Minidestroy (W)
Battle 3 v. Threv (L)
Battle 4 v. Tricil (L)

Laptop Battle Finals - Rescheduled!

2006-09-17T21:24:00.000-07:00

We have rescheduled the final Laptop Battle. Details are below:

Laptop Battle Finals
October 14th, 2006
9PM
@ the NEW Lenny's
486 Decatur Street
Click HERE for a map and more info about Lenny's.

LB Finals - Postponed

2006-08-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

Due to the premature closing of Lenny's, our venue for the Laptop Battle, we are postponing the finals that were scheduled for Friday night. A new date will be announced as soon as possible. Until then, thanks for the support, and the battle will continue very soon.

Laptop Battle Finals - ATLANTA

2006-07-16T17:44:00.000-07:00

Come out to represent Atlanta and help us pick the Atlanta Laptop Battle Champion who will be moving on to compete on the national stage in Seattle in December. Details to follow.

The contestants are set:
Tricil
Minky Boodle
Threv
Merkatroid
Recompas
pH
Graham Coleman
Minidestroy

Friday, August 25, 2006
Lenny's Bar
Atlanta
$5

Battle Three - Wrap Up

2006-06-12T22:34:00.000-07:00

Tonight's Laptop Battle was amazing. Congrats to our champ Minky Boodle (who performed last time as Pixivixen). Atlanta's only female contestant showed the boys how it's done!

Thanks once again for a great battle in Atlanta. As always, Lenny's was the perfect place and we got great support from Spencer, Bean, and all of the staff.

Laptop Battle 3 saw the widest range of performance styles yet. From Poodleface's video commentary theatrics to Graham Coleman's real-time code writing to Minky Boodle's genre defying dance attack, this battle event brought out some amazing talent and demonstrated the potential for creativity and experimentation with the format. pH went almost entirely beatless and moved on to the finals, while Threv remixed the DuckTales theme song for one of the night's most crowd-pleasing moments.

The field was stacked almost entirely with new faces, which was a joy to see, and the crowd had something different to look forward to in each round. While our rearranged format left a few people scratching their heads, it felt like the round robin and elmination rounds worked to give our seven contestants a fair shot at proving their skills.

The group round was tight, but emerging from their groups were Threv, Minky Boodle, pH, and Graham Coleman--a group that couldn't possibly have represented any more divergent styles and approaches to the battle. These four will advance to the Atlanta Laptop Battle Finals this fall to face off against Merkatroid, Tricil, Mini Destroy, and Recompas. The finals should be interesting, as these eight contestants are all doing something pretty different (some of them radically different), and they are all using a variety of software and compositional techniques.

Thanks once again to everyone who competed and to everyone who showed up to root the contestants on. We'll be back in the fall for the finals. Until then...

Battle Three - Sign Up

2006-05-12T17:26:00.000-07:00

This is it folks, the last chance to score a spot in the finals for the 2006 Atlanta Laptop Battle Series. Keep in mind that the winner of the finals gets a plane ticket to compete at the national event in Seattle, so this is the last chance to get a foot in the door for that trip and other prizes.

If you placed top 4 in the last Laptop Battle, you can't enter this one. Everyone else is invited back to compete for the last 4 spots in the final battle. As with last time, we'll use two minute rounds and a panel of jugdes to decide who goes on and who goes home.

Monday
June 12
Lenny's Bar
Atlanta

If you need to read up on the rules and the format for the event, scroll on down to the previous couple of posts on this page. If not, jump right in. We're taking the first 16 people who sign up.

Sign up below, and be sure to include your EMAIL address. Yes, even if you signed up for the last one, please include your email.
UPDATE
Maybe that last sentence wasn't clear. When you sign up LEAVE YOUR MOTHERFUCKING EMAIL ADDRESS so I can add you to the distro list for event info. If I can't contact you, I can't confirm you are in. Jeesh!
Spread the word!

Battle Three

2006-04-04T21:29:00.000-07:00

Monday
June 12
Lenny's Bar
Atlanta

Battle Two - Wrap Up

2006-03-02T07:18:00.000-08:00

Atlanta's second laptop battle has come and gone, and I will dare say that it was even more successful and more fun than the first.

The only disappointment for me was that we had so many people register for the event who later cancelled or just didn't show--or showed up too late to get in on the action. Still, with the twelve contestants who did put it on the line, the competition was stepped up from our first battle, and there were quite a few new faces in the mix.

