instrument-a-day 19: brass whistle
Yeah, I like whistles. This one's made from a brass tube and a wooden dowel from a craft store. The fipple was cut with a hacksaw, and the finger holes drilled with a drill press.
photoblog
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instrument-a-day 18: garbage drainpipe
Someone left a big chunk of gutter drain pipe in the garbage, and a sturdy wooden handle, just for me.
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instrument-a-day 17: wooden strings & rattles
I lasercut some strips of poplar for another project, and found that the waste wood could be plucked like guitar strings. The strips make pretty good rattles too.
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instrument-a-day 16: light sensor
It's just a photodiode, a 9-volt battery, and a little amplifier, but it makes the vibrations in artificial light audible. A lot of what you hear is derived from 60Hz AC power, but electronic displays have tones of their own.
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instrument-a-day 15: piano scanner
Scanning a handheld magnetic pickup back and forth over the piano strings makes a pretty neat sound. I may try attaching a rail on which the pickup can slide back and forth.
The pickup is plugged into an ordinary guitar amp.
Plug: Fun with Sensors workshop this Saturday at NYC Resistor!
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instrument-a-day 14: corn music
I’ve always thought the patterns on corncobs looked like player piano rolls. So I wrote a program that watches a slowly-turning corncob. Whenever a particularly dark kernel crosses the centerline of the image, it plays a note corresponding to the height.
You can download the Processing code from moonmilk.com/11/02/cornscan.txt.
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instrument-a-day 13: garbage garbage can lid
On the way to SHARE last night, I
packed a contact microphone and drumsticks but no instrument, telling
myself I’d find something in the garbage on the way there. What I
found was this nice metal garbage can lid.
packed a contact microphone and drumsticks but no instrument, telling
myself I’d find something in the garbage on the way there. What I
found was this nice metal garbage can lid.
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laser whistles
These are some of the whistles made by participants in this afternoon’s laser whistle workshop at NYC Resistor.
There’s still two workshops left in the noisy noise series!
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It doesn’t really work. I put it into the scrap wood bin.
instrument-a-day 12: failed box xylophone
It doesn’t really work. I put it into the scrap wood bin.
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Found a beautiful cracked frozen puddle in the park and flung some ice around.
instrument-a-day 11: ice smash!
Found a beautiful cracked frozen puddle in the park and flung some ice around.
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instrument-a-day 10: fish whistle
Practice for Saturday’s laser whistle workshop. It’s cut from 1/4″ poplar. I won’t post the cutting plan until I figure out why only one of its two whistles is hooting and fix the problem!
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The simplest possible midi instrument: just jam the speaker cable into the midi out connector.
instrument-a-day 9: MIDI OUT
The simplest possible midi instrument: just jam the speaker cable into the midi out connector.
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NYCResistor rescued a battered old upright piano that was destined for
the dumpster. There were 6 missing hammers right in the middle, so I
made a quick and dirty set of replacements. Surprisingly, they have a
sound that’s pretty close to the original hammers. The hammers are lasercut from 1/4" poplar, glued together in
pairs to be 1/2" thick and then sanded down to 0.4" to match
the original hammers. The extended slot in the bottom allows me to
glue the hammer onto the old broken shafts instead of replacing them,
and to tilt them to the right to hit the strings at the right angle.
The felt is some wool stuff from a craft drawer. Real hammer heads
are mostly felt, but I made these ones mostly wood because it was
easier. Plans and instructions at www.thingiverse.com/thing:6242
instrument-a-day 8: trash piano replacement hammers
NYCResistor rescued a battered old upright piano that was destined for the dumpster. There were 6 missing hammers right in the middle, so I
made a quick and dirty set of replacements. Surprisingly, they have a
sound that’s pretty close to the original hammers. The hammers are lasercut from 1/4" poplar, glued together in
pairs to be 1/2" thick and then sanded down to 0.4" to match
the original hammers. The extended slot in the bottom allows me to
glue the hammer onto the old broken shafts instead of replacing them,
and to tilt them to the right to hit the strings at the right angle.
The felt is some wool stuff from a craft drawer. Real hammer heads
are mostly felt, but I made these ones mostly wood because it was
easier. Plans and instructions at www.thingiverse.com/thing:6242
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instrument-a-day 7: makerbot
I’ve always loved the sounds made by makerbots as they print out
little plastic gewgaws. Tonight I miked up Jeff’s custom crystal
Thing-o-matic as it printed out a shot glass. Acoustic mic is panned
left, and contact mic is panned right. I know people have programmed their makerbots to play music, but I
like best the sounds they naturally make when they make objects.
little plastic gewgaws. Tonight I miked up Jeff’s custom crystal
Thing-o-matic as it printed out a shot glass. Acoustic mic is panned
left, and contact mic is panned right. I know people have programmed their makerbots to play music, but I
like best the sounds they naturally make when they make objects.
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instrument-a-day 6: humidifier
This humidifier runs next to my bed all night in the winter.
Sometimes its groans and whirs are so interesting that they keep me
awake and I have to turn it off. It plays little cadences, drones,
and repeating beats that constantly change. Or I’m just hallucinating
in my half-asleep state. I’ve been meaning to record it for months. It didn’t do anything
particularly exciting during these 45 seconds, but you can hear it
subtly change even in that time.
Sometimes its groans and whirs are so interesting that they keep me
awake and I have to turn it off. It plays little cadences, drones,
and repeating beats that constantly change. Or I’m just hallucinating
in my half-asleep state. I’ve been meaning to record it for months. It didn’t do anything
particularly exciting during these 45 seconds, but you can hear it
subtly change even in that time.