Inspired by Georg Simmel’s notion of the Blasé (an indifference towards the difference between things), I set out to explore the relationship between sensing technology and the routines of everyday life. I feel the city is all too commonly represented by abstract systems and maps, a tendency driven by a reductionist pursuit of efficiency, and one which ignores the idiosyncrasies occurring on street level. This is the noise:

Data visualization

The Chime performs “I Can’t Tell If You’re Coming Or Going” between Lakeshore Blvd. and Lake Ontario in the Morning in Dm from Marc De Pape on Vimeo.

closeup of the grooves cut into the glass bottle

A few week’s ago we showcased wooden records, which generated eery, ethereal music when played. Now, creative agency shine together with the fabricators gyro constructivists have created a device modeled off of Thomas Edison’s original phonograph design that generates music off of tiny grooves cut into a Beck’s beer bottle (is this going to become a running theme?).

The Beck’s Edison Bottle.

Twister, Moodswinger and Burner Harp Guitars by experimental luthier Yuri Landman.

Yuri Landman is an experimental instrument builder and musician. Based on prepared guitar techniques, he built his first instrument in 2001 to solve the inaccuracy of instant preparations. In 2012 Yuri formed the 2-piece band Bismuth with multi-instrumentalist Arnold van de Velde. In the same year he started his infamous Strat Eraser Project to help musicians get rid off their useless gear.

In 2006 he got in contact with the band Liars. Developed over six years of prototyping, he fully realized the Moodswinger for them with commissions from numerous other musicians to follow. Yuri has custom built derivatives for such musical luminaries as Lou Barlow, Sonic Youth, dEUS, The Dodos and many more. Since 2009 Yuri leads practical building workshops — The Home Swinger Project – where people build their own electric instrument, often followed by an afternoon rehearsal on the second day and a 40 minute ensemble performance with multiple Home Swingers, drums, basses, and guitars in the tradition of the Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca compositions.

Check out his official website here and watch a TEDxTalk Landman gave last year.

Lumanoise V1

The lumanise V1 have one square osc, one 12bit sawtooth osc.
The oscillators pitch is controlled by a photo resistor, each oscillator have a volume pot.
A 12 db low pass resonant filter, specially developed by LEP for the project lumanoise, the filter cut-off can be controlled by the potentiometer or the photoresistor.

Lumanoise V2

The lumanoise V2 heve one square osc, one 12bit sawtooth osc. and 2 trautonium like sub oscillator.
We were inspired by the great Oskar Sala Trautonium synth oscillator.
We use one master oscillator under LDR control and 2 sub oscillator, where you can set the frequency.
The oscillators pitch is controlled by a photo resistor, each oscillator have a volume pot.
A 12 db low pass resonant filter, the filter cut-off can be controlled by the potentiometer or the photoresistor.

808 cymbal drone generator

The 808 cymbal drone generator use 6 fixed frequency square wave oscillators.
The oscillator frequency came from the cluster oscillator circuit used in the TR808 drum machine for creating cymbal sound, in fact these are the harmonic frequencies of the sounds of metal plate.
Each oscillators have a volume pot. and the 12 db low pass resonant filter, the filter cut-off can be controlled by the potentiometer or the photoresistor.

The Lumanoise box are made of plywood 3mm laser cut, different textures will be available soon.

For news and updates check out tonylight-leploop.blogspot.it

S H Λ ΛΛ Λ N I X from V5MT on Vimeo.

See more videos from V5MT here and head over to ani-gif.com for a current online exhibition of her animated gifs*

Billy Keyes writes:

SketchSynth lets anyone create their own control panels with just a marker and a piece of paper. Once drawn, the controller sends Open Sound Control (OSC) messages to anything that can receive them; in this case, a simple synthesizer running in Pure Data. It’s a fun toy that also demonstrates the possibilities of adding digital interaction to sketched or otherwise non-digital interfaces.

Behind the scenes video, photos, technical details and more here!

Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures Cover Printed in 3D, from emnullfuenf:

After watching Grant Gee’s documentary “Joy Division” i decided i have to print the iconic cover of their first album “Unknown Pleasures” in 3D. Unfortunately i could not find a single vector graphic or 3D model anywhere. There are articles about the history of the graphics, Peter Saville’s artwork and PSR B1919+21. I even tried to visualize PSR B1919+21′s waveforms. But in the end i spend an evening tracing the waves by hand while watching ESC.

The Processing sketch didn’t create a manifold 3D model and i couldn’t fix it in time. Thus i rewrote the sketch in order to export DXF layers and extruded them in OpenSCAD. Now there’s a printable STL on Thingiverse: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:92971.

Read more.

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

An incredible example of what can be done with laser-cutting, Amanda Ghassaei’s project “Laser Cut Record” features music inscribed directly into cut discs of maple wood, acrylic, and paper, resulting in lo-fi but playable records. via bldgblog.

The Velvet Underground and Nico – Femme Fatale on maple:

Super-duper closeup of a vinyl record’s indentations:

This is a close up image of a vinyl record, taken with an electron microscope.  The dark objects in the grooves are tiny particles of dust.  The laser cutter cannot make such precise cuts because the width of the beam is too large, so the grooves on my records are about 1-2 orders of magnitude larger in every dimension than these grooves.

Ritornell’s business cards are inspired by the project’s live show. The improvised concerts evoke a lively atmosphere by the combination of filigree electronics with playful timbres of diverse acoustic instruments and utensils such as egg whisks, toilet brushes, chopsticks or sewing needles. As an integral part of their set list, Ritornell invites the audience to bring along their private musicboxes. Arranged in a big circle, the players’ speed of turning levers is conducted: the results are as shimmering as you would expect.
Katharina Hölzl designed very special business cards to recreate this playful sonic universe. With the aid of laser assisted milling, nine micro compositions consisting of circles, triangles and Ritornell’s contact information were applied onto a long musicbox paper stripe. Before handing out the cards to interested adressees, each individual subdivision is played back via an especially designed musical box – thus providing every business card receiver with a tailor made musical experience.

From the website:

The Sound Revolver (SR) is a table top where differently coloured “nodes” sit. A camera sitting under the table sends off the videostream to a computer which then detects the colours and creates links. There are only two colours involved, yellow and blue, which pair with each other. The yellow nodes have an orbiting circle which plays tones when the circle touches a yellow-blue node link.

Read more!

