Take your creations beyond the workshop and onto the stage with diy music instruments! Let us show you how these creations range from simple, basic setups that produce beautiful sounds to more complex projects that require a greater level of engineering knowledge. With these tutorials and examples, we’ll guide you on this journey to make your own musical instrument for experimental, artistic or everyday use – so whether you’re starting out new or a seasoned sound creator, come explore the wonderful world of making your own music.
Mr. Book sent in his strategy for controlling Arduino from a MIDI controller through Processing – My implementation uses a single DAC IC chip, the MCP4921, which sells for about 2 bucks from Mouser. The current version uses the Arduino, only to read one byte, as a midi note, from the serial connection and sends […]
Gil Weinberg is having trouble with his drummer he’s trying to get both of Haile’s arms to work at the same time. That would be an unusual problem, except for the fact that Haile is a robot. Haile’s microprocessor-controlled, motorized arms are able to play ordinary acoustic drums, with expressive control over timbre and dynamics. […]
Beeps-a-Lot Box, Arcane Device, and Stylophonic Device each answer a question I hadn’t considered: What would have happened if H.R. Giger had decided to teach band? These graceful sculptures are working musical instruments produced by Gulf Coast artisan Mike Ford Designed to evoke curiosity as well as admiration, each is heavy with mysterious controls, indicators, […]
This Friday, MC Frontalot himself will be at the Austin premiere of Nerdcore Rising. Tickets and more info here. Whether you’re in Austin or not, enjoy this MC Frontalot music video from a documentary on text-based gaming:
Photography by Sam Alvar Bob Dylan was born in his hometown, but Duluth TankPodDrum’s shell is a hollow, 6″-diameter, performance artist Tim Kaiser has a different musical 14″-tall stainless steel vessel that Kaiser scored for hero: Harry Partch (1901-1974), an underappreciated 70 cents at a salvage yard. In his home studio, he composer who invented […]
Photograph by Jeff Lieberman Want robots to be musical, creative, and expressive? Better brush up on your engineering. Musician/ roboticists Dan Paluska and Jeff Lieberman constructed a web-connected “robotic mechanical orchestra” that plays a marimba by firing rubber balls out of a cannon, strikes traditional percussion instruments, and also rubs mechanical fingers along wine glasses. […]
It’s a little too late to join in on the fun of this online drum circle, but the video is really interesting. Hopefully they will have another session in the near future. I’ll keep you all updated. Telematic Drum Circle is an interdisciplinary art project which combines Tele-Robotics, Computer Science, Pneumatics and Music. The project […]
