Tag Archives: musical instrument

Suzuki Omnichord is back to offer a fun and interesting way to make music

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When you think of musical instruments, you will probably first think of things like pianos and guitars. Electronic musical instruments, on the other hand, conjure up images of keyboards, electric guitars, and complicated synthesizers. Suzuki’s Omnichord, on the other hand, is an odd yet curious duck that stands somewhere in between these two extremes. First launched in 1981, this electronic device empowered anyone to make music or accompany a song even without previous musical experience or even reading notes. The Omnichord’s distinctive electronic sounds and novel design made it quite a hit, but the product faded into obscurity back in 1996. To commemorate its upcoming 40th anniversary, Suzuki decided to give today’s generation a taste of that unique experience with a new model that recreates the original so faithfully down to using the same analog circuits.

Designer: Suzuki

Imagine just pressing a few buttons and sliding your finger on a flat surface and then suddenly producing wonderful music. That’s pretty much the experience that the Suzuki Omnichord offered, presenting people, whether musically trained or not, the joys of creating music with ease and freedom. There are no wrong notes, just new harmonies and beats to be discovered and incorporated into your masterpiece. It’s like an adventure for novices but also a new territory for veterans who want to add a unique flavor to their music.

The new Suzuki Omnichord OM-108 tries to bring that 80s experience to the 21st century, reproducing the tonality that characterized that period while also adding modern features that cater to today’s more demanding audience. To accurately recreate the same tones of the OM-84, perhaps the most popular Omnichord ever released, Suzuki opted to go completely old school and apply the same analog circuitry that gave the original its distinctive electronic sounds. It also has that popular harp sensor or strumplate that lets you easily slide or tap your finger to produce the “notes” that will make up your music.

The new OM-108 model boasts 108 chords, hence the name, as well as many new functions, like a switch that changes the way chords and rhythms are played. There’s also a drum pad mode that turns the chord keys as well as the sturmplate itself into beats. And like with many modern electronic musical instruments, you can connect the Omnichord to external MIDI devices to mix tones to your heart’s delight. Plus, the built-in speaker can be turned on or off when you connect an external speaker, useful when you want to monitor your own sound during a live performance.

The Suzuki Omnichord OM-108 may look like a toy, but the unique sounds it lets you produce are pure joy, at least to fans of the electronica genre. Its revival coincides with the retro craze gripping many industries and is a perfect example of a design that manages to remain relevant decades after its last appearance. That said, you’ll have to wait a bit before you can get your hands on the newest Omnichord, as sales aren’t expected to start until July, with the price and market availability still unknown.

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A Music Instrument for the Hearing Impaired: This Synth uses Tactile and Color Cues Instead of Sound

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“Play by ear” as they commonly say, doesn’t really apply to people with hearing impairments. The most common example of a hearing-impaired musical genius remains Beethoven, who composed entire orchestral pieces by relying on what he remembered from a time when he could hear. By the time he reached the peak of his career, Beethoven was completely deaf, but his memory served him well when it came to playing music… not everyone today has that luxury, but the Vibra helps the hearing impaired play music by connecting the audio to other senses like touch and sight.

Designers: Ahn Taegwang, Go Yeongseok, Hwang Jimin, Lee Wonjae

A winner of the Red Dot Design Concept Award, Vibra is a new instrument and service that can meet the musical needs of people with hearing impairments. Unlike traditional instruments that rely entirely on auditory feedback, Vibra relies on a combination of vibrations or haptic feedback, and visual cues like color and composition. The musical instrument comes with a modular design that serves the needs of multiple instruments, from key-based to percussive, string, and even electronic. It eventually pairs with an app that allows players to visualize their music. With a fair amount of visual training and consistent practice, hearing-impaired people can use the Vibra to play existing tunes and even compose new music entirely on their own.

The companion app fills in the sensorial gaps left by the auditory impairment. It provides a visual interface that helps conceptualize sound in a graphic sense, allowing people to understand notes, chords, harmonies, and other complex theories through vision instead of sound. The app enables practice, helps users find which instrument they’re more comfortable playing, and also allows them to learn and practice how to play popular tunes!

The Vibra is a Winner of the Red Dot Award: Design Concept for the year 2023.

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Yamaha Design Lab The Gripper lets you exercise your fingers like a saxophone player

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Yamaha is a brand that evokes two different images depending on who you ask. Some might know it best for its musical instruments and audio equipment, while motorists might be more familiar with its motorcycles. Although they seem to have nothing in common other than their name, they do share a common passion for well-designed products. There are many when the two companies come together to put pool their creative minds and come up with designs that showcase their shared passions and visions. This hand grip concept is one such example, combining expertise in musical instruments and metalwork to create an odd-looking hand exercising tool that you might wish you could buy someday.

