Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I am your host, executive producer Jonathan Strickland. Yep, I'm
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Parkson, I Heart Radio and a lot
Speaker 1: of all things tech is. Time for another classic episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff. This one originally aired on August twenty,
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, back in the good old days, I guess. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this particular episode is called tech Stuff Hacks into Music,
Speaker 1: and Chris and I go into some interesting discussions about
Speaker 1: technology and music, and this was one of those cases
Speaker 1: where it was really really handy to have Chris so on.
Speaker 1: Chris is always a joy and I loved having a
Speaker 1: podcast with him. But as you may or may not know,
Speaker 1: he has performed as a professional musician many times, even
Speaker 1: when on tour with big name music groups and stuff.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty cool. Anyway, check out this classic episode.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about musical hacks today. So again
Speaker 1: we're in our series of episodes about using technology to
Speaker 1: do stuff what it was not meant to do, or
Speaker 1: or to to to manipulate it, change it, to tweak
Speaker 1: it in some way so it behaves in a new
Speaker 1: and exciting way. We want to talk about that sort
Speaker 1: of culture, that and the music culture and how those
Speaker 1: two overlap, because it turns out that a lot of
Speaker 1: people who have liked to hack physical as well as
Speaker 1: virtual types of stuff are also really into the music.
Speaker 1: That's true. Um, yeah, a lot of the we we've
Speaker 1: kind of touched on this in the past, recorded in
Speaker 1: an episode in early two thousand eleven about chip tunes. Yes,
Speaker 1: chip tunes being music that you generate from those old
Speaker 1: eight bit machines and earlier, but things like like the
Speaker 1: cover War sixty four and stuff. You take the the
Speaker 1: chips that were able to generate tones and you repurpose
Speaker 1: them so that you program news sorts of music that
Speaker 1: those devices were never necessarily meant to produce back in
Speaker 1: the day. But it does produce that very, very distinctive
Speaker 1: sound that we associate with the early days of computing
Speaker 1: and video games. Yep, yep, it wasn't. It wasn't that
Speaker 1: the episode where I embarrassed myself because I had prepped
Speaker 1: by uh, listening to bags of potato chips. You can't
Speaker 1: listen to just one, that's true. I didn't learn that much.
Speaker 1: But no, a lot of the people. Um, we didn't
Speaker 1: really get into the technology behind that as much, because
Speaker 1: I mean we did talk about how they they use
Speaker 1: UM video games in in that case as electronic instruments,
Speaker 1: but we we didn't really talk as much about building
Speaker 1: about what you need to do to make that happen. UM.
Speaker 1: One of the people that that Jonathan sort of feel
Speaker 1: pardon upon tuned me into UM hacked an at. Yes,
Speaker 1: he made the guitari dred tricks. He's an Australian. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a chip tune artist from Australia. And he took
Speaker 1: an Atari twenty d Uh. He took some various electronics
Speaker 1: meant to manipulate the waveform of a sound once it's
Speaker 1: been produced. Uh, and then he creates some customized software
Speaker 1: to be able to create music using the sty And
Speaker 1: it's not it's not creating music completely improvisationally. There's some
Speaker 1: stuff that has to be pre recorded and uh, you know, predetermined,
Speaker 1: because he could not actually just produce any tone he
Speaker 1: wanted at any time he wanted. Right now. He knows
Speaker 1: how the these initial machines. And we've talked about this
Speaker 1: too on a previous episode in which we were talking
Speaker 1: about the gaming her to wear UM. Those those early
Speaker 1: machines like the R had a library of sounds built
Speaker 1: in the machine. It was on a chip, hardwired hardwired
Speaker 1: into the chip. So um ceatrix is familiar with the hardware.
Speaker 1: He knows what sounds are are available to him on
Speaker 1: this machine, the range of tones and volumes, and then
Speaker 1: different waveforms that the square wave UM and the different
Speaker 1: the different sounds that he can make. And so what
Speaker 1: he does is he uses a computer to write a
Speaker 1: background track basically using assembly code UM, which is a
Speaker 1: very low level programming language UM, and he's able to use.
Speaker 1: He knows what their sounds are and he writes the
Speaker 1: software and then he ends up burning a a ROM
Speaker 1: to go into the cartridge slot on the at R.
Speaker 1: So it's just like you were putting a video game.
Speaker 1: So like let's say you want to play Pitfall and
Speaker 1: you put that into the By the way, Pitfall was
Speaker 1: an awesome game, so it was a river rate another
Speaker 1: awesome game. But you put that into your ATR bas
Speaker 1: you turn it on and then it goes well. In
Speaker 1: this case, he was creating the equivalent of a music
Speaker 1: cartridge that you put in there. And what would happen
Speaker 1: is it would play this predetermined track, which he could
Speaker 1: then manipulate with the other electronics that he had built.
