Hack a Day » getlofi

Electric mannequin leg maraca

Kimberly Lau — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:00:00 +0000

[Richie Brown] created an electric mannequin leg maraca. The leg is filled with little bits of plastic, metal, and wood. Hook it up to a looping pedal, add a piezo disc mic, and you’ve got an unusual instrument with a lot of potential. [Brown] has other projects that encourage interaction and invite curiosity, from disembodied mannequin parts to repurposed piano keyboards. The creations come attached with contact mics that pick up noises as people touch, poke, and play around with them.

GetLoFi’s dub siren

Eliot — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:40:00 +0000

GetLoFi has always been one of our first stops when looking for circuit bending fun. Their latest project is building this simple dub siren from a noise making key chain. Dub sirens or rasta boxes are a signature sound in dub reggae. The base of this project is an eight sound keychain. Each pad is wired to an eight position selector switch. The pitch resistor is replaced with a linear pot. One push button is used to replace the original eight and another is used for mute. Plug the 1/4inch jack into a delay pedal and you’re ready to rock. Check out the video below to see this particular box in use.

Game Boy foot controller demo

Eliot — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:20:00 +0000

This is a video of [Joey Mariano] from animal style demoing his Game Boy pedal board. He added a D15 port to the back of the Game Boy, which is wired to each of the 8 buttons. The port is connected to a breakout box for 8 piano sustain pedals. The box also provides power to the Game Boy. The Game Boy is running the Nanoloop step sequencer. If you’re wondering about the guitar sound, he’s probably using an 8-Bit Fuzz pedal.

[via GetLoFi]