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A Guitar Robot That Can Really Shred
botPatrol writes "As reported today by Create Digital Music and the Wired blog, PAM (Polytangent Automatic (multi-)Monochord) is a robot who has discovered a love for vintage Metallica riffs, and can churn them out non-stop at superhuman speeds without ever requiring anger management therapy or treatment for drug abuse."
(Read more, below.)
"Her younger sister MARIE, a road-ready robotic ensemble of wind and string instruments, promises to be even more of a musical badass. STEIM (STudio for Electro Instrumental Music), a leading international research center for the development of new musical instruments, will play host to MARIE this spring, and has posted a story on the revolutionary nature of this new musical robot. PAM and MARIE creators Expressive Machines Musical Instruments (EMMI) are calling on metal- and tech-heads alike to push their Kickstarter fund raising campaign over the top in its final few days, to fund the MARIE prototype and "help thwart the imminent robot vs. human wars by demonstrating how fun, cool, and sonically interesting it can be when humans and robots combine their powers for good.""
Lawsuit from Metallica coming in 3...2...1...
....Metallica's music was always rather repetitive and robotic.
Show me a robot which can play classical violin without becoming arrogant and whiny; that would be an achievement.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
The videos doesn't show any superhuman speed. I (a half-decent guitarist) can play metallica songs faster, and a lot better/cleaner (the robot doesn't seem to be able to mute the stings for example).
Wake me up when the build a robot that can compete with Yngwie Malmsteen.
This thing sounds more synthetic than a lot of synthesizers.
Hitting the notes is only part of the guitar playing equation. Technique is just as important. Even implementing basic string muting would make a huge difference here.
Still cool though :)
The point isn't to replace human performers. Look into this more and you'll find that the robots sometimes perform/interact with human musicians and dancers. The point is to explore new territory. Robots do things humans can't and vice versa. BTW, if you aren't for geek joy, why are you commenting on Slashdot?
Bender: "With my mighty robot powers, I can get sick of things much quicker than you humans."
This is not news. Pat Metheny has been doing this for the last two years, except with a full band of robots. I have been to his concert and I can attest it works very well. Here is an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsYEOUKS4Yk&feature=related
It's a band comprised of one guy and several robots, started because he tired of the shortcomings of human bandmates. However, the robots give him just as much (if not more) trouble.
He has a guitarist that has two necks on his guitar, one for bass and one for lead. Here they are.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
Robot instruments are not to replace humans, but to provide an alternative approach to music. Sure, people can do lots of stuff robots won't be able to do in the near future, but robots are also capable of doing things people would find impossible. You can make a robot react to movement sensors, light, touchpads etc. It can use information from databases or the internet. Let me see a human who can do that in real time.
Humans use a technique to play an instrument that has been perfected over hundreds of years. With robots, we first have to develop the robot. Once that is done, we can try all possible options to make interesting music with it. But this includes a learning curve. It's not very fair to compare the tried and tested technique of humans with robotic instruments at this point.
As for the fact that some people think it hurts their ears: there's is more music in the world than the pop-rock-jazz-blues stuff we hear on the radio. Not that I have anything against it, but if one is serious about new ways of making music, why stick to the 1000 year old idea of using chords? And while it makes sense that humans like steady beats to play together, why not try a 3th degree math function as the rhythmical basis of your piece if you have robots to perform it, and explore from there? No, it won't sound like pop music, but that doesn't make it less interesting. Some musicians, and not the least among them, were trying to do that even a hundred years ago. I think they would have been delighted to have a musical robot to try out their ideas.
No, robots will probably never be able to play some kinds of 'humanoid' music with the same feel. But if that would be the goal of making robots, we would better stop making them. People make robots to explore new possibilities. Ok, there is the sony project to make a humanoid robots, and I guess that kind of stuff will always be there. It appeals to many people's imagination. And the less people know about technology, the more they are fascinated by this kind of robot. But the real challenge lies with exploring new ways of doing things. This goes for scientific robots as well as musical ones.