Designer: Yamaha Design Laboratory

A hand gripper is definitely an odd choice for a product from both Yamaha companies, even if it’s just a concept. Then again, whether you’re playing musical instruments or driving a motorcycle, you need to have dexterous hands. Regularly exercising them is one way of maintaining or building up hand and wrist strength, and hand grips like these are one of the most common ways to do that.

Of course, “The Gripper” is clearly not your typical hand grip. The most common hand grips are just two plastic or padded grips with a coiled metal in between for resistance, though there are more sophisticated ones that use buttons with springs for each finger. Yamaha Design Lab’s concept mixes these two types together in a rather eccentric way that makes The Gripper look more like a musical instrument than a tool.

There is a typical palm grip, though it is made of natural sculpted wood that gives it a warm and soft touch in contrast to plastic or rubber. It contrasts with the cold metal pipes that make up the actual grip that branches out into five different paths, one for each finger, including the thumb. Rather than simple buttons, however, each “key” is a concave metal disc that lets your finger rest on it securely without fear of slipping off. This gives the finger grips an unusual aesthetic that makes them look like the same keys on a saxophone or trumpet. In fact, you can operate each key separately like on those instruments, letting you move and exercise each finger differently.

There is also a mechanism that lets you adjust the length of each pipe to accommodate different finger lengths. This rather unusual design helps increase the tension for better exercise while also offering a unique feeling of delicate manipulation for every finger. In other words, it creates a whole new experience that provides stress relief and exercise in an aesthetically pleasing and interesting package. Unfortunately, The Gripper is fated to remain a concept unless Yamaha changes its mind after receiving strong demand for such a quirky design.

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This classy Roland wooden piano has equal dose of modern tech

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The good old piano has not seen much evolution in design all these centuries but Casio and Donner have already shown us they’re willing to break the ice. Now for their 50th-anniversary celebration, Japanese music gear pro, Roland has also decided to bring something fresh to the equation. That uniqueness comes in the form of this concept piano designed to commemorate five decades of the Osaka-based brand.

As a part of the concept study in collaboration with Japanese furniture maker Karimoku, the design has the apparent influence of the “future filled with past creativity and future possibilities”.

Designer: Roland

The 50th Anniversary Concept Model Piano is centered on the PureAcoustic Modeling engine announced by the brand back in 2018. This makes the musical instrument not only look anything like other contemporary options but also ahead in intuitiveness. Case in point, the instrument modeling combined with the multi-channel loudspeakers for a dash of sonic realism. The patent-pending keyboard recognition design brings to the fore a very natural response along with the realistic mapping and reproduction of the pedal noise.

The 88-key piano keyboard instrument is honed by the unibody cabinet that’s purely a result of the Karimoku association in this creation. That eye-grabbing presence of layered Japanese Nara oak pieces arranged in flowing lines and sublime contours. This is perfectly matched to the piano stool having rounded padding on top. Once you lift the lid, there’s a color display panel to toggle all the player settings or the adjustable metronome. The app integration lets one make all the subtle adjustments on the fly.

Roland’s Concept Model Piano is powered by a button on the left and the gold-colored volume control lets you take control of the piano tones on the speakers. Other than that; it goes without saying, the piano looks absolutely stunning in a contoured wooden finish and is all set to embellish a modern living room. For now, there’s no word when this cool piano will be available to burn some cash on, but when it arrives, it’ll surely be on the collectors’ list.

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These chimes turn your personal fashion sense into music

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They say everyone has a personal vibe, and this computer-powered musical instrument makes that audible.

There are some people who believe that the universe can more or less be distilled down to numbers. Everything is quantifiable, from the atoms that make up the known universe to the waves that delight some of our senses. We take for granted the many waves and vibrations that we rely on each day, and yet we also use metaphors above having a certain vibe or making waves all throughout our lives. Wouldn’t it be interesting if these waves could actually sync and take form? Seeing waves of light that dance to the music is probably nothing new, especially for those who have experienced the joys of light shows. This interactive exhibit, however, takes the concept in a different direction and creates an intersection of light, sound, and personal “vibes” to produce an interesting experience.

Designer: Pepe Santillán (José Carlos Ortiz Santillán)

Most people are probably familiar with how sound waves enable us to hear things, but few might actually associate light and colors with similar waves. The fact is that the difference in frequencies of light is what gives visible light the colors that we see and enjoy. Of course, we don’t see light as literal waves or vibrations, so there’s a big opportunity to come up with creative ways to express this kind of vibe.

