Have you ever been to a rave? Remember raves? In the dusty old analog days DJs would play actual factual records at raves. And every once in awhile, when they decided to mix in a new track, the DJ would hold up the record that held that roof-rising new track, and when the DJ held up that record the dancers on the dance floor knew that this new record with its new track would push their dancing to ever higher manic madness. And the dancers would cheer as the DJ held that new record aloft.
Now, imagine if that new record wasn’t some sort of boring black. Imagine it was a rainbow. And imagine that when the DJ laid that record down on the wheels of steel the stylus played the colors of that rainbow. Here’s more from Sonic State:
There are all kinds of applications for Arduinos and Raspberry Pis in todays world, from audio and MIDI to rooftop irrigation! This particular project shows what can be done using MaxMSP, an Arduino, a record player, and some electrical components – creating an interesting sequencer based on real world colours detected through a colour sensor and converting them to notes.
It’s made by Sidney Jacobs Audio, who explains: “I created the sounds by sending the RGB serial data into MAX and then using the numbers to control various frequencies and parameters. There probably is a way to do it as a stand alone Arduino project but it is above my skill set unfortunately”. Well, it’s a very innovative method of making music, which has shades of Graham Dunning’s Mechanical Techno – perhaps the two can be combined…
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