Using an Infrared Distance Sensor as MIDI Controller from little-scale:

This is a simple example of using an infrared distance sensor as a MIDI controller. The hardware setup is simple – analog out to analog input on the Teensy, ground to ground and 5V to 5V.

Source code and photos here!

Featured Adafruit Products

IR distance sensor includes cable (10cm-80cm) – GP2Y0A21YK0F – This SHARP distance sensor bounces IR off objects to determine how far away they are. It returns an analog voltage that can be used to determine how close the nearest object is. Comes with 12″ long 3-JST interface wire. These sensors are good for short-range detection. For over 1 m distance, we suggest using sonar sensors. (read more)

Via dailymail.co.uk:

You can now turn your favourite music downloads into playable records made from materials you have lying around the house.

Amanda Ghassaei, 24, from San Francisco has created the world’s first laser-cut wooden records using songs from Radiohead and Joy Division.

And the software engineer has made the instructions available to download, making it possible to create your own at home.

Ghassaei previously used 3D printers to print records from her MP3 downloads.
She wanted to find a way for people without 3D printers to make their own records, and has designed a way of making records out of paper, acrylic and wood.

Ghassaei created a digital waveform file from the MP3 and converted into a PDF. Needles on a record player pick up vibrations based on the shape of the record’s surface. The waveform was then cut into the wood using lasers to create the ‘shape’ of the song.

Read more!

The idea of “ISOTOPES” is to generate a dematerialised space. The catalyst of the project have been post Fukushima’s atmosphere. This tragedy that collided within our memories and childhood has led us to think about the brittleness of reality. This point of no return reflects the brutality of this evolving world that surrounds us, replacing any individual’s existence into fiction.

“Isotopes” is an open space which can also be perceived as a prison. At first, the slow and hypnotizing moving lights attracts the visitor into the heart of it. Then, the rhythm and the intensity become continually more aggressive until it generates immaterial barriers: it’s easy to get in but neigh impossible to get out. This echoes the way humans approach nuclear power. First seduced, then addicted by its comfortable energy, humans have become trapped in an unstable situation. The rhythm of the lights and the sounds bring back the connection between the Japanese and their awareness of radioactive omnipresence. Sometimes you can forget it, like the glow of a night light, but sometimes the conscience gains the upper hand, and fear comes back with loss of ground reference. Through the metamorphoses of its appearance, this installation leaves the visitor between what once existed and what didn’t, drawing them into the spectrum of their own volatile emotions.

Sound Camera SeeSV-S205 shows the squeak and rattle noise of a dashboard. The dashboard is on a low noise shaker to simulate rough road condition. Random and single frequency vibration were induced. SeeSV-S205 is a real-time handheld sound camera which implements FPGA-based high speed beamforming technology. SeeSV-S205 is developed for Buzz, Squeak and Rattle (BSR) noise source detection as well as Noise, Vibration and Harshness (NVH) source visualization. It displays transient noise effectively due to its high image per second update rate. The unique design of SeeSV-S205 makes measuring sound easy.

dave cole: music box, singer + knitting machine.

‘the music box’, a monumental sculptural piece commissioned by the cleveland institute of art and developed in partnership with ohio CAT, sees the american artist dismantling a 22, 000 lb steamroller in which he refabricates more than 80% of the machine–though still maintaining its identifiable physical qualities–transforming it into a fully functioning musical box, and at a fraction of its original weight.

Visuals created and animated by Hine Mizushima. This video includes Hive Mind, Decision Makers (with Jed Parish), Nouns, There (with Robin Goldwasser), Insect Hospital and Tick–all from the new They Might Be Giants album ‘Nanobots’

The video has lots of (computer) bugs

Alexander Zolotov’s PixiVisor via createdigitalmusic.com:

PixiVisor is software for desktop (Mac, Windows, Linux) and mobile (iOS, Android) that transforms images to sound and back again. Producing sound from images is an idea in a variety of tools. But PixiVisor is unique in that it goes the other way, too: sound can be turned back into the originally imagery as a video. In the demo video here from developer Alexander Zolotov, a simple audio mixer can mix together multiple video sources (in beautiful low fidelity), and add effects. A DIY 4-pole plug connects the signal to the mobile gadget – iOS, in this case.

From the website:

PixiVisor is a revolutionary tool for audio-visual experiments. Simple and fun, cross-platform application with unlimited potential for creativity!
It consists of two parts: Transmitter and Receiver.
Transmitter converts the video (static 64×64 image or 10FPS animation) to sound, pixel by pixel (progressive scan). This lets you listen to the sound of your image. But the main function of the Transmitter is to transmit the signal to the receiving devices.
Receiver converts the sound (from microphone or Line-in input) back to video. You can set the color palette for this video, and record it to animated GIF file.

Download PixiVisor and read more at the official site here!

Graphical representation of part one of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring:

Jay Bacal performed and rendered this piece using virtual instrument software by Vienna Symphonic Library.

Video by Stephen Malinowsky. See what the symbols signify here.

Earlier this month, we shared about musician and robotic instrument maker Patrick Flanagan’s “part human, mostly robot, electro band” called Jazari and his EP for “The Human Element” that featured some of his custom-built instruments and robotic performers.

Well, he sent us an update with more behind-the-scenes details, including how he uses our LED Illuminated Pushbuttons in his work:

I just posted my tech talk video that describes how the controller works with the drum machines.

And I did a blog post about some of the problems I encountered while building the controller, gave your awesome square LED arcade buttons a shout, and posted my Arduino code.

Here are more details from his site about the Meganome:

Patrick Flanagan’s fantastic monome inspired, grid-based MIDI controller, the Meganome:

The Meganome is inspired by the monome controller and powered by an Arduino Mega. Like other grid controllers like the Launchpad and Push, it has performance modes for triggering drums, playings synths, and launching clips and effects. I like the feel of arcade buttons and look of exotic hardwoods, so mass-market products just weren’t right for me.

Check out Patrick’s blog post with links to source code and more here!

Featured Adafruit Products

LED Illuminated Pushbutton – 30mm Square – A button is a button, and a switch is a switch, but this LED illuminated arcade buttons is in a class of its own. It’s similar in size to an arcade button (and will fit in holes drilled for ‘standard’ 30mm buttons) but has a built in LED that can be controlled separately from the switch action – either to indicate or just to look good. (read more)

Stylophone + electric guitar body! Details at alexglow.com.
I’m licking my fingers because it relies on your skin’s conductivity to play. Nasty!