“Que Onda,” which is Spanish for “What’s up,” is a device that turns colors into sound. But rather than do it the direct and rather boring way using sensors and a speaker, the machine takes its input from an almost unusual source. Playing on the metaphor of a person’s unique vibe emanating from their fashion choices, the computer-driven chime set translates colors from the clothes you’re wearing and translates them into musical notes.

The instrument scans a person standing in front of it and uses computer vision to analyze the light frequencies that are interpreted as colors on the person’s clothes. The colors are grouped into eight that correspond to the different notes in a musical octave. Hammers then hit the corresponding chimes to translate the

The length and frequency of each note depend on the pattern of the colors and their ratio to other colors. Even black and white colors can represent different notes, depending on the other colors around them or their brightness. Even the actual arrangement of the notes is randomized, so the same clothes on different people could still produce different harmonies.

There is, of course, no science behind quantifying these personal vibes into something visible or audible, but it’s still fun to imagine how each person’s apparel could produce different tunes. The designer says that the interactive art piece tries to invite people to reflect on the hidden numbers in our world, like the different waves and vibes that make our life enjoyable and special.

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This $199 light-up Piano teaches you how to be a musician the easy and fun way…

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With the simplicity and appeal of something right out of a videogame, combined with a color-coded set of keys and modular design like the LUMI keyboard, the PopuPiano hopes to make learning music both fun and intuitive.

Equal parts a learning device and a powerful production platform, PopuPiano is a clever little gadget that’s easy to carry, easy to learn, and easy to impress with. The piano sports light-up keys that don’t just give your music a pop of color, but actually guide you if you’re a novice. Much like a DDR mat that shows you how to dance, the PopuPiano’s keys light up just when you need to press them, teaching you melodies, chords, and even genres. To make things interesting the piano comes with a magnetic Chord Pad that lets you play melodies with your right hand and easy single-key chords with your left for more stellar performances. Finally, PopuPiano’s app ties the experience together, with tutorials, libraries, and the ability to connect your PopuPiano directly to other music apps and DAWs, like you would a regular MIDI keyboard.

Designer: PopuMusic

Click Here to Buy Now: $199 $399 (50% off) Hurry! Only 30 hours left!

Like Guitar Hero… but for the piano.

Although one could argue that Guitar Hero doesn’t teach you how to play the guitar as much as it teaches you hand-eye coordination, PopuPiano builds on that principle with an actual piano as an interface instead of mere buttons. The piano connects to an app, which in turn uses a series of fun exercises and games to teach you all the aspects of music theory and piano playing. The app also works equally well for seasoned players, allowing you to record music, edit it, access different instrument banks, produce tracks, and even carry forward your tunes and tracks into other software to sample them, remix them, and just experiment in new ways.

The Piano and the Chord Pad

The PopuPiano is a compact little gadget with 29 keys that’s perfect for mostly single-hand practice, although you can play a few pieces with both hands too, and an octave switch on the top lets you go from C0 to C7. It sports a modular design, allowing you to snap additional piano units to it to effectively double your playing surface so you can learn the instrument on a naturally larger playing surface… although the modularity is more suited for the companion Chord Pad, a 5-key module that lets you play chords, drums, or trigger loops on command. Given that the PopuPiano’s 29-key surface can provide some limitations, the Chord Pad then becomes the perfect companion, letting you play hundreds of chords at the simple push of a button.

Expansive App with features for novices and experts

The same PopuPiano and app provide two radically different experiences for learners and for seasoned professionals. For learners, the app gives you access to free lessons, games, practice sessions, and even an ever-expanding library of song tutorials that feature some of the most famous hits. For experts, however, the app gives you access to an instrument bank, the ability to select key lighting modes, advanced setup for the Chord Pad, and finally, compatibility with apps and DAWs like Garage Band, Cubase, Logic Pro X, FL Studio, Ableton, Cakewalk, Adobe Audition, and many more. You can add the PopuPiano to your studio, or build a new studio around it, and make tracks that sound like magic with far less equipment.

A seriously fun musical toy

What makes the PopuPiano such a compelling device is its compact size combined with versatile abilities. The piano is almost toyishly small, making it perfect for kids who don’t want to directly begin learning on an upright piano and for professionals with cluttered studios or artists who need a small instrument while touring and composing in hotel rooms. The ABS construction makes the PopuPiano incredibly resilient, while the glowing plexiglass keys light up perfectly even during the daytime to help you play, visualize, and learn. A whopping 2200 mAh battery on the inside of the PopuPiano gives you days of play-time before you need to plug it in to charge, and the piano interfaces directly with the app via Bluetooth 5.0 for minimal latency. The PopuPiano app is available on both Android and iOS (and iPadOS) platforms and is free to subscribe to. You can grab the PopuPiano and Chord Pad for a special discounted price of $199, or for $238 you can even get a special translucent protective carrying case for your magical musical instrument!

