Technabob » electronica

Craymachine Lets You Type Beats

Lambert Varias — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:00:48 +0000

The craymachine is a bitchin’ way to kill time. If the iPhone had a keyboard this would’ve been a cool app. So what is it? It’s a flash-based synthesizer; a sound is mapped to each letter on your keyboard, ranging from the normal but essential bass drum of b to the intergalactic croak of w. The Presurfer likes to think of it as a way of finding out how the letters in your name sound like. Based on the craymachine the coolest name would be cabsdert. Or anything that uses those letters.

Every letter also has a corresponding doodle, so as you combo the beats you create shapes like the ones above. For some reason though the craymachine will only accept lowercase letters. I’m not making sense am I? Just go to the site and type type type.

Auto-tune not included.

Flame: the Talking Midi Synthesizer

Technabob — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 20:35:39 +0000

Dig that retro “Speak & Spell” sound? This sound module out of Germany produces an array of interesting eighties-esque bleeps, blips and fuzz that can incorporate little bits of speech and other sound effects.

The Flame Talking Synth can also be driven by a MIDI controller so you can really compose some serious electronica using one of these and composition software. The device incorporates a couple of Speakjet chips to produce a variety of sound and speech effects. The Flame is capable of cranking out 72 different speech elements, 43 sound effects and 12 telephone touch tones. Be sure to check out the audio samples here.

Available from analoguehaven for $549, the Flame is definitely geared to the professional electronic musician rather than the casual sound hacker.

[via MAKE]

Thingamagoop: Super Cool Portable Analog Synth

Technabob — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 12:30:55 +0000

While researching the topic of innovative musical devices, I came across the guys at Bleep Labs and their totally wacky Thingamagoop custom synthesizer series.

These portable sythesizers generate electronica using a unique control interface: as you move a colorful LED over a photosensor, the sound’s waveform changes. Combined with a handful of more traditional dial and switch controls, the device generates some totally out of this world electronic sounds, and the best part is that it looks cool doing it. Each Thingamagoop is handmade and custom painted to colors of your choice.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Priced at just $100, if you’re an electronic musician, you need one of these.

Box Generates Dance Music With Press of a Button

Technabob — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 12:07:52 +0000

Australia’s Mungo Enterprises has engineered the “Infinite Horizon“, a concept device capable of programatically generating modern dance/trance music with, literally, the push of a button. Just press the BIG RED BUTTON, and out comes a track.

There are a handful of additional controls to influence the direction of tracks, such as when to kick in bass, leads, and chords. Since the device is a sequencer, it doesn’t generate the sounds themselves, but rather relies on external synthesizers for that. If these guys were to build a portable version of this, it could be all the rage with the kids.

[via Gizmodo]