Hurdy Gurdies - An Introduction to Constructing Them

Hurdy Gurdies - An Introduction to Constructing Them

Recently a neighbor mentioned his desire to possibly someday construct a hurdy gurdy.  I was very curious to know what goes into it and what solutions/possibilities and plans are available, so I did some research into it.

One of the coolest customized Hurdy Gurdy constructions I've seen.  

Notice how it includes 7 electronic control knobs!

• This was my favorite construction page, apparently from a Swiss instrument builder from scratch!

• This place seems to have a nice kit available.

• This person built the above kit and made a 20-minute slideshow of the entire process - 133 images!!!

• This is a person who is blogging the entire process of building their hurdy gurdy!

• Here is another website with a kit, a bit cheaper than the above one.

• This guy has lots of great information if you're deciding whether to build a hurdy gurdy from scratch or from a kit

• This website also has a kit and you can pay in alternative currency!

• This website has smaller, more guitar-like hurdy gurdies and a kit!

Free Acoustic Analysis Software!

It's called LISA and I didn't know it existed until now!  And it's free (for up to 1300 nodes)!

This can help you design music instruments by telling you the resonant frequencies of instrument-shaped wooden housings like guitar bodies, cigar boxes, etc.!

Sounds great, right?  Somebody Download it and tell me how it is!!

-Noah

Berklee Music Therapy Hack Day

Berklee and hack/reduce will cohost this first-of-a-kind event March 28-29, 2014, creating a space for hackers to develop tools for music therapists to use in a variety of therapeutic and healthcare settings. Sponsors will help shape the Berklee Music Therapy Hack and provide tools and resources for developers. Practicing music therapists and music therapy students will present the developers with problems to be solved in real-life settings.

Real-Time Signal Processing in Python

Did you know computers are fast enough to let you write Python code for guitar effects?

http://bastibe.de/2012-11-02-real-time-signal-processing-in-python.html

I am curious how far this can be pushed!  If we can write python guitar effects and synthesizers, what about these question...

Instrument builders: Shouldn't it be possible to help musicians craft the specific sound they want?

Instrument players: Is it possible to give you the power to perfect your sound through code?

Guitar Maker at Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi

Guitar-making from scratch - there are many informative videos out there!

What makes this one special?

1. The style of music they play.  It's different from how we play in the United States.  Listen for it!

2. Limited constraints force this guitar maker to effect the bare essentials.

3. Inside of a refugee camp - what is life like there?  Are people free to move about?  How do they stay happy?  An entry point into all of that is right here.  Somehow, it's much more comprehensible - we can relate when we think of people playing music there.

Bonus

Wondering where Malawi is?  Here's a hint: It is completely landlocked, but a major lake forms its border.  Take a guess, then click here to find it on map.

Levitation, Acoustic: Three-Dimensional Mid-Air Manipulation

Wow...  Just one of the neat things you can do with great acoustic control!

 

Just think about how much you can do when you learn to use Digital Signal Processing well. 

You can create this amount of control over sound and music.

That can help you make very precise music that communicates and express exactly what you like from moment to moment. 

Christopher Walken once mentioned that he would rather have the ability to express himself through having a tail than to be able to fly!

Olli Niemilato's Introduction to DSP

Olli Niemilato's Introduction to DSP 

Back in the day, the music-dsp list was a hotspot of people designing and implementing their own DSP algorithms for musical purposes. 

Olli Niemilato was one of its leaders.  He shared knowledge with a sense of humor. 

I was delighted to discover his introduction to DSP algorithms in snappy, fun-to-read form.

Bonus

Additional guides to help you learn DSP from DIYDSP.com:

• Mini DSP FAQ           - Equalizers and Crossovers
• Music-DSP FAQ       - Directed toward audio plug-ins
• ARRL DSP FAQ    - Somewhat about radio

Olli Niemilato's Introduction to DSP

Exhibition of Gijs Gieskes' Music Instruments

A friend introduced Gijs to me many years ago.  We've stayed in touch as much as possible, considering he lives all the way over on the other side of the ocean in Holland!

 

He recently had an exhibition of some of his vast instrument library.


His elegant, yet slightly jagged approach always impresses me.

His adoration of the connection between the sounds of physical and electrical media tickles my fancy!

What physical objects would you go out of your way to incorporate into electronic instruments?

Subwoofer Build From Scratch by Svinec

Svinec builds a large subwoofer from scratch, including coils, spider,  foam, everything!  It's nicely documented and has a great sound track of "Bass Music"!  Pump it up!

 

This is a really nice video.  It is well worth the 10 minutes.

Get comfortable with a friend, watch the construction and enjoy the details!  

Do you think you could pull this off yourself? 

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.

Building Embedded lua under Ubuntu Linux

Building Embedded lua under Ubuntu Linux

First, I read AndyP's directions.  I had to make a few changes to work under Ubuntu, so I'm sharing my updates here.

Magnetic Resonator Piano

See also:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f79d_oVqv4Y

How the Iconic iPhone "Boo-Dah-Ling" Sound Was Designed

http://jacklinstudios.com/docs/making-of-158-marimba.html

Digi Instruments

http://www.reddit.com/user/diydsp/m/digi_instruments