With new faces came a little more variety too. From Reset's pounding song for New Orleans to Pixivixen's lounge music cut ups to Poppa G's southern fried hip hop, the competition moved further away from kitschy mash ups and into more creative territory.

Not that mash ups and remixes didn't and don't have their place, as Merkatroid clearly showed. Since a lot of the Laptop Battle's success depends on the crowd getting into the action, a quick hatchet job to a well know track can be an easy way to win favor.

Last battle's second place finisher, Recompas, managed to squeak in to a fourth place finish this time, securing him a spot in the finals along with Minidestroy, Merkatroid, and Laptop Battle II's champion, Tricil.

The format changes for this battle seemed to help. For the fist couple of matches, most people still didn't use their entire two minutes, which was a limit we lowered from the three minute rounds that we set last time. As Laptop Battle veterans Christopher Morris and Dharmatronix both showed, you can do a lot in two minutes, and you can have a fully realized song arc in that short span.

The judges brought another new dimension to the event, making the scoring process perhaps a little more fair and a little more controversial at the same time. Sometimes the clear crowd favorite wasn't the judges' choice, and sometimes the judges themselves weren't completely decisive about a winner in each match, but allowing the judges to look for elements other than crowd response gave people who were willing to push the envelope creatively and technically a chance to shine, even when their compositions weren't the most rousing, or when they hadn't brought the most supporters.

Many, many thanks are due to our panel of judges, the competitors, and the fine people at Lenny's for allowing us to throw this event. Laptop Battle III will be announced soon. If you'd like to sign up as a contestant or a judge, keep an eye on this space.

Battle Two - Registration is Closed

2006-02-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

We've got a full bracket of 16 for the upcoming Laptop Battle II at Lenny's. If you'd like to sign up as an alternate, please feel free. Otherwise, be on the lookout for Laptop Battle III later this spring.

Laptop Battle II

Autophobe
Chistopher Morris
Cobrakai
Darby
Dharmatronix
e-sin
Merkatroid
Nefarious D
Pixivixen
Recompas
Robdeth
Scott Yee
Threv
Tim
Tricil

Monday, Feb. 27th
Lenny's Bar

Battle Two - Sign Up

2006-01-13T19:54:00.000-08:00

It's that time again!

Once again, Lenny's and Kirkwood Ballers Club are helping us host the Atlanta Laptop Battle. The battle this time should be fierce since people will know a little more about what they are getting themselves into. Even more exciting, with Laptop Battle II we'll be setting things up for a big prize!

As before, the field of contestants will be capped at 16, so register now and secure your spot in the line up. When you register, please include your email address so that I can confirm your registration and keep you updated about the details for the evening.

A few changes this time around:

2 Minute Rounds: Almost no one needed 3 minutes, so we're cutting it back to 2. Get your best material together and make sure you can make your point in 2 minutes.

Judging: The scores for each round this time will be a combination of judges scores and the audience response. Judges will be looking for creativity and stage presence while the audience may just scream if you have nice hair, so we're combining both to determine the winners.

The Big Prize: No trophy this time around, but instead, the top finishers will move on to a Battle of Champions to determine Atlanta's contestant for a National Laptop Battle to be held in December. The Atlanta winner will get a plane ticket to Seattle and a chance to compete for big prizes and eternal glory on the national stage. The stakes have been raised!

The rest of the rules will be the same, so read the description of Battle One if you have any questions.

What: Laptop Battle II
When: Monday, Feb 27th, 10 PM
Where: Lenny's Bar

Hit the link below to sign up, and if you need any encouragement or want to know what this is all about, check out the video highlights from Battle One (This file requires Quicktime 7 and probably won't play in Firefox!? Thanks to Recompas for the soundtrack.)

Battle Two

2005-11-03T11:55:00.000-08:00

Details soon!

Battle One - Wrap Up

2005-10-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone for coming out to Atlanta's first ever Laptop Battle. The event was a huge success, so I imagine that we'll do one again in the not-so-distant future. Keep an eye out for an announcement for Laptop Battle II, and as always, check out Kirkwood Ballers Club at Lenny's every Monday for more sonic insanity.

So what did we learn from the Laptop Battle?

It helps to have a pool of contestants that is divisible by four!
My apologies to the first bracket of folks who had an extra tall hill to climb to get to the final battle. That said, one of the finalists was Mr. Recompas who had to climb out of that first bracket and prove himself over and over. I think that makes his Laptop Battle skills that much more impressive.