Click Here to Buy Now: $199 $399 (50% off) Hurry! Only 30 hours left!

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This Digital Piano makes a beautiful impression with its wooden finish, grand piano-like acoustic

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Some musicians will probably tell you it doesn’t matter how an instrument looks as long as the owner knows how to play it. It’s true: Beautiful music can be made by anyone who knows how to play a musical instrument.

It’s not the instrument but the musician that creates and controls the sound. However, it wouldn’t hurt if the instrument is of excellent quality and looks nice like this Donner Digital Piano (DDP-80). The stylish piano is eco-friendly and appears like a modern furniture piece.

Designer: Donner

Donner DDP-80 88 Key Fully Weighted Digital Piano 14

Acoustic-wise, the DDP-80 is at par with a French grand piano. It’s stylish but remains affordable while able to offer premium audio. The minimalist style makes it an eye-catching addition to any room. It’s a modern furniture item that can make lovely music.

When played right, it offers pleasure to the ears. It’s designed to be pleasing not only to the ears but also to the eyes. The piano’s aesthetics will meet any minimalist’s standards with its wood finish. It comes with 88 full-sized weighted keys, so it feels like a real piano.

Donner DDP-80 88 Key Fully Weighted Digital Piano 6

Donner’s latest feature-rich electric keyboard is appealing in its wooden finish. The mid-century modern style can fit most interiors, especially those into the minimalist aesthetics. It will probably remind you of those vintage cabinets from decades ago.

The digital piano is environment-friendly with its low-formaldehyde, biodegradable material in either walnut or cherry wooden finish. The piano comes with slim legs that are also angled, resembling a study desk. The buttons, knobs, and controls are placed on the rear to keep its simple look.

Donner DDP-80 88 Key Fully Weighted Digital Piano 7

The Donner DDP-80 is more than just its charming form. Its digital piano technology functions excellently. It offers USB-MDI connectivity so you can use it with your tablet or smartphone. It also works with other digital audio workstations so you can create more beautiful music.

Donner DDP-80 is a fully-weighted keyboard, so it feels like you’re playing a real piano. It offers the same experience as an acoustic piano, complete with the full tone. The only difference is that this Donner piano is smaller and is more alluring than your other pieces of furniture. It has a matching piano bench and foot pedal, but you need to buy them separately.

Donner DDP-80 88 Key Fully Weighted Digital Piano 12

This retro piano decor is ready to grace any room with its wooden texture and charming presence. The meticulous workmanship is very obvious in every corner. It’s compact enough for easy transport and storage and is also easy to assemble.

Donner DDP-80 88 Key Fully Weighted Digital Piano 4

Donner DDP-80 88 Key Fully Weighted Digital Piano 10

Donner DDP-80 88 Key Fully Weighted Digital Piano 5

Donner DDP-80 88 Key Fully Weighted Digital Piano 8

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East India’s Ektara gets reinterpreted as this modern string instrument for today’s folk musicians!

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The Sukhtara is a modern reinterpretation of East India’s Ektara string instrument, whose origins date back a millennium.

Musical instruments have helped characterize cultures for millennia. In East India, sometime between 1700 B.C. and 7th-century C.E., the Ektara was produced and became a beloved instrument for East Indian folk musicians. Entirely made from natural materials, the Ektara hasn’t gone through many updates since its earlier productions.

As a result, today’s folk music enthusiasts and antiquarians alike haven’t modernized the ancient instrument. Arnab Patra, a design student based in India, has recently finished work on giving the Ektara a much-needed structural update to bring the beloved instrument back into the mainstream discourse and use.

Dubbed Sukhtara, the updated instrument still keeps the Ektara’s familiar wooden build. Constructed from a coconut or gourd shell, bamboo, metal string, wood, and goatskin, Sukhtara is the culmination of a lot of revision work from Patra.

For instance, the original Ektara’s tuning hole increased in size with more playing time. Considering its bamboo build, the bamboo tuning peg would consistently push further into the bamboo tuning hole until the hole was so big, the peg would always turn loose.

