An Audio Sampler Rube Goldberg Would Love

Thiago writes "Here is an audio sampler I made with 4 IR LEDs and 4 IR sensors. When something reflective goes by one of the sensor/LED combos, it triggers an event on the computer. On the videos, I mount the device on a turntable and use coins to trigger sound samples of my choice. I'd also like to make the project open-source (or whatever applies to hardware) but know nothing about licenses for this."

Comments

BallDroppings in hardware?

[troon]

So this is like a physical version of the curiously addictive BallDroppings, then?

interesting

[mmkkbb]

A friend of mine did something similar for a project using IR sensors. In that case, he had a break in the beam trigger a sample, so he could have a LASER HARP

Re:interesting

[shaka]

I went to a show here in Sweden a couple of months ago. It was 5 guys who were all awesome drummers. They made music using glasses, bowls of water, and different drums and rhythmic instruments.

Anyway, they had this great setup with basically what you are describing, except that the samples were controlled by some 10-15 laser beams that shot right out from the back of the stage. When you broke a beam, a sample started or stopped. They could control it either by having the sample playing while the beam was broken, or start/stop the sample by quickly breaking the beam and "let it through" again.

It made for an extremely good show.

They also had a giant kind of a marimba, that was perhaps 8 meters tall and 15 meters wide, with two guys standing by the ceiling and playing.

The last number of the show was all 5 guys playing in sync with Gene Krupa (perhaps the greatest drummer ever) showing him doing the number on a projector at the back of the stage.

All in all, a great show.

Awesome

[skurk]

This is bloody awesome!

Now, I'm not sure that this is something your local DJ Sixpack would use, but I'm pretty sure you could turn this into a toy for children:

Imagine a record with holes you can fill with plastic pins - spin the record, and hear what you just made! It would exercise the children's sense of rythm and logic. Hell, make it a standalone unit while you're at it, and make cardridges that hold the samples. Drums, guitars, voices, bird sounds, car sounds, etc.

As for the license, it depends on what you want in return. Good karma or money? Or both?

Re: Nitpick

[The Slashdotted]

Just to start a interesting flamewar..
1. If I create a trade group.
2. I invite everyone who wants my improvements to join my group.
3. No one outside my group gets the improvements.

Q.I'm not externally releasing the improvements, and am not obligated to release the code, am I?

Building on your idea

[sczimme]

Imagine a record with holes you can fill with plastic pins - spin the record, and hear what you just made! It would exercise the children's sense of rythm and logic.

The first thing that popped into my head was that gadget/toy that consists of a rectangular frame filled with small parallel metal rods; the rods can move in Y (but not in X) to make 3-D images of objects. Often they are used to make replicas of people's faces. What the heck are they called?? Grrr.

Anyway, picture a record-like disc of these movable rods. The child can move the rods, fix them in place and then play the creation. This fits with your idea: the disc would be heavier but the rods would be captive (and thus much harder for the child to lose them)

Hell, make it a standalone unit while you're at it, and make cardridges that hold the samples. Drums, guitars, voices, bird sounds, car sounds, etc.

With a simple process for converting the audio to a sound file and a USB port for exporting the child's music. :-)

Re:You don't need to open-source it.

[smooth wombat]

Ah, but to patent it you have to tell people how it works ... how confusing :)

Which is why WD-40 is not patented. They would have to tell the world what is in their product and they don't want to do that.

And before anyone remarks that I'm wrong, I just called the WD-40 corporation to verify this. I had heard about this a long time ago and wanted to confirm this information before I posted.

Finally, a midi guitar that doesn't suck

[192939495969798999]

You could finally have more than one sensor in between frets on a guitar, so that MIDI pitch bends and such sound realistic. You'd have to wear a shiny glove to play it, but that could be cool, so long as it's not sequened. Of course, I officially copyright this idea as of..... now.

So...

[Transcendent]

It's basically 4 switches that signal a program to play different soundtracks.

What would be interesting if it wasn't all digital signal, and he threw in an A/D converter so he could detect the IR light brightness, so a dull coin would produce a different sound than a nice and shiny coin... so you have more combinations.

Just having 4 on/off signals isn't that impressive right now, but it does have potential (of course, after a while you'd probably want to migrate to the serial port for speed and complexity).