strange music instruments

audioMIDI.com’s Tom Luer demos Akai’s new EWI USB wind controller.

Akai Professional’s EWI USB is a wind controller that features a plug-and-play USB interface for use with the included Aria software with Garritan and Akai Professional samples as a sound source. EWI USB is Mac and PC compatible.

Professional players will find EWI USB fully capable of performance for stage and studio with a five-octave range, breath modulation with adjustable threshold, pitch bend, adjustable vibrato, transposing and octave shifting, and fingering modes to emulate various electronic and acoustic instruments.

Multiple fingering modes make EWI USB model saxophone, flute and oboe, as well as traditional EWI and EVI trumpet for intuitive performance, even for players who have never picked up an electronic instrument.

Resources:

• Akai’s EWI USB Wind Controller page

The Stribe is a DIY touch-strip interface with dual LED bargraph columns.

The video shows it being used with an Arduino, Max/MSP and Reason.

The kit sells for $79.99.

This demos a circuit bent Atari Punk Dreamcast with opto theremin. 

Extra features include…

• Internal speaker with on/off [under lid]
• Opto-theremin (photo cell) with on/off [under lid]
• 4 Body Contacts 
• Pretty blue LED 
• Furby eyes

Timothy Renalto’s The Bad Hand is a sort of plasma theremin.

It doesn’t really improve on the idea of the theremin, but it does look pretty awesome.

via MusicThing