MIDI is normally baked into the chipset of a synthesizer, or something you use a microcontroller to handle. But that’s not the only way to speak the language! [Kevin] decided to have some fun doing MIDI with discrete logic instead, with some pretty neat results. [Kevin] had previously built a control voltage step sequencer called […]
When the electric guitar was first produced in the 1930s, there was some skepticism among musicians as to whether or not this instrument would have lasting impact or be a flash-in-the-pan novelty. Since this was more than a decade before the invention of the transistor, it would have been hard then to imagine the possibilities […]
MIDI isn’t just about music, as [Johannes Stelzer] shows by using dials to adjust AI-generated imagery in real-time. The results are wild, with an interactivity to them that we don’t normally see in such things. [Johannes] uses Stable Diffusion‘s SDXL Turbo to create a baseline image of “photo of a red brick house, blue sky”. […]
We’re pretty sure there’s no internationally recognized arbiter of records like “World’s smallest full-featured polyphonic stereo MIDI synthesizer that fits in a DIN shell”. If there isn’t, there sure should be, and we’re pretty sure [mitxela]’s Flash-Synth would hold that particular record. This is one of those lessons that some people just can’t leave a […]
If you can’t grow your own synesthesia, buying electronics to do it for you is fine. Such is the case with the CHROMATIC by [Xavier Gazon], an artist who turns all kinds of electronics into circuit-bent musical art pieces. His project turns an old Philips Music 5120 turntable into a colorful MIDI sequencer, inspired by […]
Due to pedalboard size, complicated guitar pedals sometimes reduce the number of buttons to the bare minimum. Many of these pedals are capable of being controlled with an external MIDI controller, however, and necessity being the mother of invention and all, this is a great opportunity to build something and learn some new skills at […]
While the “M” in MIDI stands for “musical”, it’s possible to use this standard for other things as well. [s-ol] has been working on a VJ setup (mixing video instead of music) using various potentiometer-based hardware and MIDI to interface everything together. After becoming frustrated with drift in the potentiometers, he set out to outfit […]
In the late 1980s, the French musician [Jean-Michel Jarre] famously toured with a laser harp. The word among teenage fans was that he had to wear special gloves to stop his hands getting burned, because 1980s teens were both impressionable and didn’t know much about lasers. In fact we’re told by a member of our […]
Did you know that the English concertina, that hand-pumped bellows instrument favored by sailors both legitimate and piratical in the Age of Sail, was invented by none other than [Sir Charles Wheatstone]? We didn’t, but [Dave Ehnebuske] knew that the venerable English gentleman was tickling the keys of his instrument nearly two decades before experimenting […]