Glue-on nails with vinyl record pickups pierced through them that are used on a vinyl record

The Sound Of Nails On Black Vinyl Records

September 16, 2022 by Abe Connelly 32 Comments

[Victoria Shen] modifies glue-on nails to give her the ability to play vinyl records with her fingers. Details are light but from the many glamour pictures, it looks like she pushes record player needles through glue-on nails with thin pickup wire that then presumably goes to an audio jack for amplification.

[Victoria] experiments with novel musical tools for use in her art and performances. Be sure to check out the videos of the nails in action. The combination of “scratching” and ability to alter the speed of vinyl with the free fingers creates a weird and eerie experience.

Using her “Needle Nails”, [Victoria] has found she’s able to play multiple records simultaneously (Nitter). Thanks to the different diameters of 33, 78 and 45 vinyls, she’s able to stack them up while still keeping her fingers on them.

Glove like musical instruments are nothing new but the novel use of fashion, glamour and technology allow [Victoria Shen] the freedom to create something uniquely weird and cool, so much so that Beyonce used it in a video shoot for Vogue (Nitter).

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Travel Guitar Hacked With Digital FX Setup

January 14, 2022 by Lewin Day 8 Comments

[Courcirc8] was a big fan of the ALP AD-80, with the travel guitar being a surprisingly competent instrument despite its folding form-factor. However, the onboard headphone amp left something to be desired, so it was time to get hacking.

To achieve better audio output, [courcirc8] decided to purchase an iRig HD 2 guitar interface, and installed it inside the body of the compact guitar. The original volume pot on the guitar was instead spliced into the iRig circuit, and a switch hooked up to allow the guitar to output clean tones to an amp or the digital audio output of the iRig instead. It’s a tight fit inside, but it all nestles in there rather neatly when finished.

The result is a compact guitar that has a capable digital FX platform built in to the body; all one has to do is hook up a smartphone to gain access to a broad selection of software effects. It makes the guitar much more of a Swiss Army knife when playing on the road.

We’ve seen others before installing guitar effects into the instrument itself; it remains perhaps one of the best ways a hacker can express themselves with a completely individual instrument!

Live Jam Kit Helps Electronic Musicians Stay In Sync

November 23, 2021 by Lewin Day 2 Comments

Jamming live with synths and drum machines can be fun, but for [Christian], there was a little something missing. He was looking for a way to keep everyone in the group on the beat and rocking out, and decided to build something to help.

The ethos of the build was to put one person ultimately in charge of the mix using Ableton. This stops the volume race, as each musician turns their own volume up and the jam devolves into a noisy mess. Each musician also gets a sync button they can hit if their instrument has drifted out of time. Everyone in the jam also gets their own monitor signal in their headphones, as well as a looper as well.

Individual players in the electronic jam can whip up a cool little loop, and spit it out to the main controller running Ableton using the looper. Then, they can mix up something else in their headphones without disrupting the main mix, before spitting it out as a loop again.

[Christian]’s demo video does a great job of showing how it all works. We particularly like the sync button, which gets rid of the usual frustrations when a sequencer in the jam trips over the tempo signal.

It’s all built with a Teensy, and seems like a great way to organize a jam with a bunch of different synths and drum machines. We’d certainly love to join in the fun.

We’ve seen other fun jam kits too, like this neat networked solution. Video after the break.

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