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With the price of Legos, my guess is that this Lego synthesizer would cost about as much as the real thing.

via Brickshelf

Kraak & Smaak’s Squeeze Me video uses flipbooks to create an interesting effect. 

Public Service Reminder: This is what the women of Ibiza are wearing this year. 

If you’re planning on going, dress appropriately for warm weather and cool nights. 

Anybody looking on tips on promoting their music via the Internet need look no further than NIN. 

Their latest Internet media trick is to plot their tour out on Google Earth:

On the nin.com tour page, you’ll find links and instructions for subscribing to NIN tour dates via a variety of methods, including Facebook, MySpace, iCal, iLike, and now, Google Earth and Google Calendar.

To subscribe with Google Earth, make sure you’ve installed the Google Earth software, then click here to download the nintour.kml file. If it doesn’t open automatically in Google Earth, locate the downloaded file on your hard drive and double-click it to open. With the file open in Google Earth, you’ll see a live display of the current tour dates (turn off other layers for a better view). You can click on each date for more information, and you can use the time slider on the upper right to trace the route of the tour. This file will update automatically as new tour dates are added or itinerary changes are made.

Download Google Earth at: http://earth.google.com
Download the NIN tour at: http://tour.nin.com/tour/nintour.kml

Even if NIN’s music isn’t your cup of tea, you should be following them to see how they work the Internet hard.

This video demos a cheap dub siren, made from a circuit bent sound generating keychain.

Full instructions at GetLoFi.com.

Because it was there: the Web-based music sequencer.

via Aaron Rutledge

 

 Boxbeat: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

BoxBeat is a prototype toy that turns the surface of your desk into a beat making instrument.

It uses contact microphones to detect different sounds from the desk surface, and a simple software patch to trigger audio samples.

“I often find myself tapping away on my desk, and this is a fun and simple way to experiment with those rhythms,” says creator Karl D.D. Willis. 

Turntable DJ is a free Wordpress theme for creating music blogs. 

The theme is a tribute to turntables, DJ’s, cassette tapes and the old school way of making music.

Demo | Download

2008 Summer NAMM Show: Numark intro’d the DDS80, aka “the world’s only future-proof CD player for the DJ.”

“The world’s only future-proof CD player for the DJ” features USB ports for connection of thumb and hard drives, iPods, MP3 players; and an included 80GB removable/upgradeable hard drive.

While Numark’s marketing catch-phrase may be a little over-the-top, the DDS80 looks like it offers state of the art digital DJ technology in a all-in-one package. 

DDS80 features:

• CD player with integrated hard drive
• Large backlit, full-color display
• Key lock for maintaining key (pitch) while shifting tempo
• Seamless looping, pitch control, and scratching capability via jog wheels
• Text search, letter-pick scrolling, and on-board playlist creation
• Three USB ports for connecting iPods, thumb drives, and hard drives
• Enables music to be played from two devices simultaneously, including two songs from the same iPod
• Users can scratch with MP3, WAV, and AAC (unprotected) files
• Pitch control from -100% … +25%
• Beatkeeper™ technology for seamless integration of samples and loops with tap override
• Searches via two large jog wheels and uses skip peak searching in profiles
• Two front-panel USB ports for easy expansion and connection
• 5RU total, or 3RU + 2RU, fits standard 19-inch equipment racks

More info is available at the Numark site. 

At the 2008 Summer NAMM Show, Numark introduced LP 2 CD,a professional tool for fine-quality conversion of vinyl recordings to CD, WAV or MP3, with or without a computer.

LP 2 CD is an all-in-one system with internal flash memory, so no computer is required to digital recordings from vinyl or any other analog source using the RCA line inputs.

Because it is built around 1GB of flash memory, you can make multiple copies of your albums, make custom mix CDs or export music via the integrated USB audio interface.

Read more…

This video demos the Tapehead Inspector - a sort of tangible sampler. 

Here’s the background on it, via Roy Mohan Shearer:

Inspired by the reversal of the name of a musical trio that I play in with Chris Croasdale and Mr. Jonnie Common. We’re really into tapes, and as Chris’ birthday was coming up Jonnie and I decided to make him a wee instrument: A manual tape player, ie. one in which the player can directly control the movement of the tapehead against the audio tape.

Simply a hack of the increasingly hard-to-source cassette walkman, I took out all the mechanics, hard-wired the tape circuit to ‘on’, lengthened the cable to the tapehead and housed the whole thing in a videotape casing. Jonnie built the instrument case/playing surface and then we made up a few audio tape ’slides’ by recording some of Jonnie’s choice vinyl to tape and getting crafty with scissors and sticky tape! I am abridging greatly for brevity here - I maimed one walkman making the whole thing work and the overall instrument design was chewed over a few times over cups of tea at Jonnie’s house. We’re pretty pleased with the results and hope Chris enjoys inspecting his tapes!

Looks like this would be fairly easy to recreate - and an interesting, tactile way to manipulate sound. 

This video demonstrates making a cheap multitouch control surface, the MTmini:

For this to work, all you need is a room with (at least) some light. The results will be best when the room lighting is even (no bright lights shinning from one direction onto the multitouch pad).

When you place you fingers on the surface, shadows are created where your fingers are. The webcam sees these shadows and sends the image to the tracking software which tracks the shadows.

When you see these things being made out of cardboard boxes, you realize that there’s going to be an explosion of new music interfaces based on multi-touch in the next couple of years. 

2008 Summer NAMM Show: Roland announced the new GW-8 workstation, an entry-level arranger-workstation. 

Description:

The GW-8 features a wide variety of pre-programmed styles, focusing on the musical styles of South America and the southwest United States. Choose from four style variations for each song progression.

In addition to onboard styles, the GW-8 allows for seamless playback of MP3, .WAV, AIFF, or SMF files directly from USB flash memory for accompanying backing tracks. The GW-8 can also be refreshed with new songs and styles via USB flash memory.

The GW-8 offers an infrared D Beam, a pitch-bend/modulation lever, and a pair of control knobs for real-time expression. Performers will appreciate the large backlit LCD, especially on dark stages and in dimly lit studio environments.

More info is available at the Roland site. 

Nice psychedelic video for Adam Freeland’s Big Wednesday.

Joining keytar goddesses Juliette Commagare and Imogen Heap is Lauren Rocket, of punk girl group Rocket.  

Rocket describes itself as “a volatile combination that leaves one wondering what the results would be if the Shangri-Las crashed the stage during an early Motley Crue gig.” Read more…