The golden age of mechanical music machines really came in the late 19th century and early 20th century with player pianos and orchestrions. A player piano is defined as any actual acoustic piano that is played by a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism that operates the piano action via pre-programmed music. Between 1910 and 1...
The Santasizer - MIDI Controlled Santa madness Sam Battle (LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER) released a new MIDI creation just in time for Christmas- "The Santasizer." It's a choir of toy Santas that can be played from a MIDI keyboard. Add some MIDI and modular synths for the sound track and you have everything you need to have a very MIDI Chri...
Introduction The Arduino UNO is a popular open-source microcontroller that, in many respects, is a perfect complement to the extensible nature of the Music Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) protocol. Microcontroller platforms such as Arduino, Teensy, and others, make it relatively easy to develop custom MIDI controllers that respond to light, pre...
Join the MIDI Association and download the 21 page booklet "What is MIDI" excerpted from "MIDI for the Professional" by Paul Lehrman and Tim Tully. We're always trying to help our MIDI Association members get the most out of MIDI. Paul Lehrman has been involved with MIDI since its inception. Paul has w...
At SXSW 2019, Moritz Simon Geist performed and presented several workshops on using robots and MIDI. His new EP is created completely with MIDI controllers controlling robots he created himself. A latency control concept for midi driven mechanic robotic instruments Geist is deeply into MIDI. His blog details a proposal for ho...
Tristan is an acoustic musician and a coder so he combined his skills in this musical performance. What worked and what didn't Tristan tried a number of different types of motors for his robot including Car Door Locks, Stepper Motors and Solenoids, but they were all too noisy for the acoustic application he was...
Hi everyone! In this article I will teach you how to build your own Arduino powered MIDI controller. MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface and it is a protocol that allows computers, musical instruments and other hardware to communicate. If you follow each and every step of this tutorial you will be able to make music with ...
Sometimes you just need to relax and do something cool. So on Labor day weekend 2020 we shared this video from MEZERG enjoying some cool watermelon, some bright sun and a dip in the pool. Oh yeah, and MIDI of course! Want to try it yourself ? Playtronic makes it possible Playtron is a new type of music device. Connect Play...
You can make Johan Von Konow's new modular synth for about $6! "I have designed a keyboard, drum pad, chord keyboard, arpeggiator and a step sequencer. One special feature is that the units have RGB LEDs for each key, enabling playback visualization (so each device is both MIDI out and in). This is helpful for music training and editing, but i...
The Original Dubreq Stylophone The Dubreq Stylophone was invented in 1968 by Brian Jarvis. It was originally designed as a toy, but the fact that it was portable and easy to play and it's distinctive synth sound soon made it popular with some of the most iconic musicians of the late 60's. David Bowie used it on the track 'Space Oddity' a...
