September must not only be back-to-school for students, but also back-to-the-workshop for Makers. This month had quite a few innovative applications for do-it-yourself activity of note.
The interest in this topic is built in on over-riding thought, that these sorts of innovations and design can eventually find their way into corporate R&D labs or more importantly (perhaps forgetting about corporations for the moment), they can find their way to commercialization. I think they’re great opportunities for those interested in technology to see how other inventors are thinking out of the box, solving problems, and developing new paradigms for electronic media devices.
First up this month is a Arduino platform that uses opto sensors, a CD-sized as a platform to hold paper “player” rolls, and the Arduino as a three note polyphonic synthesizer:
an arduino based three note polyphonic music box
John, the inventor has a lot of interesting maker projects, as well as Arduino and Atmel processor information and links on his website.
MAKE magazine subscriber Rich Bernett is in the process of creating a series of cigar-box instruments that are driven by small electric actuators. The cigar-boxes act as an audio chamber to amplify the sound (like the chamber in a guitar). Each instrument has a tuned guitar string that is plucked by an electric motor at various speeds. The actuators appear to be cut off cable ties! Very cool, and they have a unique sound – especially since the strings are plucked at higher rates than a human performer could pluck them.
String-box played via motors
All bow to the great Pete Edwards of Casper Electronics, who modified a Nintendo Entertainment System to become not only a unique sounding synthesizer, but a device that can generate bizarre video output that corresponds to the bleeps and bloops coming out of the box! There’s more on the project over at Make, too.
Tanner, over at Noystoise crafted this mono synth with quite a few adjustable parameters:
Tanner has a blog where he captures his adventures in MYO.
Finally, there’s a pretty slick guitar looper made made by a DIY’er. The control inputs are Arduino powered, but they control PureData, an Open Source music and multimedia project developed by the original author of Max, Miller Puckette.
Like I said, it was a busy month – there were another 5 or 6 projects that we couldn’t get to this month. Please post your comments in the comment section and keep giving us feedback about these round ups.
September must not only be back-to-school for students, but also back-to-the-workshop for Makers. This month had quite a few innovative applications for do-it-yourself activity of note.
The interest in this topic is built in on over-riding thought, that these sorts of innovations and design can eventually find their way into corporate R&D labs or more importantly (perhaps forgetting about corporations for the moment), they can find their way to commercialization. I think they’re great opportunities for those interested in technology to see how other inventors are thinking out of the box, solving problems, and developing new paradigms for electronic media devices.
First up this month is a Arduino platform that uses opto sensors, a CD-sized as a platform to hold paper “player” rolls, and the Arduino as a three note polyphonic synthesizer
Arriving just in time for the start of the Labor Day weekend here in Hooterville was a loaner unit from the kind folks at Olympus – the LS-11 is here! Below is a progressive series of photos of the “out-of-the-box-experience” with the recorder, which _might_ be classified as device prOn.
Here’s the LS-11 as it was unpacked from the FedEx box:
The main box is opened. The Recorder comes in one box and the accessories in another.
Here’s a shot with all of the goodies shipped with a base Olympus LS-11 – case, wrist strap, connection cables, manual, quick start guide, warranty case, Cubase LE software and quick start guide, 2 x AA batteries for instant gratification, windcreens for the microphones, and the LS-11 itself.
Here’s a show showing the windscreens installed (there is a plastic fitting inside each windscreen that provides a satisfying “click” when placed over the microphones), and the LS-11′s relative size to a pair of AA batteries.
I used the included case to create a “go bag” for the LS-11, essentially adding a tiny tripod (in case on left) that I purchase a couple of years ago in Japan.
Here’s the unit with the tripod installed. I will experiment with placing a rubber isolation layer between the tripod and LS-11, to see if a difference can be determined when handling and low frequency rumble from the environment are present.
That’s it for now! The experiments start this week. I plan to do several environmental recordings, so spoken word recordings via interviews at CEDIA, and instrumental flute rehearsal recordings.
Over the years it’s been clear that there is a great source of innovation in the Make-Your-Own / Hacker / Independent Problem Solver community – especially in audio. With the general availability of Arduino modules, things recently have been happening at a frantic pace in the DIY/MYO world.
What is Arduino? According to the website, “Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.” Software can be added to the project boards via the downloadable development environment. The programs generated in that environment can connect to Flash, Processing, and important for musicians, MaxMSP. Theoretically you could develop modules that interact with Max that can control the rest of your music making set up.
Now, not everything we review in this session of the MYO Round-up will be Arduino based, but as a MYO technology trend, Arduino is definitely a hot item. So, let’s take a look at what was announced and discovered in July and August.
First up is a non-Arduino design. An electric homemade kalimba, with extra bassy sound characteristics.
The Kalimba is made from a wooden project box and spare parts, but the magic started when a single coil pickup was mounted underneath the tines.
While this isn’t a quick, inexpensive means to get to an iPod, this solution can play any uncompressed 22KHz, 16bit, mono WAV files of any size, making it suitable for background music, spoken word, or sound effect playback. So, a battery of these would make an awesome haunted house, provide voice-overs at art galleries, or play a looping soundtrack in waiting room. There’s a demo video showing it’s capabilities as well.
Finally, for this post, an Arduino controls a Morley Big Muff Pi in ways never done before – using a wavetable look up to control the amount of distortion. By using ramp, sine, and square waves generated on the Arduino to sweep the amount of distortion, you can a dynamic distortion that you probably haven’t heard before. The idea is rockin’ – but could use more controls, like speed and depth in addition to the waveform change.
Let me know your thoughts on these round ups. There are plenty of innovations happening in this area of geekdom. I’m thinking of how I can apply Arduino technology myself. I’d love to have the control capabilities that the microcontroller offers on its own, but the possibility to tie that into a computer interface make it even more intriguing.
