Music

Tangible drum machine

Tangible drum machine

Here are instructions for building a drum machine with a tangible visual interface. A camera above the paper drum board reads the positions of physical objects and translates them into sounds, as indicated on the labels on the objects. It looks fairly easy to make, with most of the components from paper and card. The […]

Beat-slicing with OTTO

Beat-slicing with OTTO

CDM points out this very sweet beat manipulator interface by Luca De Rosso. The project, better known as OTTO, makes use of an Arduino board, MAX/MSP software, and an array of LEDs + switches to create a very intuitive and approachable experience for musicians. – OTTO is a new musical instrument for beat-slicing, the technique […]

Etched-brass modular synth

Etched-brass modular synth

This supremely cool analog synth with a gorgeous etched-brass faceplace showed up on Steampunk Workshop, via the German synth site Synthesizer Database. The builder is Moritz Wolpert. Apparently, from the Google translation, all the knobs and handles were turned by hand on a lathe and the faceplace was hand-lettered, decorated and etched. The project took […]

Shopping-cart serenade

Not since industrial noisemakers like Einsturzende Neubauten first miked a shopping cart… This is a decidedly more 21st version. The makers, Hogan Birney, Sean Kinberger, and David Plakon explain the design: Touch and pressure are used to control the live manipulation of sound and image. The cart is equipped with a video projector, computer and […]

The Furby Youth Choir

The Furby Youth Choir

Those of you who attended Maker Faire 2008 in Austin may recall the performance of local circuit-benders Furby Youth Choir. I recently had a chance to attend one of their live performances at the United States Art Authority, next to Spider House on Fruth St. in the UT Campus area. A Furby, for those who […]

Getting to know the diode mixer

Dave posted this vid along with a write-up, covering the ins-and-outs of the unbalanced diode mixer circuit – This circuit uses the small non-linear response area of a single diode to create combinations of sum and difference frequencies of two input signals (or one input signal containing multiple overtones). Radio designers use this type of […]