MIDI Keyboard With Frickin’ Laser Keys

December 13, 2014 by Rick Osgood 10 Comments

MIDI instruments are cool, but they’re not laser cool. That is, unless you’ve added lasers to your MIDI instrument like [Lasse].

[Lasse] started out with an old MIDI keyboard. The plan was to recycle an older keyboard rather than have to purchase something new. In this case, the team used an ESi Keycontrol 49. They keyboard was torn apart to get to the ~~creamy center~~ circuit boards. [Lasse] says that most MIDI keyboards come withe a MIDI controller board and the actual key control board.

Once the key controller board was identified, [Lasse] needed to figure out how to actually trigger the keys without the physical keyboard in place. He did this by shorting out different pads while the keyboard was hooked up to the computer. If he hit the correct pads, a note would play. Simple, but effective.

The housing for the project is made out of wood. Holes were drilled in one piece to mount 12 laser diodes. That number is not arbitrary. Those familiar with music theory will know that there are 12 notes in an octave. The lasers were powered via the 5V source from USB. The lasers were then aimed at another piece of wood.

Holes were drilled in this second piece wherever the lasers hit. Simple photo resistors were mounted here. The only other components needed for each laser sensor were a resistor and a transistor. This simple discreet circuit is enough to simulate a key press when the laser beam is broken. No programming or microcontrollers required. Check out the demonstration video below to see how it works. Continue reading “MIDI Keyboard With Frickin’ Laser Keys” →

Air Harp Using The Leap Motion

December 5, 2012 by Mike Szczys 6 Comments

leap-motion-air-harp

He’s just pointing in this image, but this Air Harp can be played using many fingers as once. It’s a demonstration which [Adam Somers] threw together in one weekend when working with the Leap Motion developer board. We first heard about this slick piece of hardware back in May and from the looks of it this is every bit as amazing as first reported.

Part of what made the project come together so quickly is that [Adam] had already developed a package called muskit. It’s a C++ toolkit for making music applications. It puts the framework in place what we hear in the video after the break. The weekend of hacking makes use of the positional data from the Leap Motion and handles how your digits interact with the virtual strings. You can watch as [Adam] adds more and more strings to the virtual instrument for his finger to interact with. The distance from the screen is what decided is your finger will pluck or not. This is indicated with a red circle when your fingertip is close enough to interact with the phantom string.

Get your hands on the code from his repositories.

Continue reading “Air Harp Using The Leap Motion” →

Electromagnetic Harp With Home Made Ebows

May 9, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 2 Comments

Fresh from the Arduino subreddit comes [dataplex]’s 26 string electromagnetic harp. It’s a very cool, ambient instrument that sounds simply phenomenal through the Space Echo and Fender Twin rig [dataplex] has.

There’s not much in the way of build details, but judging from this post [dataplex] made several months ago the instrument works on the same principles as an Ebow. There’s a great prototype video showing the hardware and software. One small voice coil reads each string. A tiny op-amp sends this to another voice coil and back into the string. There’s tons of feedback, but it’s great for an ethereal ambiance.

The prototype is controlled by an Arduino via a computer, but for the final build [dataplex] moved on to a copper/zinc touch interface on the front of the harp.

It’s a very, very cool instrument and we’re waiting patiently for the build details to be released. You can check out the videos of [dataplex]’s work after the break.

Continue reading “Electromagnetic Harp With Home Made Ebows” →

Laser Harp

December 23, 2009 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

[Jared] had a bunch of lasers left over from a previous project that he put to use by producing this laser harp. The look of it reminds us of a very small Koto or perhaps an Autoharp (although the chords can’t be changed on this model).

We’re so glad that [Jared] spent the time to produce such a fine looking body for the instrument. The strings that would traditionally produce the sound on a harp have been replaced with laser diodes shining at Cadmium Sulfide photo resistors. When a beam of light is broken, an Arduino detects the change via the CdS cell and plays a sound through an Altec Lansing speaker inside of the case.

Unfortunately there’s no video available but we’re pretty sure it makes a “pew-pew” sound. There is a link to download the source code but it points to the overview page instead of downloadable code. From the fritzing diagram the CdS cells are part of a voltage divider which provides digital logic to the Arduino. That should be pretty easy to replicate even without seeing [Jared’s] code and we’re sure you can source other Arduino instrument projects for tips on wave shield or midi functionality.

[Thanks The Cheap Vegetable Gardener]