Turning drawings into a music game via Arduino Blog:

MusicInk makes drawings turning into real music, this magical process is due to a mashup of various eterogenous technologies: Conductive Ink by Bare Conductive, MPR121 controller, Arduino (Duemilanove board), LiPo shield (removed on a second time), Bluetooth shield by Seedstudio, Android platform, Pure Data for Android (libido), Pure Data patch.
Our project was developed with the help of our friend Manh Luong Bui and has been a very hard work.
We started our project studying the possibilities to create new and cheap musical instruments, then we discovered studies about conductive ink and we decided to create something different with these two technologies.

Read more over at MusicInk.com!

New collaboration by Russell Haswell & Yasunao Tone explores the MP3 format as sound art:

Russell Haswell (UK) and Yasunao Tone (Japan) have a rich history in exploring the extremes of sound and technology, where they intertwine and where the potential lies for deviation from the function intrinsic to their design. Both artists have undertaken years of rigorous exploration of sonic phenomena via the production of music tools. The constant shift in synthesis and production over the decades has only provoked further challenges resulting in an excited means of exploration and consistently new and challenging results.

Audio preview and more here.

photo by Andy Newcombe

Onyx Ashanti at the 2013 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition

Here is a 1920s-vintage Hugo Popper ‘Happy Jazzband’ Orchestrion Welt-Piano Konzertist, made in Leipzig, Germany. They were created by adding a ‘jazz band percussion effect’ top cabinet to a Welt coin piano model. The instrument plays music from 88 note or 88 hole rolls, of an identical size to Arburo rolls, and in addition to the piano, has percussion and trap effects such as muted cymbal, snare drum, triangle and wood block.

What makes these Popper Orchestrions outstanding is the attention to detail of ensuring the percussion effects are expressive – that is for example, rather than a simple pneumatic beating a drum, the beater has its distance from the drum altered continuously according to holes in the roll, by means of a separate expression pneumatic. The resulting music is therefore very much less mechanical than in many orchestrions.

Here this Popper Orchestrion plays a tune called ‘Am Rüdesheimer Schloss steht eine Linde’ (Blues von Erich Ziegler) – the title translating to ‘At Rüdesheimer Castle stands a Linden tree’.

XenoSonic DRSSTC Bach Little Fugue Tesla Coil Yamaha Synth:

A quick and dirty demonstration of the XenoSonic Audio Interface. A Yamaha S03 Synthesizer is hooked up directly to the miniBrute DRSSTC via the XenoSonic Audio Interface.

Since the XenoSonic only produces monophonic output, i prerecorded the Bach Fugue in Gminor on my Allen C-6 Classical organ and then simply added various voices using the Yamaha S03 in real time to the Tesla coil. Its quite a bit sloppy, but thats mostly because i didn’t really practice how i was going to play individual voices from the piece and i had a hard time hearing the actual prerecorded music, so its a bit out of synch.

Read more!

The musician and robotic instrument maker Patrick Flanagan of the “part human, mostly robot, electro band” called Jazari shared part of his latest EP “The Human Element” that he created using a cluster of custom-built instruments and “robotic performers.” He shared this story with us:

I bought a lot of illuminated, square arcade buttons and a number of other components from Adafruit about a year ago. Thanks again for the awesome customer service! Those sexy red arcade buttons are the crucial component in my Meganome MIDI controller, which I used to record my debut EP The Human Element. You can see the controller and buttons in action in this video for the track Quick Minute.

And here are details from his video description for “Quick Minute“:

This original mix consists of an improvised robot djembe solo with beats inspired by footwork, drum n bass, and trap music. It’s available as a FREE download What you hear was taped live at the video shoot and mixed later in Pro Tools.

I practice in a studio near a lot of trap producers, and the track grew out of playing along with their crazy hi hats and 808 basses. The instruments are djembe, bongos, cabasa, hi hat, and snare, which might be obvious. What probably is not obvious is that the bass sound you hear (you do have a sub, don’t you?) is the bottom of the djembe, miked with a kick mic. It has a booming, resonant sound that sounds absolutely massive on a good system.

All of the machines are controlled by Arduino microcontrollers, which receive MIDI signals sent from a laptop running MAX/MSP. The main controller is an 84 LED button monster I call the Meganome. I use it for drum machines and synths. Controllerism.com did a write-up on it.

You can read my liner notes to the free EP The Human Element on my blog at http://jazarimusic.com. And you can follow me on social media for robot music news, life coaching, DJ trolling, and music theory jokes.

• http://jazarimusic.com
• http://soundcloud.com/jazari
• http://twitter.com/jazarimusic
• http://facebook.com/jazarimusic

Read more.

A tour of Vince Clarke’s Synth Heaven via Sonicscoop –

Vince Clarke is inspired by his surroundings. These days, this music-making royalty resides in Brooklyn. In the sub-basement of a house on a quiet street, new ideas are steadily emerging from Clarke.

– it’s just him and long walls of classic synths which span decades. From ARPs to Arturias, Moogs to massive Roland system constructions, or custom modular synths and newcomers like Analogue Solutions’ Leipzig S monosynth/step sequencer — he can hear them all, playing together or apart, at a moment’s command.

(all photos: Janice Brown)

Read More!

Neat arduino project uses MIDI note data to write emails:

WK recently allowed me some time to tackle a problem that plagues workers everywhere whether they are working in advertising or some other job that involves a lot of email typing. I’m talking about the problem of not being able to devote enough time practicing shredding the guitar. The solution of hooking a guitar up so that you could use it like a computer keyboard had been in my head for a few years and it was a real joy to get to follow through on it.

Read more!

Cool headphones that use a repurposed SNES controller via Hackaday:

Here’s a build that just exudes nerd cred. It’s an SNES controller modified into a pair of headphones, straight from the workshop of [lyberty5].

The build began by stealing a controller from a PAL SNES and carefully dremeling the buttons and d-pad loose from their plastic frame. The PCB was cut in half, and the remaining plastic was carefully crafted into round speaker enclosures with the help of some epoxy. hot glue, and possibly a few pieces of styrene.

Photos and more here!

Here’s a great PD project for your Pi — setting up a DIY wireless MIDI-OSC Bridge!

With a wlan stick, a battery pack, and Pure Data the Raspberry Pi becomes a swissarmy knife for MIDI and OSC.

