Tag: Music

Have you ever heard of a band called Octant? You will. These guys are gonna be big. By “guys” I mean robots. Yes, Octant is a band that is comprised of robotic musical instruments. A man named Matt is their leader.

Patrick Stewart is a cool dude. I mean, he was Jean-Luc Picard and Professor X after all – putting him high up on the favorite list of many sci-fi geeks. He has something a bit different that has surfaced recently.

The Dato Duo combines a sequencer with a synthesizer. That’s no big deal, but what is different is that it is designed to be played by two people, making it perfect for musical collaborations. That’s a pretty cool feature, because two minds are often better than one when it comes to music.

This is music school done right. How do you do music school right? Well, the answer is simple. Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars. You have to check out these videos of children from Quebec’s Ecole de l’Harmonie (School of Harmony) and École secondaire de La Seigneurie playing a bunch of Star Wars music on their violins… with lightsaber bows no less.

This is a fun video by samuraiguitarist, who managed to perform a beautiful version of Somewhere over the Rainbow using nothing but interactive Google Doodles that produce sound. How crazy is that? I remember when Google Doodles were just static images.

Growing up, I was a big fan of ’80s TV shows like the Dukes of Hazzard, Magnum P.I. and a slew of others. In fact, I had the vinyl album of Mike Post theme songs from a bunch of those shows and jammed that record all the time.

This Mickey Mouse inspired musical sculpture is more than a bit creepy. It looks like someone cut the heads off of Deadmau5 and Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter and smashed them together. The thing is called the MikeyFon and was commissioned by Disney and built by a Polish firm called PanGenerator.

I’ve never been a skateboarder myself, but I’ve always wondered what Tony Hawk would do when he got too old to risk getting on a skateboard. I think I found my answer. He could turn his skateboard into a kick ass electric guitar and make some music.

A few days ago we talked about Mogees, a tiny digital musical instrument that triggers sound by vibration. The Motus is another unorthodox yet intuitive portable instrument. It lets you create or trigger sounds by motion.

Back in April we checked out a 3D printed violin that looked more like a Predator’s weapon than a musical instrument. But 3D printing isn’t just about making new physical forms. The technology can be tuned for very practical purposes as well, as exhibited by violin maker Hovalin.

There are different gadgets that can turn bodies, steering wheels or food into musical instruments. Now you can turn pretty much any rigid solid object into an instrument using just one device: Mogees. Mogees consists of a very sensitive contact microphone and an iOS app.

The Doors were light years ahead of their time. They made some of the best music ever. But how would their music sound when performed on old school computer hardware? You are about to find out.

Artists usually place a hidden track or two in their albums. The upcoming three EPs of electronic artist Captain Credible on the other hand will each have a randomly generated track. The Dead Cats EPs are based on an ATtiny85 microcontroller and Captain Credible’s Arduino sketches.

You have probably listened to the Super Mario Bros. soundtrack hundreds of times, but have you ever listened to a piano medley of the game’s greatest hits played on a giant Nintendo Entertainment System? Now you can, because this piano is a giant NES.

A drum trigger is a device that converts hits on an acoustic drum into electronic signals that activate digital sounds. You can use them to achieve a cleaner sound in live performances or use sound effects without resorting to electronic drums or synthesizers. 

We’ve seen floppy drives and hard drives used to make music, but laurens.weyn’s Unconventional Instrument Orchestra can use “pretty much anything with steppers, or anything that makes noise on a signal pulse as percussion.” That includes hard drives, and floppy drives along with 3D printers, CNC machines and even doorbells.