Ed Potokar’s Magnetic Percussion Instrument is part sculpture, part musical instrument.
PushPull features digital as well as analog control elements, most prominently a bellows made from cardboard. Sound synthesis combines analogue sound generation with digital sound manipulation.
Moving the hand piece activates the bellow: hand movements restricted by the limitations of the bellow turn into gestures and create air flow over a microphone. Inertial sensors in the hand piece together with a thumb stick allow for continuous sound shaping, while four buttons complete the setup to trigger changes or change between synthesis engines.
Cantor Digitalis is an open-source real-time singing synthesizer controlled by hand gestures. A wide variety of voices are available, from the classic vocal quartet (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), to the extreme colors of childish, breathy, roaring, etc. voices.
All the features of vocal sounds are entirely under control, as the synthesis method is based on a mathematic model of voice production, without prerecording segments.
The tine organ is a MIDI controlled portable acoustic organ. Although it sounds like a pipe organ in a cathedral, its sound producing mechanisms are very different.
Instead of pipes and a wind chest, it uses electromagnets and steel tines to produce 20 chromatic notes starting at middle C, with full polyphony. Each tine is coupled with an electromagnet that outputs PWM at its fundamental pitch. The pull and release of the tine by the magnet causes a sustaining effect.
The Holophone is a completely self-contained musical instrument, which turns tactile and vocal input into real-time sound and three-dimensional shape. The shape is projected onto any nearby surface, and, with the help of 3D glasses, seems to hover in front of you. The three- dimensional shapes are completely determined by up to six different streams of audio.
I like the ndial 🙂 looks very interesting 🙂 Are there more infos avaible?
I like it A LOT !
Me too! Just add patch buttons to keep sample sets in, and add bpm display and I’ll buy two now!
Yeah I love it really suits my music. I can’t find it anywhere on google I’m guessing it’s not in mass production yet
Very interesting idea. Do you guys know if there is something similar to this in M4L for example? Shouldnt be too complex to recreate in software, play with a random buffer of a sample in a step sequencer setting.
Ipad seems perfect for the ndial. instabuy.
I like the tine organ and the o-bow.
Tine organ – that is an amazing little instrument! Not that the others aren’t, but that one really speaks to me.
liking a lot of these.
Most of the these nominees are only usable or even interesting to a few people. But I’d give the prize to Judy Pizza’s Dulsitar; for craftsmanship, and musicality (potential).
What the hell kind of 1970’s space command center are those people sitting in?! So cool !
I want that Tine organ!
Yaybahar for sure. That thing is awesome.
I would love to see DJTechTools sell the NIdial someday.. I would buy it in a heart beat.
Yaybahar!!
YAYBAHAR! no electricity needed for this firepit camping trip music festival
yaybahar could EASILY be the hottest new mandatory item to have in a dwelling or have to take on trips and any event really.
the o-bow is a very cool and expressive controller.
the Yaybahar or Turner Winch seem to be the most practical
the yaybahar is just monumental
Somehow I miss here Myriam Bleau’s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeXebgHkd5g
I want a Yaybahar!!
The o bow is brilliant, the organ too.
I think the definition of ‘musical instrument’ needs to exclude anything that can’t actually make music. 🙂 As to my top choice, despite my love for the electronics I’m going with the Dulsitar. For a controller, though, the O-Bow is pretty darn clever — if you can get the technique down. I think the Dualo Du-Touch has a lot of potential and I quite liked the Cantor Digitalis. 🙂
Who gets to be the ‘music police’ that decides what is or isn’t music?
A lot of the music I listen to (dark ambient, classical electronic music, Berlin School) probably wouldn’t be recognized as ‘music’ by mainstream listeners!
Non of them, all sounds horrible…
…Then there’s the NIME conference each year which produces a lot of useful knowledge for other new instrument makers/enthusiasts/innovators rather than relegating their hard work to a competition… http://www.nime.org/archives/
I’m both thrilled at the creativity on display here, and dismayed at the silly idea of competition between these ideas. Hey musicians, competition is for sports!
Music is for collaboration.. the ideal would be a jam between all these instruments, showing their strengths in the context of co-creation.
My utterly subjective impression is that the Yaybahar speaks to me most as a totally original acoustic design, and in the electronic world the o-bow looks really impressive just on that short clip.. it would be even better integrated into a whole instrument.. seems ideal for Artiphon’s Instrument 1 actually.
Have some fun: play all videos on each page simultaneously.
If I was allowed to vote I would vote for Tine organ or Yaybahar. O-Bow and Dulsitar also look interesting, but in my opinion most on this top 20 actually are rather performance midi controllers controlling computing devices, which generate sound signals via probably already known digital algorithms and not that much musical instruments emitting physical sound waves – that’s all about terminology – what we call a musical instrument (software/hardware), of course
Yaybahar is the super organ
I’m with yaybahar it’s the winner
Many interesting ideas here, but the only ones that I thought were a) original and b) produced real music were Nomis, the Dulsitar, and the Tine Organ. The o-bow looked neat, but it seemed more like *part* of an instrument. The multi-person “choir” might have potential. The Turner Winch looked like it had limited potential for musical usefulness – but it looked like one helluva lot of fun, too.
They all sound amazing but i prefer the Yaybahar and Nomis for their musical use.
The yaybahar is great! An entirely NEW sonic world is opened WITHOUT the use of electricity.
Pure genius if you ask me. When shal we know the outcome of the competition?
THANKS and greetings from Italy