In an ongoing project to make wearable non-standard musical controllers we found the vmeter which is a nicely sized touch strip with the one drawback that it is a usb device and as such wired. We looked into ways to make a wireless usb or MIDI connection or anything similar and found close to nothing that suited our needs (battery powered, small, flexible). After thinking about this for a while it occured to me that building our own system actually should take close to no hardware hacking and only a little software tinkering. So we decided to build our own. Basically a Raspberry Pi with a WLAN stick and a battery pack is all you need.

Read more.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

Excellent Polysix mod by Chip adds aftertouch and portamento:

This last week has been an exciting time for my pursuit of adding aftertouch to my Korg Polysix. As you know by now, I *really* want aftertouch vibrato on my Polysix…so a while back, I ordered a bunch of parts and dived in. I’ve been posting about my progress. In my last post, I described the electronics elements that I used to implement the arbitrary pitch bending that would allow for my aftertouch-driven vibrato. As a bonus, having arbitrary pitch control also enabled me to add portamento to my Polysix, which is another effect that I absolutely love. So, without further ado, now that I’ve put her back together, here’s my first demo of what she can do…

More info and photographs here!

Featured Adafruit Products

MCP4725 Breakout Board – 12-Bit DAC w/I2C Interface – Your microcontroller probably has an ADC (analog -> digital converter) but does it have a DAC (digital -> analog converter)??? Now it can! This breakout board features the easy-to-use MCP4725 12-bit DAC. Control it via I2C and send it the value you want it to output, and the VOUT pin will have it. Great for audio / analog projects, such as when you can’t use PWM but need a sine wave or adjustable bias point. (read more)

Make your own Arduino/MSGEQ7 based instrument equalizer complete with LCD display by Pierre Vernaeckt –

Today’s project consists, as the title says, in the creation of an arduino/MSGEQ7 based pedal to be used with your guitar/bass/whatever. I’m going to show you how to use the MSGEQ7 (a 7 bands equalizer), how to display the result on a graphical LCD and, icing on the cake, how to make your own arduino shield.

Tutorial with source code here!

Featured Adafruit Products

Small waterproof OtterBox – 1000 – Make your project stand up to serious abuse with an otterbox, a true waterproof drybox that is also tough enough to get run over. Made of clear polycarbonate, you’ll be able to keep an eye on any indicator LEDs. We have these in 3 sizes: small (#1000), medium (#2000) and large (#3000). They’re ideal for projects with wireless components like GPS loggers, GPRS/GSM cellular or xbee but can also act as a portable “pack & hack” project box. (read more)

O-Bow, a new electronic bow sensor for making music:

The O-Bow is an electronic musical instrument consisting a bow sensor and synthesis software. An optical flow sensor is used to measure the bow speed and horizontal angle with high resolution. A variety of bow types can be tracked, including violin bows and wooden sticks.

Development of the O-Bow was prompted by the obvious need for something like a windcontroller but for string instruments. Increasing amounts of orchestral music in tv and film is produced using sophistocated sample based instruments played using keyboards. String sounds are some of the hardest to generate convincingly because of the variety of possible expression. The initial aim for the O-Bow was to find a way to add more expression in this setting. It is also expected to be popular for live performance and in education. Because it is electronic there are no restrictions on what kind of bowed sound might be produced.

New feature summary:

- robust tracking from low to high speeds.
- bow contact parameter, enables ringing string sound when bow is removed while bowing.
- all communication is using the USB-MIDI protocol providing immediate connection to music software.
- cylindrical casing design for flexible configuration and orientation, for example using standard mic holder.
- contact saddle manufactured from optimized CAD design, for bow engagement and tracking.
- software moved to the Native Instruments Kontakt platform. The script language is strong enough to implement all the O-Bow features. This allows the O-Bow to operate as a virtual instrument in a wide variety of music software.
- manipulations are possible on the control data directly in a sequencer.
- speed to gain warping for a variety of playing feel.
- new violin sample recordings, including ringing. The samples are for prototyping puposes only- fully professional samples will be incorporated later.

More photographs and information here!

Using the Pulse Sensor Amped, Sebastian Tomczak aka Little-Scale uses his heart beat to control the tempo in Ableton Live.

Source code and more here!

Featured Adafruit Products

Pulse Sensor Amped – Pulse Sensor Amped is a greatly improved version of the original Pulse Sensor, a plug-and-play heart-rate sensor for Arduino and Arduino compatibles. It can be used by students, artists, athletes, makers, and game & mobile developers who want to easily incorporate live heart-rate data into their projects. (read more)

Waves are part of the natural world as well as our models of it. Brusspup has tied together ideas about sound waves, material science, and cameras to produce these incredible results.

From Colossal:

What!? How is this even possible? Because science, my friends. Brusspup’s (previously) latest video explores what happens when a stream of water is exposed to an audio speaker producing a loud 24hz sine wave. If I understand correctly the camera frame rate has been adjusted to the match the vibration of the air (so, 24fps) thus creating … magic zigzagging water. Or something. Here’s a little more detail:

Run the rubber hose down past the speaker so that the hose touches the speaker. Leave about 1 or 2 inches of the hose hanging past the bottom of the speaker. Secure the hose to the speaker with tape or whatever works best for you. The goal is to make sure the hose is touching the actual speaker so that when the speaker produces sound (vibrates) it will vibrate the hose.

Set up your camera and switch it to 24 fps. The higher the shutter speed the better the results. But also keep in the mind that the higher your shutter speed, the more light you need. Run an audio cable from your computer to the speaker. Set your tone generating software to 24hz and hit play. Turn on the water. Now look through the camera and watch the magic begin. If you want the water to look like it’s moving backward set the frequency to 23hz. If you want to look like it’s moving forward in slow motion set it to 25hz.

Brusspup did a similar experiment last year where it looked as if the water was flowing in reverse. Can somebody please make a water fountain that does this or would we all be deaf?

Read more.

“Operate Spotify from your couch with this ready to eat software for the Raspberry Pi.”

A lot of people have problems getting the Pi to work as a remote Spotify-player. This bootable image makes it a lot easier. As a bonus, it includes AirTunes support.

Features

• Working Spotify server based on Mopidy, which can be remotely controlled with a nice browser-interface, or with an MPD-client
• AirTunes streaming
• No need for tinkering, no need to use the Linux commandline
• USB Audio support (supporting all kinds of USB soundcards, speakers, headphones).
• The analog port works, but the sound quality is not great. Flat so to say. This is a hardware problem (to get the Pi as cheap as it is, they had to use cheap hardware to produce sound). An external USB soundcard is recommended for better sound quality.
• Wifi support (WPA, if the Pi-kernel supports your wifi-adapter)
• This image is also a great way to get started with tinkering for other ways of using the Pi as a Music playing device, because it solves a lot of problems. (Mopidy can e.g. be modified to play local music-files, but it’s not enabled at the moment.)

