[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt3sPV5mzgM%5D
Here is a nice video to wind down the day. It’s [neorazz]’s micRo playing the theme from Tetris. The micRo is a simple CNC kit sold by the team at Lumenlabs. For more servo music, peruse our CNC category.
[Thanks grayson]
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/5411878%5D
We have often commented that we’re a bit tired of hearing random notes when someone sends us a musical project. We love home made instruments, circuit bending, and creative sound, we just like some intentional direction to the noise. This just might be an exception to the rule. This typewriter plays random notes as you type. While it might annoy your cohabitants into a violent rage, it seems oddly cathartic. We have heard people talk about the pleasure of hearing the keys clack as they type. It just seems like you would get used to this and find it just as pleasurable. Maybe we’re crazy. Unfortunately, they don’t divulge any technical details, but we can imagine a simple way of wiring directly into a cheap keyboard to get the same effect.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/5212424%5D
As with most electronic musical instruments, we saw this in the tip box and expected the usual random noises to show off the instruments range. Consider us pleasantly surprised. They cut strait to it and showed us what la Guitare à crayon really is. It is an instrument of both audio and visual art. You draw while you play. The guitar appears to have a wacom attached to the front where you would normally strum. different areas of the wacom seem to effect the music much like a string being plucked. In one of the videos we see some fret board action as well. Watching the screen, we can see that she is drawing a picture, and we are in fact hearing that picture being drawn. The site has a section for source code, but states that it will only posted if there are requests. We are officially requesting it, we want one. May we suggest some improvements? Get some color variation, possibly opacity too. Gimp can do it with the wacom. We can’t wait to see how this project matures. How about another video? Watch it after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP2zbGes2Bg]
This is an interesting instrument. Part laser harp, part guitar, the Prism seems to have some potential. [Jeff-o] put some major time and effort into refinishing a guitar, building the circuit and putting it all together. He did a great job, the instrument looks fantastic and appears to work. We do have a request though; please post a video of it being played as an instrument. So many of these electronic instrument projects just spit out random noises. While we understand that some people are into that, we would love to hear some control. How about intentionally changing notes to make a melody? Based on the description, it should have control for pitch, and even speed of the oscillation. So let’s hear some music. We don’t care if you’re any good, just please play some music with it. If you would like to build your own, he has the schematics and PCB layout available for download.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmp74fO2a38]
Using an MSA-T MIDI Decoder from Highly Liquid, [Rob Darman] was able to take the MIDI output of his Roland V-Drums and use that output to control fire shooting cannons, forming a setup that he calls fire drums. As seen in the video above, the response time between the V-Drums and the fire drums is pretty impressive. While this is by far one of the coolest things that we’ve seen controlled by MIDI, we’re naturally thinking about taking this to the next level; MIDI-controlled fireworks, anyone?
You may remember the MSA decoder devices from people wiring up MIDI drums to Rock Band.
Create Digital Music has a great post on [Luca De Rosso]’s OTTO. Built as part of his masters’ thesis, it’s a unique tangible music interface. You load a sample into the software which displays it on the instrument surface. The user can then manipulate the sample using various hardware inputs while watching the LED representation. The device uses just one Arduino for the display and inputs. It works with Max/MSP and is designed to give the performer only the information they truly need. You can find more pictures of the device on Flickr and a picture of the guts on CDM. Embedded below is the ‘Getting Started’ video that shows it in use.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmGP3eCOF5A]
yes, drums are tangible. We know. What this is, however, is a tangible interface that is a drum machine. The software is freely available for download, after registration. For hardware, all you need is a webcam, a computer, and a way to print out the pieces. D-Touch is cross platform which is very nice. Please note that the software will not run until you activate it by putting in your user account from their site. If you like this project, you might also get a kick out of the Go Sequencer.
