This video, via instrument designer Barnaby Walters, demonstrates his hybrid electronic-acoustic MIDI hurdy gurdy.

The hurdy-gurdy is a stringed instrument that produces sound by a hand-cranked wheel wheel that ‘bows’ strings as it turns. Instruments with designs similar to the hurdy-gurdy go back at least a thousand years.

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0:22 Technique: Pitch-shifting Polyphony

Gurdy MIDI and Audio ? Apogee ONE ? Macbook running a puredata patch

Monophonic acoustic gurdy signal is pitch-shifted down in real time to play chords and harmonies. Chords and intervals on the keyboard can also be used to pitch-shift the trompette signal (0:55) or the drones. Inspired by an idea from Sébastien Tron.

1:18 Technique: Expressive MIDI Controller

Hurdy Gurdy MIDI ? DIY Hybrid Poly Synth based off Mutable Instruments Ambika

The keyboard and wheel sensors send MIDI note, expression and polyphonic aftertouch messages to a polyphonic synthesizer. In this case a split keyboard effect is used to play two sounds.

1:36 Technique: Layered Acoustic and Electronic Sound

Hurdy Gurdy Acoustic audio, Gurdy MIDI ? DIY Hybrid Poly Synth based off Mutable Instruments Ambika

1:36 The acoustic string plays a melody, the bottom half of the keyboard controls a synthesizer with a long release for subtle held chords

2:08 Using trompette technique can send MIDI messages, used here to play synthesized percussion on an Ambika voice assigned to MIDI channel 10, whilst the keyboard plays chords.

2:30 Acoustic trompette and melody string sound layered over subtle polyphonic synthesized chords

There’s also an open source MidiGurdy  – which is a hurdy-gurdy style MIDI controller:

via cdm