Requirements

• Working Raspberry Pi
• Speakers/amplifier (analog or USB)
• SD Card, 2GB minimum (tested on a 4GB model. It can probably run on a 1GB, but then you need to resize the partitions)
• Computer with a modern browser; tablet or phone. The webinterface is tested with recent versions of Firefox, Chrome and iOS (iPad/iPhone), modern versions of Android (Chrome Mobile, Firefox Mobile). Internet Explorer version 10 works with the webinterface, earlier versions don’t. You can also use an MPD client to connect.
• Spotify Premium account for streaming.

Read more!

Interesting development: The Bleep.com store, which introduced legal music downloads to the UK almost a decade ago (launched by IDM-powerhouse record label Warp Records), will now offer three DIY electronics kits related to music in their store, including this Electro Synth Kit from Technology Will Save Us:

What is it?
This DIY kit includes all of the components you need, including the world famous 556 Integrated Circuit, jumper wires and prototyping breadboard as well as a speaker to create your very own DIY Synth.  In building the circuit you gain an understanding into how the various components combined can create a whole plethora of wonderful noises.

How does it work?
The DIY Synth Kit takes about an hour to build using the breadboard and jumper wires and provided.  It is important that you download the handy how–to manual from the link below to ensure all the components go in the right places.  Once constructed and the battery is connected the circuit creates stable square waves. Then, using the two control potentiometers you can alter the wave’s frequency and width giving you a whole array of fantastic noises….

Read more.

Check out this guitar effects box rig from Pierre Massat. Via RaspberryPi.org.

This post aims at providing an overview of the hardware I’m using to turn my Raspberry Pi into a real-time effects processor for my electric guitar.

The Raspberry Pi

The RPi is obviously the star of this setup ! The fact that such a tiny (about the size of a credit card) and cheap (around 30 €) computer can run Pd in real-time is (I think) a small revolution. I had been dreaming of that since many years, actually.

The Raspberry Pi I use in the video is the first commercial version, with 256 MB of RAM. I believe that we can expect some improvements in terms of performance with the latest Revision 2 model (512 MB of RAM). I’ll get you posted when I get one…

Read more.

My friend Dan (of the Science Brothers) has an impressive element collection. I teamed up with him to build an equally impressive display for his large collection; complete with 120 PWM channels of LED backlight and an Arduino at the controls. It even uses code from the Adafruit Tiny Arduino Music Visualizer. Check out the results:

P.S. It has been a while since I posted. Never fear, my wedding is one month out and afterwards I should once again know what it is like to have time to do other things. I’ll be back!

Awesome DIY synth project both looks+sounds incredible.

From CreateDigitalMusic.com:

Leave it to the DIYer. Alex Pleninger’s name isn’t just marketing. This is one monster of a synth creation, looking and sounding like it was ripped, circuits still humming, from a wrecked UFO.
Retro trackball, keyboard? Check. In-built computer display? Check. Makes … a mind-boggling array of sounds? Oh, yes. It’s retro-future goodness, powered by the legendary SID, Robert “Bob” Yannes’ synth-on-a-chip that powered the Commodore 64. (In fact, get Bob and Wolfgang together, and you have a fair amount of digital synthesis history – with Ensoniq and PPG represented. See today’s other story.) Thanks to Marc Resibois for the tip.

Skip through the demo above for some different sounds, then head on to other demos that Alex describes as “more pop-oriented” (might depend on your star system), and, in the third installment, a studio-style setup. In that third episode, you see “a bit more complicated setup – Lemur on iPad being used to control pitches of the SID and some other internal stuff. No external FX were used.”

Read more.

Ah, finally a bobble heads MaKey-MaKey instrument! Not only did they beat me to the punch, they have a great bobble head set!

From Genuine Interactive: Genuine Labs:

Ever wish you could take play to another level? Thanks to the inventors of MaKey-MaKey, an ingeniously simplistic plug-and-play device that turns any object, animate or inanimate, into a playable “key,” this is now possible. Watch as Genuine Labs explore new methods of user interaction by turning our favorite Star Wars characters into a basic keyboard using this cool little gadget. Learn more about Genuine Labs and other experiential projects here.

Read more.

Every Monday is Makey Makey™ Monday here at Adafruit! The MaKey MaKey – by Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum, made by JoyLabz! Ever played Mario on Play-Doh or Piano on Bananas? Alligator clip the Internet to Your World. MaKey MaKey is an invention kit for the 21st century. Find out more details at makeymakey.com or watch the video at makeymakey.com. Turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet. It’s a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything in between! If you have a cool project you’ve made with your Makey Makey be sure to send it in to be featured here!

From Dave Razor:

A small project using Makey Makey in conjunction with Abelton Live, Resolume 4 and a video projector to turn a knife, spoon, fork and a beer into audio-visual triggers. Go sports!

Read more.

Every Monday is Makey Makey™ Monday here at Adafruit! The MaKey MaKey – by Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum, made by JoyLabz! Ever played Mario on Play-Doh or Piano on Bananas? Alligator clip the Internet to Your World. MaKey MaKey is an invention kit for the 21st century. Find out more details at makeymakey.com or watch the video at makeymakey.com. Turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet. It’s a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything in between! If you have a cool project you’ve made with your Makey Makey be sure to send it in to be featured here!

Today at the Adafruit Facebook page, I shared a couple of questions for our community based on conversations we were having back at Adafruit:

What music do you listen to when working on projects? And do you listen to different tunes for coding/modeling/computer work vs soldering/hardware hacking/building?

The responses there as well as at the Adafruit Google+ Community has been a lot of fun (and a great place to grab leads for my Spotify queue). I particularly liked this link shared by Adam Mayer — WorkMusicWork:

Music found on bandcamp suitable for listening to while coding. Submissions welcome!

Read more.

That page has my totally productive divided attention!

Handy overview for how to fake airplay speakers using a Raspberry Pi. While the latest state of this project is probably better for an installation audio project than an ideal way to listen to your music, the leap from these instructions to one using an outboard USB DAC is not far — and I look forward to trying this out in my apartment!.

From Jordan Burgess:

I’ve had mine for a few months now but I hadn’t got around to using it yet. So I’ve now decided to try to make something that I’ve wanted for a while: a product to bring my good but dated speaker system into the 21st century by enabling wireless streaming of music to it.

