Results for instruments

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Califaudio: Open Reel Ensemble – Califaudio posts about the Open Reel Ensemble: scratching 4 reel-to-reel analog tape recorders to make some really cool music.

They hook up a keyboard, microphones, computers loaded with Max/MSP, USB interfaces, lights and solenoids to old-school reel-to-reel decks and mic the strange sounds of their voices, singing bowls and tabla.

# Partners In Rhyme – Free Drum Loops – A nice collection of free 16bit/44kHz .wav drum loops from Partners In Rhyme (hip hop, rock, techno, drum n bass and jungle drum loops)

# Wii Drum High

HE Zhao's open source Wii peripheral drum-kit project:

With Nintendo Wii remote, Nunchuk and Wii Balance Board, it is easy to produce drum kit sounds from programming of their acceleration, joystick and weight data. These data can be transmitted from Wii controllers via Bluetooth to PC or Mac without Wii consoles. Wii Drum High integrates all three kinds of Wii controllers to stimulate a complete drum set of Hi-hat, Snare, Base drum, Crash cymbal, Ride cymbal, Mid tom and Low tom. Up to 4 sets of Wii remote and nunchuk can be used at the same time. (one of my colleague succeeded in connecting 5 wiimotes to a PC, but I've never tried)

# SevenUpLive for the Monome 40h and 64 – a Java application that combines 8 different monome applications into one interface. With it, your monome communicates with Ableton Live 7 via MIDI and allows MLR-like functionality along with other goodies like sliders, sequencing melodies, creating patterns of beats, saving/loading/queueing your songs, and more.

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Gijs Gieskes Acid-Machine – A machine that makes sort of party like music.. (it can also make other types of music).

Gijs explains:

The circle with the lines that you see on the top of the machine, rotates and displays the note you are playing. When you play a C the lines in the middle circle will be standing still.. from the C it will go outward, displaying all notes on a keyboard in 12 steps. It works by making a LED blink in the frequency of the sound, and rotating the image at a set speed. For the distance between the lines i used this table, it displays musical frequencys in centimeters. The sound part of the machine is based on logic ICs, but it also has a simple noise generator, and a filter. The sound the synth generates, is a 4 bit saw, or the same saw clipped to a square. The 4 bit saw is made with a binary counter and a resistor ladder. A nice feature is that you can mix in the binary pins, making one octave jumping chords (like c1 + c2 + c3 or d1 + d2 + d3 and so on).

# Mark Growden plays the handlebars (link to video) – Doctor Popular talks to Mark Growden about his unusual use of bicycle handlebars as a musical instrument.

# Cybernetik Mayhem Samplepack – by Cybernetika (direct download)

Compressed Size: 480 MB / Uncompressed Size: 844 MB
Sample format: 44.100-48.000khz / 16 bit .WAV

Cybernetika writes:

These are the best samples I used in my released or unreleased tracks. This Sample Pack is focused on Dark & Cybernetic Sounds for Psytrance, Techno, Drum’n'Bass, Dark Ambient & IDM.

Feel free to use them in your tracks, these samples are 100% free to use however you like to use them. Please give me some credit if you use them and like them.

The sample pack includes basses, pads & Atmos, FX, psy riffs & sequences, and percussion loops.

Check here for more info on Cybernetika.

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Rhythm Ring: Interactive Rhythm Sequencer – The Rhythm Ring interactive rhythm sequencer is an engaging musical device that enables the user to create a plethora of rhythms and beat patterns with the touch of their own fingers.

Besides being fun to play with, the Rhythm Ring provides a tangible method of arranging a musical rhythm. In our design, the user can arrange beats and modify them in real time by moving steel ball bearings between holes—a physical representation of notes on a musical staff. The Rhythm Ring continuously loops up to three tracks, each with its own voice. A central ring of LEDs provide the user with live feedback for current "playhead" position, and bright LEDs pulse when a note is played due to a detected bearing. The three tracks allow the playback of three different percussion sounds: snare, hi-hat, and bass drum.

The Rhythm Ring is the ECE 476 Final Project by Brian Yung (bmy5) & Hanson Jiang (hcj4).

# Randy George Music – Randy George is a classical thereminist. The theremin, invented in 1919 by Russian physicist, Lev Sergeyevich Termen, is an electronic musical instrument, played entirely without physical contact. Randy aims to share the theremin with the world and restore its reputation as a serious musical instrument.

