Music

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.

Remixing with swing

Sweet Child O’ Mine (Swing Version) by plamere White Rabbit – The Swing Version by plamere Tristan Jehan‘s Swinger does a heckuva good job adding a convincing swing to prerecorded music. Written in Python, the code uses the Echo Nest Remix API to time-stretch half of each beat while condensing the remainder. Check out more […]

Ben Cowden’s “Wayward Calliope”

One of the highlights of our tour of the Maker Faire grounds last Thursday was this “Wayward Calliope” by artist Ben Cowden of Applied Kinetic Arts. Turn the crank, and a combined mechanical and pneumatic power transfer system activates a choir of slide whistles to produce a sound that is simultaneously beautiful, creepy, and hilarious. Somehow. It’s rather harder to appreciate in a noisy exhibit hall, so if you were at the Faire and saw, but couldn’t hear, be double-dog-sure to check the vid.

The Road to Maker Faire: beatseqr

Our project is an open source, Arduino Mega-based computer interface and max/msp– based MIDI sequencer. You can find all kinds of information about it at beatseqr.com, but the ten-second pitch goes like this: Drum machines are fun to use because the interface is intuitive, but they only make the sounds they know how to make. […]