A possible way to do this would be to buy an Airport Express or an Apple TV and connect the audio out to the stereo. But then I would feel like overpaying for features like video streaming or wireless routing that wouldn’t be used. Besides, those products cost around £80. Airplay enabled speakers cost £200 at the low end. This raspberry pi creation should easily come in under £30.

How to fake airplay compataility

To get a Raspberry Pi looking like an airplay receiver I made use of Shairport. This opensource software was created by James Laird after literally tearing open an airport express, dumping the ROM and reverse engineering out the private cryptographic key that airplay uses to identity of legitimate apple products. The github repo has the Perl source code that can be compiled for simple audio receiving only. For this project we essentially need to get this code running on a networked raspberry pi.

I’ll condense this down to the bare instructions for a working outcome. On the way here I had attempted many other ways to do it. I flirted with XBMC, creating a reasonably ok Apple TV-like system in the process.  But frequent crashes caused me to divert my attention to this simpler, audio-only solution.

As a word of warning, one of the common pitfalls I encountered was with the very narrow acceptable power range of the RPi. The computer is powered by usb cable and any additional loads such as a wifi adapter or a budget usb keyboard can strain this power supply past it’s limits. I had several instances of odd performance or non-responsiveness due to this….

Read more.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

Want a FREE RASPBERRY PI? All orders over $350 get a FREE Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM!

Okay, I get it — a project that uses actual beets to build drum beats. The pun only makes this more awesome. Via RaspberryPi.org, from
via Scott Garner:

Description

BeetBox is a simple instrument that allows users to play drum beats by touching actual beets. It is powered by a Raspberry Pi with a capacitive touch sensor and an audio amplifier in a handmade wooden enclosure.

Concept

BeetBox is primarily an exploration of perspective and expectations. I’m particularly interested in creating complex technical interactions in which the technology is invisible—both in the sense that the interaction is extremely simple and in the literal sense that no electronic components can be seen.

Enclosure

The enclosure was created from .5″x8″ poplar boards, which I cut to size and finished using various hand and power tools. I used a router for both the edge details and for grooves in which to conceal the wires, and a drill press to create the speaker grill and to bore holes for the beets with a hole saw. I then stained the wood and, after assembly with wood glue and a nail gun, sealed the enclosure with polyurethane.

Internals

Touch sensing is handled by an MPR121 Capacitive Touch Sensor from SparkFun, for which I ported existing Arduino code to Python. This board communicates with a Python script on a Raspberry Pi via I2C. The script watches for new touches and triggers drum samples using pygame. Audio from the Pi’s line out is run through a small amplifier I built using an LM386, which is based on a circuit straight from the data sheet. The amp is connected to a salvaged speaker mounted under the holes in the lid.

Source code for the BeetBox is viewable on GitHub.

Read more.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

Want a FREE RASPBERRY PI? All orders over $350 get a FREE Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM!

And there is a little treat for you at the end. It is with great pleasure and satisfaction that I bring your the first roll call of “Adafruit Music Industries“: i.e. the actual musicians, performers, and composers here at Adafruit. Aren’t you curious now? Feel free to scroll to the end to check them out.

Available At Adafruit!

Music & sound add-on pack for Arduino – v1.1: Its a Wave shield party pack! Just add an Arduino to create your own iPod-killer, audio art, sound-effects box… Comes with the latest Wave shield kit, works with more SD cards and with older NG Arduinos! Unassembled 1 or 2 GB SD card (brand or size may change, but we test one of each kind to verify it works well). Speaker – 3″ diameter (77mm), 8 ohm impedence, good response between 200Hz to 10KHz (10KHz is the max frequency the Wave shield can make). The speaker is rated for 1W so if you want you can even stick a small amp between the shield and the speaker to boost up the volume. (read more)

Electret Microphone Amplifier – MAX4466 with Adjustable Gain: Add an ear to your project with this well-designed electret microphone amplifier. This fully assembled and tested board comes with a 20-20KHz electret microphone soldered on. For the amplification, we use the Maxim MAX4466, an op-amp specifically designed for this delicate task! The amplifier has excellent power supply noise rejection, so this amplifier sounds really good and isn’t nearly as noisy or scratchy as other mic amp breakouts we’ve tried! This breakout is best used for projects such as voice changers, audio recording/sampling, and audio-reactive projects that use FFT. On the back, we include a small trimmer pot to adjust the gain. You can set the gain from 25x to 125x. That’s down to be about 200mVpp (for normal speaking volume about 6″ away) which is good for attaching to something that expects ‘line level’ input without clipping, or up to about 1Vpp, ideal for reading from a microcontroller ADC. The output is rail-to-rail so if the sounds gets loud, the output can go up to 5Vpp! (read more)

Adafruit Learning System: there are a number of excellent tutorials for those wishing to trigger sounds or master Arduino of Raspberry Pi in the Adafruit Learning System, including the useful video above demonstrating how to trigger sounds using bottoms and a RasPi and the video below from showing how you can use the Wave Shield to create a voice changer. Hunt for your topic there to see what you find! (read more)

MaKey MaKey by Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum – Made by JoyLabz: Ever played Mario on Play-Doh or Piano on Bananas? Alligator clip the Internet to Your World. MaKey MaKey is an invention kit for the 21st century. Turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet. It’s a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything in between. MaKey MaKey was invented by Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum & Made by JoyLabz. Find out more details at makeymakey.com or watch the video. (read more)

Drawdio Kit: Drawdio is an electronic pencil that lets you make music while you draw! It’s great project for beginners: An easy soldering kit with instant gratification. Essentially, it’s a very simple musical synthesizer that uses the conductive properties of pencil graphite to create different sounds. The result is a fun toy that lets you draw musical instruments on any piece of paper. (read more)

Kits from Another Planet!!

