It was built using an Arduino and a bunch of other spare parts. The robot is controlled via a web interface. It’s easier to just let them explain how it works. This is a robot playing drums, and that’s good enough for me.

“The Arduino receives the string, unpacks it back to a pattern and simple loops over the steps controlling each servo.” It also has “Horns” which are 2 small fans with a servo that push a piece of plastic against the blades. This little bot is fun to watch and seems like he would be a good jamming partner too. For more about how this bot was made check out Steffest’s blog.

[via Hacked Gadgets]

The shirt has a real working drum machine and a looper. It has 9 different drum kit sounds with 7 sounds each. The sounds include rock drums, “discotek,” jazz, punk, and more. You can record loops of your beats and play them back. The loops can be up to 3 minutes long.

There are seven pads on the drum machine shirt that can app be pressed at once time. The electronics are powered by 4-AA batteries, and are removable to allow the shirt to be washed in the machine.

The shirt is out of stock for the moment, but should be back in stock shortly if you want one. You can order one for $29.99(USD) over at ThinkGeek.

TableDrum’s function is so simple yet magical. It allows you to map a real world object to a drum sample, so that when you hit that object instead of just making a sound with that object you’ll also here a drum sample. For example, you can map your desk to a snare, a teacup to cymbals, and a box to bass so that when you hit the desk, TableDrum will emit a snare sound in real time, making it sound like you’re playing a snare drum and so on.

To map an object to a sample, all you have to do is pick that sample and then hit the object several times so that TableDrum knows the sounds that will trigger that sample. Here’s a demo of the app:

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And another…

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Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Of course it won’t actually teach you how to play the drums, plus nothing beats the sound of a real drum set, but you have to admit this is a clever piece of software. Fortunately Dohi Entertainment, the developer of TableDrum, has currently discounted the app’s price from $3.99 (USD) to $0.99, so grab it now from the iTunes App Store before the sale ends and start drumming.

[via Geeky Gadgets]

In this video clip, UPenn’s PR2 reads from a MIDI file, and plays his own “special” versions of U2′s With or Without You and Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles.

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I think if he were a contestant on America’s Got Talent, he’d probably get X’ed off the stage by the judges. More details on the PR2 one-man band can be found over at Google Code.

[via PoJudd via Switched]

It had rhythm and verve. It was playing with gusto, like something Asian was about to go down, a major martial arts tournament or cook-off or something. Unfortunately, Sina117′s language is NSFW, so we don’t recommend sharing the magical machine’s mad skills with your kids.

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That makes two awesome washing machine videos in a week – three more and we’ll officially have a trend.

[via likecool]

Spruce Deuce gets his rhythm by using a set of arm and wrist servos, controlled by a Highly Liquid MD24 MIDI servo controller.

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While he doesn’t rock out like, say, this guy, the robot drummer is still pretty impressive in my book. Perhaps he should get together and do a concert with Toyota’s robot trumpet player and robot violin player.

[via Synthopia]

These fancy Guitar Hero World Tour drums are velocity sensitive and have a pair of cymbal pads, which made the kit the perfect controller for realistic drumming. With the help of OSCulator, Andy managed to map the pads to work as a MIDI controller for GarageBand on his Mac. The results of his efforts can be seen in the video below:

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The cool thing about this hack is that all you need is the GHWT Wii wireless drum kit, a Wiimote, a copy of OSCulator, and a Mac with GarageBand installed to do this yourself. You can check out Andy’s complete tutorial over at Vultrix.

If you’ve got a Windows PC, you might be able to pull off something similar using this Wiimote-to-MIDI hack and a copy of an audio sequencer of your choosing.

[via lifehacker]

Is anyone else waiting (hoping?) that Activision will expand beyond music? What about, say, Baking Hero? Accounting Hero? I mean, if we’re trying to make sure we appeal to all interests here, maybe we should think about expanding. Just a notion, Activision. You don’t have to thank me.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m just kicking back and waiting for the YouTube videos of kids playing DJ Hero, Guitar Hero, and Drum Hero all at the same time through creative use of appendages not typically employed for playing music. It’s gonna be epic.

[via Joystiq]

With the help of electrical tape, PVC pipe, and a little rubber tubing, Ben Heck set up a breath-controlled workaround for the drum set’s kick pedal. The better to keep your hands free for what’s important: playing the drums.

The entire process has been documented–even down to tips for dealing with cuts sustained in the process–so that you can try this one at home. And Rock Band fans have a reason to rejoice: it’s apparently easier to pull this off with the Rock Band kit.

[BenHeck.com via hackaday]

In a third-quarter financial conference call today, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello mentioned in passing that Rock Band is currently in development for the Nintendo Wii.

No release date or pricing was revealed, but I’d say we’ll see it this Fall, so EA can take full advantage of the 2008 holiday season. Stay tuned for more details.

[via IGN]

Designed by Hannes Hesse, Andrew McDiarmid and Rosie Han – students at UC Berkeley’s School of Information, the Bubblegum Sequencer identifies the locations of strategically-placed gumballs to create rhythm tracks.

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Simply place the appropriate color-coded gumball into the position in the sequence you want, and a computer takes care of generating sounds to match their placement. A camera underneath the table detects the position and color of each gumball, then automatically maps the colors to notes and the appropriate audio samples in the computer.

The best part – when you’re done jamming out, you can chew on your creation and blow some bubbles.

I was over on Amazon earlier today and came across this product listing:

Listing a November 20th release date, the $199 “Rock Band Collection” for the Xbox 360 and PS3 looks like it’s a complete set that includes the game and all of the instruments.

If I’m doing my math right, the bundle should save you about $50 bucks, since the unbundled controllers and game add up to about $250. Purchased separately, the wireless guitar and drum kit are each listed at $79.99, the microphone $29.99, and the game $59.99.

While Rock Band isn’t gonna be the cheapest game to get up and running with, it sure looks like a lot of fun.

[Order this item from Amazon]

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Not into percussion? Be sure to check out the trumpet playing ‘bot and the robotic DJ.

[via TechDigest]