Video: Floppy music DUO – Imperial march

It’s not at all surprising someone has rigged this up, but I haven’t personally seen it before. A great use for those old floppy disk drives and disks you (might still) have lying around.

Got an interesting musical/synth use for old computer parts? Share in the comments!

Korg Monotron Mini Synth reviewed by Sonic LAB

Quickie here for you. Well worth checking out this video review of the Korg Monotron Mini Synth. Cheap, simple, quirky, battery only… yes. But it shook Musikmesse and it looks like it’s going to be one to watch, particularly when the circuit-benders get hold of it.

When touch and tactility matter: “Station” DIY MIDI controller surface [Video]

Create Digital Music posted this great video and explanation of Station, a huge MIDI controller board built by Ander.

It’s a heady mix of coloured LEDs, control knobs and touch pads, and most importantly for our increasingly touchscreen generation, it provides touchy-feely feedback whenever you press something.

That might not bother the iPod/iPad generation, but if you’re used to real instruments and hardware control surfaces, it is a big deal. There’s nothing quite like getting proper touch feedback from something, and even mobile device haptic technology doesn’t quite cut it for everyone.

Anyway, watch the video because it’s worth seeing and listening to. Don’t ask me what all the controls do, because I don’t know. This is DIY after all, and if I was clever enough to build my own version I’d probably not put any labels on it either

Tellingly, Ander’s interview with CDM includes the line “I have not counted the buttons”. Awesome

But the basic specs are:

• based on the open hardware platform ucapps.de
• Aluminium casing, custom made
• Acrylic knobs, also custom made
• Modularized, can be made into any form
• Flexible PCB: can hold sensors, encoders and/or buttons
• Custom firmware on the microcontrollers
• Custom software interface on the host computer which interfaces via MIDI (in my case to Live)
• RGB LEDs, 24bit color depth (technically)
• USB interface (plus power, this thing needs a lot of power for all these LEDs)

Want?

Pacemaker creates demo video for its portable digital DJ system

If you’ve not come across Pacemaker portable deejaying system yet, this video will give you an introduction, and it’s even got some colourful characters dancing around to keep you company as you explore.

Jordan Rudess demos Yamaha’s Tenori-On

Here’s a short video of keyboard player Jordan Rudess playing around with Yamaha’s Tenori-On sound/light synthesiser.

It shows the other side of the Tenori-On (I hadn’t realised the lights were visible from both sides), and while it means you can’t see exactly what controls Jordan is using, it’s still an interesting demo.