Music From Outer Space catalog: Okay, this isn’t just one product, it is a lifestyle. This site is a good litmus test to see if you are susceptible to the temptations of analog audio gear or not. And what’s more, there is a density to the site and what it offers that it practically teaches you electronics just through the process of puzzling out how to find all of the interesting corners. Navigating the site successfully should permit you to at least produce a saw wave on an analog synth. Or at least master some basic signal processing. But you know you want to dip your feet in the water and put together the Noise Toaster or Weird Sound Generator or at least some outboard signal processing gear. If you are getting as excited as I am about this stuff, then you have passed the test this site represents and will now proceed to fill your apartment with rack gear cast off from the local radio station fire sale, because someday, you just might need that particular sound it makes. (read more)

Tap-Tempo Metronome Kit: Very useful tool for musicians! “The Tap-Tempo Metronome is a tap-controlled or tap-tempo metronome and beat looper. You tap the piezo speaker to set the rhythm. The display shows the beats per minute, and the two buttons adjust the speed. You can tap patterns into it, up to 12 beats long. As long as you tap the pattern in three times, it jumps in and continues beeping in that rhythm. If you hold one of the buttons while turning the metronome on, the pitch of the beep will be higher or lower, so you can play with more than one at a time.” (read more)

Make12 – Solar Xylophone: Here’s a really great kit that started as a project at MAKE, offered by Solarbotics. “Want to build the Solar Xylophone in Make Volume 12? \We carry pretty much all of the electronic parts you need to build the Solar Xylophone by Rory Nugent in Make Volume 12. So, to save you a ton of time trying to find all of those many parts (and adding 8 of each!) we have compiled them all into one very convenient bundle.” (read more)

GetLoFi electronics projects: The above image is for the awesome 2399 LoFi Delay, but there are quite a few awesome audio kits here to consider, from Optical Transistor Theremin Kit to Distortion Lab to Atari Punk Console 3.0 Kit. (read more)

PAiA Theremax Theremin: One of the best places to get Theremin kits and unusual sound modules. From the Theremax Theremin description: “Since its introduction during the 1920′s the instrument which bears Leon Theremin’s name has been evocative in image and tone. PAiA’s Theremax theremin captures this spirit in an instrument based on the same heterodyne principles as the original but with embellishments made possible by the economy of integrated circuits and solid state electronics. In addition to the traditional mellow sine-like tone, Theremax’s Timbre control can mix in a harmonic rich square wave to produce a signal that’s ideal for use with external filters and processors. And to control outboard units, there are Pitch and Volume Control Voltage outputs. But the features that really set Tmax apart as a gestural controller are it’s Velocity Control Voltage (proportional to how fast you increase the Volume) and Gate/Trigger outputs. A convenient foot switch input allows muting the internal tone source without disabling the CVs.(read more)

And here are a few more synth and PCB links for the enterprising — fewer photos or guarantees to deliver anytime soon than the options above. But AWESOME when you figure out what each site is offering.

• http://www.cgs.synth.net/: Huge variety of pcbs from a very strange pony breeder.
• http://bridechamber.com/Home.html: Another good resource for pcbs, and some rare hard to find components.
• http://erthenvar.com/store/index.php?route=comm: Another good diy resource.
• http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=17: Music tech diy thread on modular forum muffwiggler.com -
  lots of small runs of pcbs, faceplates and a good general resource for modular diy info.

Chiptunes!!

Nanoloop: One of the two giants of the chip tunes scene! From the website: “Nanoloop is a minimalistic electronic music program for handheld platforms. Nanoloop 1.6 is a sequencer for Game Boy. Sound is generated by the Game Boy’s analog sound chip and restricted to raw rectangular waves, noise and a 4-bit wave form. Nanoloop 2.5 for Game Boy Advance is a sequencer and software synthesizer. Filtered waves, filtered noise and simple FM are produced digitally. The iPhone and Android versions share the same sound engine and file format and have a similar interface. They combine an enhanced version of nanoloop 2.5′s synthesizer with a simple sampler. Both allow to record audio on the device and to import samples via PC. They also can re-sample their own sound output.” There is also a GBA version, below. (read more)

Little Sound DJ (LSDJ): The other titan of the chip tunes scene, as dominated by people leaping about the stage hunched over Game Boys. Quite different approach than nanoloops — and each platform has its fans and foes. From the site: “The basic idea is to transform a plain Game Boy/Game Boy Color into a full-fledged music workstation.

• Sequencer: The sequencer of Little Sound Dj has a very open structure. It was designed to leave all the musical possibilities of the Gameboy in the hands of the user. The system can be said to be both simple and complex; it has a slight learning curve, but when learned, it is possible to transcribe a complete Bach piece to it on less than one hour.
• Sound: The Gameboy sound chip offers four channels with 4-bit sound. Custom waveforms can be created by free-hand drawing, or by using a subtractive synthesizer with resonant filters. For extra versatility, Little Sound Dj also contains a quite powerful arpeggiator, which possibilities go far beyond the classic C64-style chords.
• Samples: Sample-wise, Little Sound Dj boasts a set of 59 phonems for programmable speech. Besides that, it also features drum kits sampled from machines TR-606, TR-707, TR-727, TR-808, TR-909, CR-78, CR-8000, KR-55, DR-55, DR-110, DMX, Drumulator, RhythmAce, TOM and LinnDrum.
• Synchronization: It is possible to use a link cable to sync two Game Boys; great for party fun or for added polyphony! If you want to, you can sync LSDJ with Nanoloop. MIDI sync is possible too, if you are ready to build your own LSDj Midi Interface.”

(read more)

GREIGHTBIT.COM: Get yer circuit bent and gameboy modification projects here. Some really interesting projects from introductory models to tremendously modded systems for many many times more. (read more)

Drag’N'Derp: Professor Abrasive has launched his own cart that sounds quite different than the others. I grabbed this from his FAQ: “Why make another cart? There are a bunch of carts on the market, but for making music, I’m not really happy with any of them – needing something that is reliable, and simple. Some require an external programmer/reader. These are vulnerable to bad connections; since there are no checksums on save memory, there’s no way to tell if your data has been silently corrupted. Many carts have instead a programmer built in, using USB. One thing these all have in common is that they require custom software and drivers to be installed, which is a lot of fiddling, and gets very complicated if you’re not on Windows. Why isn’t it bigger, faster, cheaper…? This cart was designed with a particular use case in mind – making music. The design aesthetic I have employed is to make the hardware as simple and reliable as possible. It does one job only; I have resisted the tendencies to pack in features. Simplicity is the aim of every design choice; even the PCB is laid out on two layers, where for this density a modern engineer would usually go straight for 4.
(read more)

MeeBlip SE: From the website: “MeeBlip is designed to be useful when connected to other tools. It doesn’t take much – even an inexpensive Rock Band “keytar” keyboard controller, now available for not much more than US$50, will let you play. Here, we meet some of Peter’s Berlin neighbors, the fine folks at boutique analog hardware maker Koma Elektronik. Their analog delay in particular sounds terrific with MeeBlip’s own unique sound. And for MIDI, we turn to the brilliant step sequencer for iPad, Phaedra.
This is one example. But any number of MIDI sources and effects will work – iPad owners, all you need is a MIDI connection, typically a supported USB MIDI interface and Apple’s own USB Camera Connection Kit. (iOSMIDI.com will help you find what you need.) (read more)