Randy is also part of this Daft Punk – Something About Us – Daft Loop Love performance.

Ableton Live looped cover of Something About Us by Daft Punk, performed on Nintendo DS Ubisoft Jam Sessions, Midi controlled software electric bass, drums, synth, vocoded vocals, and solo theremin, recorded in a single pass, with a single camera.

Check the YouTube video info for more details.

# MAKE: Blog: Sad news.. Mark Hoekstra of Geektechniques has passed away – more info (in Dutch) on the Bright.nl site.

Some interesting things I found on August 18th, 2008:

# Learning Reaktor: 10-Step Path to Building New Sequencers, Beatboxes, and Effects

Peter Kirn writes:

“What if you had to take just one software instrument with you to a desert island?” It’s not an entirely silly question, with so many choices in software potentially distracting you from real music making. I say, cheat: take a tool that lets you build your own tools, specific to the job. Reaktor immediately springs to mind.

# Echoplex Drum Simulator – Mike L’s Nine Inch Nails-inspired Echoplex Drum Simulator, a Windows drum sequencer.

# New Circle Sound bank available… – A new bank of 30 sounds for Circle, designed by Dajan Izzo is available on the Circle downloads page

# NOR_/D TouchKit – TouchKit is a modular multitouch development kit with the aim to make multitouch readily available in an open source fashion. It is a sister project of the CUBIT multitouch system and aimed at rapid implementation of multitouch projects.

# little-scale: Toriton Version 1.5 – Sebastian Tomczak upgrades his Toriton water surface instrument.

Some interesting things I found on July 1st, 2008:

# AirPiano – The AirPiano is an innovative musical interface which allows playing and controlling software instruments simply by moving hands in the air.

AirPiano by Omer Yosha (2007)

Above the AirPiano is a virtual matrix of keys and faders, each assigned with MIDI messages and ready to be triggered. The length of a triggered note is equivalent to the time a hand is placed on the corresponding virtual key. This is also confirmed by LED feedback.

The AirPiano is still in its prototype phase and its concept of a virtual matrix might eventually be used for other applications and purposes. Specifications: Polyphonic, MIDI protocol, Up to 24 keys / 8 faders, USB connectivity. (link via CDM)

# MAKE: Blog: Handmade Music Night returns! – 7/8/08 – Create Digital Music, Etsy, and MAKE join forces to bring to life another night of audio-crafting delight – July 8th @ the Etsy Labs. Come see a myriad of sound-bearing ideas made real.

# Sound Chaser – A train-style record player. Users connect the chipped pieces of records together to make new tracks. The records pieces are from cheap records bought at jumble sales or used record shops. This record player revives forgotten, old records.

# Weepr – Download Create and share your beat! – Kind of like the Tenori-On, but not really… The English site doesn't seem to be up yet. You'll need Adobe Air to run Weepr.

# Guitar Tube Amp – Want to build your own tube amplifier for guitar? There are many options: build a kit, build from an existing schematic, or branch off like I did, and try something different. Maybe, like me, you'll design and build from scratch…

Some interesting things I found on June 26th, 2008:

# How to Make an Easy Dub Siren from a Circuit Bent Keychain – GetLoFi has instructions on how to build your own dub siren box using an inexpensive sound effects keychain and a few other simple parts.

The total for parts should be under $20 and possibly even cheaper if you are resourceful and can strip components from discarded electronics, etc.

# Sonic picnic boxes – The sonic picnic set is a low tech modular system. Connections are made as needed using crocodile clips.

# “Morpher” circuit bend – Circuit bent "voice morpher" megaphone packed into the case of a V-750 model 5 dosimeter charger. The lamp within the power button was modified with an LED to replace the incandescent lamp.

# dsSynth – Play the Nintendo DS like you would with any hardware synthesizer/sampler. The software allows the user to draw in a wave form on the touch screen, use one of the embedded sounds, or load one of their own samples off of their flash memory card.

# remain calm » ds music apps – the nintendo ds is an excellent platform for homebrew audio software – here’s an (incomplete) list of some of the excellent sound toys that are available for the platform.

# repeaterDS at glitchDS – a music application that allows you to “play” a sample by drawing on the DS screen. The vertical axis controls repeat length. The horizontal axis controls the playback offset into the sample.