experimental electronic music instruments

Tonewheels is an experiment in converting graphical imagery to sound, inspired by some of the pioneering 20th Century electronic music inventions.

In this three day workshop from 24-27 October 2009 in Bulgaria, participants built a simple light-to-sound converter and DC motor controller, and then began to experiment with drawing sounds onto transparent “tonewheels”. The workshop ended in a group performance and an invitation to the audience to try out the instruments for themselves.

Kanjun Qiu demonstrates the soundie, her awesome musical touch-sensitive light-up hoodie, aka the hoodie synthesizer.

Qiu created the hoodie synthesizer using the LilyPad Arduino, designed by MIT High-Low Tech guru Leah Buechley.

According to Qiu, “The hoodie was designed with purely artistic intentions and with absolutely no practical applications in mind.”

Take one look at the words hoodie and synthesizer put together, though, and you know you want one of these things!

Who needs practical applications when you’ve got a hoodie synthesizer?

If you feel the need for more hoodie synth, Qiu has put together a tutorial on making one.

Marielle Jakobsons demos the Keith McMillen Instruments‘ K-Bow at Musikmesse April 4 2009 in Frankfurt, Germany.

The K-Bow captures subtle gestures and elements of a string player’s performance and uses them to control just about anything.

via mikezawitkowski

In this video demo, violinist Jon Rose controls feedback with the K-Bow, a Bluetooth-enabled sensor bow for string instruments.

Filmed at STEIM, Amsterdam, 04/2009.

Velosynth is a bicycle synthesizer, designed to form  “a cognitive loop between the cyclist and their microlocal transportation environment.”

You may not have realized that you were missing that “cognitive loop between the cyclist and their microlocal transportation environment.” But now you know.

A sensor detects the rotation of a spoke-attached magnet. this data is translated into sound via an arduino microcontroller, 8bit R2R DAC, lowpass filter and audio amplifier.

You can follow the development of the bike synth at Velosynth.com.