Chipsounds: An incredible software project to properly emulate vintage game music synths. From the website: “This software synth turns your VST, AU or RTAS host into a classic video game console, vintage 8-bit home computer and even an 80′s arcade. Plogue chipsounds authentically emulates 15 vintage 8-bit era sound chips (on top of their variants), down to their smallest idiosyncrasies. But more interestingly, it also faithfully allows you to dynamically reproduce the accidentally discovered sounds effect tricks and abusive musical techniques that were made famous by innovative chip music composers and classic video game sound designers, which for the good part of the last 3 decades, have pushed beyond the boundaries of the original chip designs. In short, whether you are already versed into chiptune/chip music or just interested in those sounds, this is one unique instrument for you!” (read more)

SEGA Master System 1 console sounds (Little-Scale): “Crystal-clear sounds recorded from a SEGA Master System 1 console. All notes for the pulse channel, all noise sounds and all timed bass sounds for noise. All at 192KHz / 24bit. Royalty free, copyright free, license free, restriction free. http://milkcrate.com.au/_other/downloads/sample_sets/SEGA_Master_System_Pristine_Samples.zip.” (read more)

X-Mini II Capsule Speaker: From the manufacturers description: “The X-mini II Capsule Speaker is a portable capsule speaker that delivers a superb audio effects with advanced sound technologies. The compact and robust design promises easy portability with an outstanding performance over years.” But I trust co-worker James’ description better: “I’ve found these portable speakers from amazon perfect for adding audio to a RasPi, since they are powered/charge off usb.”(read more)

Boombox Tshirt (minusbaby): In the words of the shirt’s designer, minusbaby of monobomb: “Necessary to wear when you write music.” I agree! And thanks to minusbaby for sending me a number of the above chiptunes tech suggestions!

Adafruit MUSIC Industries!

As tends to happen at a tech startup in New York, there are quite a few musically inclined people on staff. In fact, several of us (myself included) are in this tech world in the first places because of our early exposure to guitar pedals, synths, and audio production routing. So here is the run down of the most active music projects in the bunch, written up for you pretty much as they described and named themselves, so that you can hear for yourself the great and glorious sounds of these makers — when they aren’t producing mostly racket by rushing about a warehouse sending out hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of lovingly gathered, built, kitted, and shipped packages of Adafruit invention tools to the world.

• Bateman & Tom play in Frog.
• Chances are, if you have seen a video Becky, myself, or others at Adafruit have made, you have been hearing the great work of Tom from his Bartlebeats project!
• James plays in Anamanaguchi. (I’m a bit star-struck.)
• Kris does original orchestral arrangements for songwriters in a live music video series called “Mason Jar Music Presents…“, and sings with Khorikos.
• Here’s Jordan’s site.
• Baken makes music with George and Jonathan.
• Nick does Speculator and Cool Angels.
• Stefan is in Town Hall.
• Ian Davis is in Relatives.
• Ross plays in Father Figures.
• And Brian, who put together most of this list for me, has just started a record label with Bateman to release music that he, Bateman and friends have been producing: sadly they haven’t launched their site yet for this posting.

SHIPPING DEADLINES

Here are your 2012 shipping deadlines for ordering from Adafruit. Please review our shipping section if you have specific questions on how and where we ship worldwide for this holiday season.

UPS ground (USA orders): Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 14, 2012 –  There is no guarantee that UPS Ground packages will arrive in time for Christmas.

UPS 3-day (USA orders): Place orders by Wednesday 11am ET – December 19, 2012 – Arrive on 12/24/2012.

UPS 2-day (USA orders): Place orders by Thursday 11am ET – December 20, 2012 – Arrive on 12/24/2012.

UPS overnight (USA orders): Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 21, 2012 – Arrive on 12/24/2012.

UPS International: Place orders by Monday 11am ET – December 17, 2012. Can take up extra time due to worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner.

Please note: We do not offer Saturday service for UPS.
Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2012, Christmas, no UPS pickup or delivery service.
Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, New Year’s Day, no UPS pickup or delivery service.

United States Postal Service, First Class and Priority (USA orders): Place orders by Friday – December 14, 2012 – Arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner.

USPS First class mail international (International orders): Place orders by Friday – November 23, 2012. Can take up to 30 days ore more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner, but not a trackable service cannot be guaranteed to arrive by 12/24/12.

USPS Express mail international(International orders): Place orders by Friday – December 14, 2012. Can take up to 15 days or more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner.

Gift Certificates are always available at any time.

When in doubt contact us!

Via thing:25560.

Old metallophone (toy) rejuvenated by Arduino, some electromagnets and printed parts :
vimeo.com/46571145
Detail :
vimeo.com/47593529

Can be played with mouse, keyboard and midi files, samples included in software pack:

• Georges Brassens – Ballade des dames du temps jadis
• Agnes Obel – Riverside
• Yann Tiersen – Comptine d’un autre été
• Julian Nott – Wallace and Gromit
• Michael Giacchino – Married Life (“Up” soundtrack)

Flash (AS2) on the software side:
chaaawa.com/xylobot/

Thanks to midicsv:
fourmilab.ch/webtools/midicsv/

Not the first xylobot in the world, but maybe the first in the Thingiverse !

Read More.

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

This is the perfect use put to Adafruit’s Chainable 16-Channel Servo Controller boards. 50 servos: one for each key! We first heard about this project on our “Raspberry Pi™ Accessories” forums — and can’t wait to learn more about it!

Featured Adafruit Product!

Adafruit 16-Channel 12-bit PWM/Servo Driver – I2C interface – PCA9685: You want to make a cool robot, maybe a hexapod walker, or maybe just a piece of art with a lot of moving parts. Or maybe you want to drive a lot of LEDs with precise PWM output. Then you realize that your microcontroller has a limited number of PWM outputs! What now? You could give up OR you could just get this handy PWM and Servo driver breakout. When we saw this chip, we quickly realized what an excellent add-on this would be. Using only two pins, control 16 free-running PWM outputs! You can even chain up 62 breakouts to control up to 992 PWM outputs (which we would really like to see since it would be glorious) (read more)