Laoban Soundsystem
Laoban Soundsystem is a 6,000-watt massive soundsystem fabricated in China. The plans to make it are 100% copyleft under a Creative Commons share-alike license. This copyleft hardware is called Qi Hardware (http://qi-hardware.com). Laoban is Qi Hardware. All steps needed to build the speakers are documented and the knowledge to reproduce the soundsystem is made available to anyone, particularly on the web at http://laoban-soundsystem.com.
As with the 1.0 iteration of the system involving multiple events and artists such as long2, Ren Linxiao, D4Q1N, Xu Tao, Cai Kai, and RayDesign, all Laoban Soundsystem's create contexts for dynamic mixing of sound and people. From the original concept of soundsystems rumbling out of the ghettos of Kingston and UK garages, this platform produces spontaneous sound parties in China. It also uncovers unique and experimental content by Chinese artists, musicians and hackers as happened with artist Ai Weiwei at the "Boycott the Internet Day" on July 1, 2009 in Caochangdi.
Because the system is Qi Hardware compliant, the plans for making Laoban can be taken to any factory in China for reproduction. From the speakers to the plywood boxes, the formula is simple: give money and plans to Chinese manufacturer and another Laoban Soundsystem is delivered to your home.
A Laoban Soundsystem sits proud at 1.5 meters high. It includes four boxes, 2 big sub woofers and 2 full range boxes. Its solid plywood case is tightly sealed with Chinese broken ice patterned aluminum grills guarding the exposed speakers. It may be set-up and assembled rapidly for an event of hundreds of people.
With Laoban Soundsystem 2.0 we will throw three large scale events at three unique locales in China. Each event will build off the previous one and will explore a new form of production and investigate large-scale mixing culture. The events will be documented online at http://laoban-soundsystem.com
Plans
The plans are at http://laoban-soundsystem.com. I'm putting version 2.0 of Laoban Soundsystem here.