In constructing Sukhtara, Patra aimed to solve this tuning problem by replacing the bamboo tuning peg with a metal butterfly tuner, similar to those found on guitars and violins. Sukhtara’s tuning box can be found at the top of the instrument where it forms a small bridge between the two bamboo arms and soundbars, creating a space for the instrument’s metal string to wrap around for tuning.

While the changes might seem small, they’re necessary for the cultural instrument to remain in modern use. Following contemporary instrumental structuring, the Sukhtara enhances Ektara’s aesthetics, building materials, and playing styles for the modern instrumentalist to reawaken the music of the past.

Designer: Arnab Patra

While Patra maintained the instruments build, some adjustments were made for the soundbox, tuning box, and bamboo arms.

The Sukhtara is a modern interpretation of the Ektara.

The Ektara dates back to some time between 1700 B.C. and 7th-century C.E.

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This Wearable musical instrument made from PVC pipes radiates Dr. Octavius vibes!

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If you’ve ever come across a Tubulum, you know how cool it sounds, and the way it is made is nothing short of imaginative! Made out of a collection of tubes or PVC pipes, the DIY musical instrument’s sound is determined by the length of each pipe. So how could a Tubulum be bettered to look even more badass? It could take the shape of an OCTAV – a musical instrument that can be worn like a harness and give us those cool Dr. Otto Octavious vibes!

Designed by Asaf Wainberg, the one-off musical instrument is purely out of the realms of cool DIY stuff that you can’t give a miss. Like the Tubulum, the OCTAV is made out of PVC pipes leading to six pads (like drums) that create sound. The principle here is that the sound generated by tapping on the pads depends on the length and circumference of the pipes attached to it. And the whole thing is fixed onto a harness so you can move around with it.

Keeping Dr. Octavious in mind, I wish there was a way to control the arms robotically; it would make a kick-ass piece to strut.
However, the similarity ends there as this musical rig is on the incredible spectrum of things, wrapping the musician on the front and back for a superhero-like look. If you are inspired enough, this could be a replicated DIY weekend project to surprise your buddies. Who knows, you could be the next viral sensation, just like Asaf Wainberg will be in a few weeks!

Designer: Asaf Wainberg





 

LEGO as a viable design material? YouTuber uses 2000 LEGO bricks to build a functioning bass guitar…

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It would be an unfair characterization to call LEGO a child’s toy. Clearly, the product’s an incredibly engaging and interactive DIY system for adults too, and has been used for everything from scale-down models to art projects, to even the rare full-size LEGO supercar… but rarely has LEGO been used as an actual material to build a real, working product.

Trust wacky DIY YouTuber and musician Burls Art to take on a challenge though. The guy’s literally made guitars from the most absurd materials, including a skateboard, a shovel, and even 5000 coffee beans. His latest project? A bass guitar out of LEGO bricks… wait, let me be more specific, a fully functional electric bass guitar made from 2000 LEGO bricks.

Designer: Burls Art

In the video, Burls Art details how LEGO is a pretty great choice to make the guitar in the first place. The interlocking pieces are pretty robust and the fact that you’ve got LEGO bricks in different colors makes it pretty easy to design your own pattern on the guitar. To assemble the piece, Burls plugs the LEGO pieces together in sheets, before layering them one above another and pouring epoxy resin to really seal them in place (the last thing you want is to have a guitar falling apart when you play an exceptionally funky slapping bassline). The guitar also uses a maple-wood board on the inside to reinforce it like a spine, to counter the amount of pulling force the strings will have. The wood + epoxy fretboard’s made from scratch too, as well as the headstock, which again uses LEGO bricks.

Once the guitar’s main body is assembled and the epoxy’s set, Burls drew the profile of the guitar on it and went to down using a sanding machine to cut the shape out. Unfortunately, this meant that the guitar wouldn’t have the LEGO brick’s signature pixelated silhouette, but then again, that guitar wouldn’t really be comfortable to play either. You can, however, see the brick’s hollow underside along the edge of the guitar. Burls decided not to fill in those uneven gaps with epoxy because it would unnecessarily add to the weight of the instrument. The overall piece weighed around 7 pounds, which was ideal for an electric bass guitar.

Once assembled, Burls took his new instrument out for a spin. He started off by playing the iconic Seinfeld bassline (at the 10:18 mark), before finally creating a neat composition using a combination of his LEGO bass, and his color-pencil guitar.

The novelty of the project aside, it’s rather fun to see how the LEGO bricks are used as an actual design/prototyping tool. With a little epoxy resin and a sander machine, it’s pretty easy to create your own prototypes too. It’s arguably faster than a 3D printer if you do your homework beforehand, and you don’t need to worry about multiple-filament 3D prints to get a colored output… just use colored bricks!