Bitcrushing Versus Sample Rate Reduction

http://hackaday.com/2013/08/25/the-difference-between-bitcrushers-and-sample-rate-reducers/

This brief, easy-to-watch video points out the difference between:

•  Bitcrushing

and

• Sample Rate Reduction

Watch it and listen to the difference!  Then use it to make awesome digital music instruments!

StompShields from Open Music Labs!

The StompShields I ordered from Open Music Labs arrived pretty darn fast!

 

StompShield from Open Music Labs

I just got them at home right now hahha!  

I can't play with them right away, b/c....

I am in the midst of modularizing the mixer code in the Bass Stick...



Guess what else arrived at the same time?  My Owl programmable stomp pedal with the stm32f4 in it!  I'm soaked in stm32f4 music instruments :)

The pedal is neat and whatnot, but I'm preferring original instruments at this time :)  They do look like they have a decent cross-platform development system though!  I would love to be able to interoperate with it!

Funk Theory of Music

Can Anyone Explain Funk Music Theory?

Recently, this thread came up on reddit and I found it very informative.

It tells you what types of chords, progressions and rhythms are used in several well-known funk songs.

Tufts Design Electronic Music Instruments

This is the end-of-semester demos for a number of excellent electronic music instruments

There  are many original designs in there, and some familiar ones:

Laserharp

Rainflute

Schwinnophone

 E-Cordian

Stringless Guitar

Bonus Stringless Guitar from another group!

3-D Printed MIDI Controller from ADAFruit

I think this is pretty neat!  It combines an instrument housing with a microcontroller and LEDs.  The result is a decent-looking instrument.

Of course, I would rather see it made in wood and include its own synthesizer!  But things like this are going to be good first steps toward lutheir-quality digital music instruments.

1200 Year Old Tin-Can Telephone Made From Gourds and Twine

 


http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ideas-innovations/Theres-a-1200-year-old-Phone-in-the-Smithsonian-Collections-231152081.html

It looks like people in the year 813 AD were playing around with materials and made a "tin-can" telephone from natural materials!

Building Horn Speakers

Recently, there was an excellent thread on digi_instruments with lots of great examples of people building their own horn speakers!

Here are my favorite links from that thread:

• The Paper Horn by Inlow Sound
• Horn Ether 
• Gimbal Loudspeakers, part 1 - make sure to press "view slideshow"
• Gimbal Loudspeakers, part 2
• Gimbal Loudspeakers, part 3 - make sure to click "view slideshow"

If you never knew, horn speakers, can be extremely efficient.

That extra efficiency often means your speakers sound louder with same amount of power.

But you're an audiophile, not an ecologist, right, so who cares?!

Well, the amplifiers don't get pushed into distortion regions as easily, so the sound quality can be improved.

Horn loudspeakers fell out fashion many years ago, but slowly people are waking up to them again.