Robotic Xylophone Makes Music With MIDI Magic via Hackaday [Arduino] [Shared]

The MIDI format has long been used to create some banging electronic music, so it’s refreshing to see how [John P. Miller] applied the standard in his decidedly analog self-playing robotic xylophone.

Framed inside a fetching Red Oak enclosure, the 25-key instrument uses individual solenoids for each key, meaning that it has no problem striking multiple bars simultaneously. This extra fidelity really helps in reproducing the familiar melodies via the MIDI format. The tracks themselves can be loaded onto the device via SD card, and selected for playback with character LCD and rotary knob.

The software transposes the full MIDI music spectrum of a particular track into a 25-note version compatible with the xylophone. Considering that a piano typically has 88 keys, some musical concessions are needed to produce a recognizable playback, but overall it’s an enjoyable musical experience.

Read Robotic Xylophone Makes Music With MIDI Magic via Hackaday

An interesting link found among my daily reading

Comments

Microsoft release Outlook.com email services to replace Hotmail

Today Microsoft released its new email service Outlook.com to replace its Hotmail brand. This new streamlined Metro interface design looks good and functions well so far. You can use your existing Microsoft account to log in and then choose an email alias (i.e. douglaswelch@outlook.com) for your new email address. Here are several articles that discuss Outlook.com... Goodbye, Hotmail; Hello, Outlook.com [REVIEW] Outlook Is a Completely New, Feature-Filled Webmail Service from Microsoft Go Get Your @Outlook Email Address Quick Before Someone Else Does I will post links to more articles and reviews as they appear.

TechIQ Gift Guide #15: Sams Teach Yourself Wordpress 3 in 10 minutes

#15 Sams Teach Yourself Wordpress 3 in 10 minutes Chuck Tomasi , fellow Friends in Tech member and co-author of Podcasting for Dummies , along with another Friends in Tech member and podcasting partner, Kreg Steppe , have a new book out that would be a great gift for anyone interested in blogging and New Media. Wordpress is my first recommendation when someone wants to get started with blogging, but it can be a little intimidating. It is very powerful and with power comes complexity. That said, this book can help to jumpstart your Wordpress knowledge and help you be productive. There is also a companion podcast to the book, Wordpress in 10, available from the author's web site. From Amazon.com... "Sams Teach Yourself WordPress in 10 Minutes gives you straightforward, practical answers when you need fast results. By working through its 10-minute lessons, you’ll learn everything you need to build great blogs with WordPress and WordPress.org, and reach any audience by web brows

Google Docs adds templates

I have started to move away from using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc) in favor of online tools like Google Docs . Even as a computer consultant, I find that I use probably less than 10% of the features in any of these projects. One feature I really like in Google Docs is the easy, online file sharing that also allows you to edit simultaneously with someone else. Today, Google Docs added some templates including business cards, brochures and more. At the moment, it looks like they are rolling out this feature over time, so you might not yet see the templates on your account. When available, you will find the templates under the New... menu item. From Open Loops ... Today, Google quietly rolled out a new feature for their Google Docs Applications: Templates! It's so new that it isn't even listed on the new features page at this time. When one opens their Google Docs account and chooses to start a new document, a new "From Template..." command is pre

TechnologyIQ

Search This Blog