Exertion Instruments

Noah Vawter has done it again.

Exertion Instruments are self-powered electronic instruments. Small cranks provide enough power to charge up a sound chip and and amplifier. Add custom instrument bodies, a few keys from control, and you've ended up with something beautiful.

Materials materials

Lots of construction options out there.

Snap together guitars?
http://hubpages.com/hub/Guitar-Kits

People who buy google adwords on 'violin kit'!

International Violin Company

Stewmac has parts for violins, mandolins, guitars and dulcimers

Building kits galore

And this post on Make Blog lists:

80/20 - The industrial erector set

Microrax another badass aluminum set

Makerbeam - aluminum framework still coming together

Contraptor open source hardware kit

T slot aluminum is the bomb

Controlling Pitch On a String Instrument

Eye candy

Clapper solenoids aka instrument a day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ranjit/3317186605/

Tension Guitar: http://www.moonmilk.com/2008/02/23/thing-22-automatic-tension-guitar/

Guitar bot- sliding tuner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxLTJmmyqn4

LEGO NXT tuning system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BUmIY5aR_M&feature=related

Hydraulics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elt1XriaQXU&feature=related

Make Your Own Ghetto Sound Blasters

For those of you with extra welders and trash cans around

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/11/12/two-garbage-cans-and-a-microphone/

Feedback Control of Musical Instruments

Most structural engineers seek to prevent structural vibrations, instrument builders seek to create sustained structural vibrations.

A nice quote from "Feedback control of Musical Instruments" by Edgar J. Berdahl, G¨unter Niemeyer, Julius O. Smith III.

116 pages. Filled with too many ordinary differential equations, transfer functions and root locus plots for light reading. But if you want some cutting edge ideas about feedback control, the CCRMA thinktank delivers again.


Highlights:

Graphtech makes some bad ass sensors that could be used for termination based control. The first time I've seen that concept. But its possible to put sensors and actuators at the end of the string.

Most types of sensor/actuator will be done digital. This will introduce some type of delay and will cause phase problems. The whole notion of simply adding a microphone and speaker to increase feedback, will probably not sound the way one expects.

Certain types of string activators will result in inharmonic series coming out of the strings.

Magnetic actuators (aka ebow) and more are a nice way to sustain the tone. Magnet activated strings are boring to look at, but magnets provide a nice way to sustain a tone.

Charles Besnainou was footnoted a few times in this paper.

Rebuilding Instruments from The Monochord

The inventors are coming are popping up around the world.

Cybernetic monochords are going to be the big lobster mobster for the next two years.

Here is a nice paper talking about different methods of control.

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~eberdahl/Papers/STANM120.pdf

Some quick thoughts:
+ Big props to the research team. Julius Smith is everywhere.
+ Groovy monochord pictures toward the end
+ Bode graphs will become the new eye candy for Electronic musicians
+ Are Magnetic actuators better than mechanical pluckers?
+ Can PID control be stable with better error correction?
+ Where do I buy neodydmium futures?

A proper reading and write-up is do on this one.

Old School Music Just Got Older

First post! Researchers in Germany unearthed the oldest musical instrument. Dating back 35,000 years it showcases how long music has been a part of our culture.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8117915.stm