Showmanship counts for something, but it is not everything.
I was so happy to see Pensil come out in a crazy costume with a great gimmick. The crowd ate it up and his was probably the most memorable round of the night. That said, the crowd still voted mainly for the music over the theatrics, something I think Robert had to deal with in his second battle. Oddly enough, the final battle between Recompas and Darby Dust was the least eventful from a showmanship perspective, so let that be a lesson: keep the music as fresh as the stage show.

Three minutes is longer than it sounds.
Almost no one used up their three minute time alotment. I was actually considering penalizing people for not going the distance until I realized that most people were bailing at about 2:30. The soundman was all excited about the opportunity to cut people off midstream, but he only got to exercise the mute button a couple of times. I think that next time the early rounds might get cut to two minute battles, with a longer battle for the final.

It helps to have friends
Bringing a crowd of friends and supporters is one of the only ways to tip the scales of fate in your favor when the contestants are evenly matched. We're going to make more use of the decible meter next time, but it's clear that having a cheering section helps. The cheering also helps the event a hell of a lot, so bring out as many people as you can.

I had a great time at the Laptop Battle, and I think most of the folks there did too. As Tim pointed out to me, there's a certain amount of decision-making that goes into playing an event like that surrounding the question: "do I challenge the audience, of give them what they want?" I was amazed to see that everyone was able to hype the crowd, get people up on their feet and into the whole thing. Believe me, I've been to and played at enough laptop shows in Atlanta to know that Monday's show was a special experience. We just need to carry that energy forward to the next battle and to other shows.

Next time, I'm hoping for even more diversity of sound, a full bracket of 16 contestants, and a better trophy! Thanks to Bean and Randy at KBC/Lenny's and thanks to the fine folks of laptopbattle.org for the encouragment.

Sincere thanks again to everyone who came out to play, and to those who supported the event as spectators. A short video of the night will be coming soon.

We'll do it again real soon.

Battle One

2005-09-08T23:10:00.000-07:00

Be a part of Atlanta's First
LAPTOP BATTLE.

What is a Laptop Battle you ask?

It's simple. 16 musicians compete in a single elimination tournament to see who can rock a laptop the hardest. Contestants are paired up at random and entered into a bracket. Each battler has 3 minutes to show the crowd that he/she does not suck. The winner of each round continues on to the next round until a single champion is crowned for the night.

What can I use in the Battle?

Only a laptop and a mouse/pointing device. No midi controllers or other instruments or microphones are permitted. This is a contest to put pure composition, sound design, and performance to the test. Since everyone has different gear, it's not fair to let some people bring controllers and extraneous devices while others don't have that option, so the contest is limited to what you can do with your laptop and mouse.

How do you know who wins?

Crowd response and a panel of judges will determine the winner of each round. The more you can hype the crowd or wow them with your skills, the better chance you have of winning. If you look like you are reading MySQL code or updating your blog, you probably won't stand a chance. This competition is designed to showcase the performance aspect of playing music with a laptop.

What software can I use?

Anything you want. Really. You can code something yourself in C++ or use any application that you have available. Of course the software you use may determine how interesting or interactive your set can be, so just keep performance in mind. No one wants to watch you press play in WinAmp for 3 minutes.

What type of music do I have to make?

Anything goes. You want to spend your three minutes on harsh noise, go ahead. You want to break an amen apart for 3 minutes, be our guest. You've written software to convert the electrical impulses in your brain into sine waves--GREAT. Anything goes, from mashup to noise to jungle to hip hop to cut ups to something we haven't yet thought of.

What is the point?

It's fun, man. If you are one of these people who think that music can't be judged or that competition hurts the creative process... this isn't for you. The Laptop Battle is meant to be a fun, engaging way to show people what you can do. There's also a PRIZE for the winner.

I have heard of this before. Was this your idea?

No, this sort of thing happens in other places too. You can check out http://www.laptopbattle.org/ for more info on similar events in other parts of the country. One day we hope to take the best from Atlanta and square off against Laptop Battlers from other cities, but for now, you just have to come out and show everyone what you've got.

How do I sign up?

Just click on the SIGN UP button below to reply to this post, and include your name and email address or some way to contact you. Everyone who signs up will get an email confirmation. Once you are confirmed, your name goes on the flyer and people start to wonder what you are going to do, so don't back out. Alternates may be used if you fail to show. All contestants should be at the venue 30 minutes prior to the start of the battle. Of course you'll get all of those details once you sign up.

When is this happening?

The inaugural Atlanta Laptop Battle will take place OCTOBER 24th at Lenny's as a part of the Kirkwood Ballers' Club. Be there!