Tag: Musical Instrument

It may not look like much, but Dentaku’s tiny board lets you follow in the footsteps of Leo Fender, Antonio Stradivari, Ikutaro Kakehashi and other musical instrument makers. It’s called the Ototo, and it’s a small synthesizer that can be activated by any conductive material and tweaked by a variety of inputs.

We’ve seen the Time Lords many times throughout countless Doctor Who episodes. However we know very little about their culture. What do they like to do for fun? What kind of music do they like? Do Time Lords play the ukulele?

Every guitarist wants a guitar that will set the stage on fire. This is that guitar – literally. Don Juan De Pyro turned his guitar into a flamethrower that initially could shoot multicolored flames up to six feet for about 40 seconds.

There are plenty of apps which let you use your iPad like a piano, but to be honest, playing on a toucscreen is just not the same as using a tactile keyboard. And while Ion has been making a wired iPad piano keyboard for a while,  it’s not exactly the type of thing you’ll throw in your backpack.

When you work in an office, sending emails all day long can be tedious and boring. Sometimes, you just want to rock out and play your guitar. Well, now you can do both thanks to David Neevel’s email guitar.

If you want a good Ocarina, it can cost you a lot of rupees, but this particular Ocarina happens to resemble a rupee. Pretty sweet. And no pots were smashed to unearth it.

A little while back, we featured an unusual little interactive gadget called the iKazoo. This wireless device can be paired with iOS or Android gadgets, and can be used as a touch, voice or breath controller.

Despite the increasing number of robotic musical acts, I’m still always tickled by the idea of a band that does away with the human element, and puts robots in their rightful place – to entertain their masters.

Music is a great medium for self-expression. But if you can’t be bothered to play traditional instruments, what then?

Here’s a guitar fit for some heavy metal rocking all night long in Skyrim. This chrome metallic dragon ‘Draco’ guitar comes from Emerald Guitars and it is awesome looking. It’s also fully functional.

With the music games out there these days, there are already some high tech ways to learn the guitar. However, most of these don’t let you play with an actual guitar, strings and frets, so it’s not exactly a realistic training experience.

This little arduino controlled Drummerbot was created by Steffest, and is called the My Little Arduino Drummerbot. Just like the name implies, this little robot can play the drums either by itself or along with you.

You can pick up an actual ukulele for under 50 bucks, but if you don’t like the idea of plucking real strings and would rather remain in your virtual world, you might want to check out the Futulele – which lets you play ukulele for the low, low price of both an iPad and an iPhone or iPod Touch, plus the app, plus a Futulele case.

If you ask me, 3D printing is the future of small-scale and short-run manufacturing. Assuming that the technology can come down in cost and increase in speed, many of the smaller items we use will eventually be 3D printed – at least custom stuff, like these awesome 3D printed guitars by Olaf Diegel.

One of my favorite instruments is the guitar, although I never really learned how to play it all that well. I’m constantly fascinated with the people who do, however, and even more fascinated by people who have actually thought up ways to modernize the instrument.

What do you get when you combine a taxidermied badger with a theremin? You get the Badgermin. Yes, in this world of “if it can be done, why not try it?” somebody actually has created what is likely to be the first ever electronic instrument stuffed inside a dead animal.