excellent concept, poor application. surely choosing a well known piece which is royalty free is a far better way to show it off? I’m listening to this and CRINGING at the composition.

Posted at 7:32 am on Apr 29th, 2009 by Marty

repeat?

http://hackaday.com/2009/03/23/hacked-instruments-compete/

Posted at 7:59 am on Apr 29th, 2009 by raged

I thought the music was pretty good and the machine was impressive. I think in terms of servos too much because it always surprises me how much can be accomplished with what appear to be stepper motors.

Posted at 8:06 am on Apr 29th, 2009 by andrew

Sounds great. The slide effect works in this case, however it will be very limiting in the amount of pieces it can play. I would add a “mute” so that you can deaden the sound while the bridge is changing pitches.

Posted at 8:24 am on Apr 29th, 2009 by Dax

@marty: With regard to robotic instruments, why play something that a human guitarist can play, when you can play something a human guitarist could never physically play? Thus, you have to, well, DIY. I like it.

Posted at 8:30 am on Apr 29th, 2009 by rectilinear

The first part was hauntingly cool, but about halfway through it turned into “eric clapton shreds”

Posted at 8:47 am on Apr 29th, 2009 by strider_mt2k

Music is an interesting place for physical computing to be so popular if you think about its roll in society in the past. It’s been a performing art, something that people spend their lives mastering, filled with emotion and feeling. Something people aspire to being able to achieve. I’m fascinated by the mechanics of this project but as a live music fanatic there’s just not that level of improv, direction and feeling(currently anyway… and somewhere inside I hope there won’t ever be) that can be found in a good live performance where a band is just operating on the same wavelength but by no means mechanically.

Posted at 9:34 am on Apr 29th, 2009 by Matthias Welsh

@strider_mt2k: Wow yeah I don’t listen to clapton and now i know why. robot:1 clapton:0

Posted at 9:45 am on Apr 29th, 2009 by kyle

saw this when you did the story on the competition a ways back. I liked it so much it is now on my MP3 player.

Posted at 10:01 am on Apr 29th, 2009 by K

It’s just amazing, good video.

Posted at 10:19 am on Apr 29th, 2009 by LotteryPowerballNumbers

@dax:
The machine does have mutes, they’re right under the rotating picks.
Check out the video from about 2:03-2:15. You’ll notice that the screaming overdriven string on the right isn’t using the mute at all, while the ‘pluck-pluck’ strings to the left are.

Posted at 10:44 am on Apr 29th, 2009 by YenTheFirst

Haunting indeed, but they need a better shred song to show this things potential.

Posted at 11:47 am on Apr 29th, 2009 by blizzarddemon

Shouldn’t that be spelled “league”?

Posted at 1:16 pm on Apr 29th, 2009 by Philippe

@raged
not really a repeat. the link you posted was to a general overview of all the entries in that contest. this hackaday post is specifically about one of the entries (one of the best, in my opinion)

Posted at 2:25 pm on Apr 29th, 2009 by sol

taking the ‘robot guitar’ thing in a somewhat different direction, we have a street performer locally who’s a retired engineer.

He plays a fiddle in the conventional manner, and made himself an automatic guitar so he could accompany himself!

it’s powered by a treadle operated by his right foot, and plucks chords that he selects by pressing pedals with his left foot – the plucking seems to have more than one set of cams as I’m sure I’ve heard more than one plucking pattern.

i reckon it’s a pretty cool hack, making a guitar possible to play with your feet. :-)

There are a couple of movies of it in action on his myspace page

http://www.myspace.com/akafilm

it’s quite a sight, and fascinating to watch him play it right there in front of you.

Posted at 3:22 pm on Apr 29th, 2009 by Richard

It would be great if it were tuned properly. The string second from the left being the worst.

Posted at 6:45 pm on Apr 29th, 2009 by Jeff Wallin

someone needs to throw the ebow on this.

Posted at 7:02 am on Apr 30th, 2009 by theorifice

Sounds as if Autechre attempted to compose some instrumental black metal :D
I like it, especially the 2nd half where it starts sounding crazy.

Posted at 1:08 am on May 2nd, 2009 by chaoxor

Sounds very much like a sitar, minus the bass.
Awesome!

Posted at 10:31 am on May 4th, 2009 by Avik Dhupar

Thanks for your help.

Posted at 2:16 pm on May 30th, 2009 by Greeny

I loved that Eric Clapton video. Boy can he play the guitar well. The machine will be replacing musicians in the future…ha ha.

Posted at 2:31 pm on Jun 2nd, 2009 by Bass Player