Speaker 1: And he built it on a platform that resembles this huge,
Speaker 1: clunky guitar right now. If you if you're if you're
Speaker 1: familiar with something like Garage Band or some of these
Speaker 1: other UM basic music editing software programs, you're you're probably
Speaker 1: familiar with the idea of them saying Okay, well, we've
Speaker 1: included a hundred clips, and it'll be something really simple,
Speaker 1: basic percussion track or maybe a baseline that you can
Speaker 1: use as a baseline to write a piece of music over.
Speaker 1: And so that's what he's including there. He'll write a
Speaker 1: basic uh if you will, something something to build on,
Speaker 1: and he'll turn on the Atari machine and it starts
Speaker 1: playing that bass track on which he can improvise playing
Speaker 1: additional notes UM he uses. There's a UM joystick attached
Speaker 1: to this UM. It looks very much like the third
Speaker 1: party joysticks that you used. Actually may very well be
Speaker 1: I don't recognize that particular joystick, but it's got a
Speaker 1: couple of buttons on it, and he can use that
Speaker 1: to switch between tracks on the on the cartridge UM.
Speaker 1: And it's also got some effects pedals. He uh he
Speaker 1: actually used Um, I switched my notes here. Uh. He
Speaker 1: all he has an equalizer pedal built in and these
Speaker 1: are the the stump pedals, the foot pedals that that
Speaker 1: a guitarist would use. Um that you see them switch
Speaker 1: on the floor, right, So instead of stomping on it,
Speaker 1: he's actually built these into the neck of the so
Speaker 1: he's using his hand to change the pedals as opposed
Speaker 1: to his foot. Yeah, there are three. There's an equalizer
Speaker 1: pedal or e Q. There's a flanger and a digital
Speaker 1: delay pedal which he uses with his hands. Uh, in
Speaker 1: addition to having the joystick and the atar which is
Speaker 1: at the where you would find the body of the guitar. Right.
Speaker 1: So uh, I say we listen to a short segment
Speaker 1: of of s Tricks playing his guitar. This is him
Speaker 1: playing at a live performance in Japan, and we're just
Speaker 1: gonna give you a short little snippet to kind of
Speaker 1: let you understand what it sounds like. Uh. If your
Speaker 1: ears are sensitive, I recommend lowering the volume of your
Speaker 1: listening device. Now I'm vamping a little bit so that
Speaker 1: you can do this because it is pretty loud. But
Speaker 1: here is an example of his live performance in front
Speaker 1: of a crowd in Japan. Yeah, that it's definitely some
Speaker 1: of the comments on his YouTube page or a little harsh.
Speaker 1: I agree that it's not necessarily everybody's style of music,
Speaker 1: but I do think that it's very, very cool what
Speaker 1: he's done there. It's kind of a mix between electronica
Speaker 1: and industrial, so I mean it's got it's got a
Speaker 1: real crunchy kind of sound to it. There are other
Speaker 1: approaches to this musical hacking that are similar to that.
Speaker 1: There's a great term called circuit bending, which really seems
Speaker 1: to be prevalent in the UK more than in the
Speaker 1: United States. But it's the idea of using low voltage
Speaker 1: musical electronics UH that you would find in things ranging
Speaker 1: from basic video games to even electronics that you would
Speaker 1: find like in a children's toy like speaking spell and
Speaker 1: UH and then you bend. Circuit bending means you you
Speaker 1: are actually short circuiting the device and you're producing new
Speaker 1: sounds that the device was never meant to create. A
Speaker 1: lot of people who do circuit bending will go to
Speaker 1: um uh places that offer like rift stores where you'll
Speaker 1: find a lot of old toys, and they'll go through
Speaker 1: and find and you can get that stuff for cheap
Speaker 1: at the thrift stores um or they'll go to yard
Speaker 1: sales stuff like that, and a lot of cases they
Speaker 1: will be uh, you know, not either either not functioning
Speaker 1: quite right or you know, people will give it to
Speaker 1: you for a couple of bucks and it's easy for
Speaker 1: them to they'll they'll get several of them. In fact,
Speaker 1: I've seen the speaking spell is one of the most
Speaker 1: popular I think, or at least the ones I've seen
Speaker 1: most frequently mentioned. And they will either you know, they'll
Speaker 1: short circuits something or will short circuit a couple of
Speaker 1: boards together. They rewire some stuff, so it actually involves
Speaker 1: physically rewiring electronics. So there's often like a soldering iron
Speaker 1: is one of the basic tools in the toolkit for
Speaker 1: someone who wants to do this. It was kind of
Speaker 1: a trend that was uh at least the whole circuit
Speaker 1: binder trend is is attributed to a fellow named Paul
Speaker 1: Norris who who found he actually used us speaking and spelling.
Speaker 1: Apparently according to the information I read from circuit benders
Speaker 1: dot co dot uk, uh, it was it was quote
Speaker 1: a chance accident with an old speaking spell machine and
Speaker 1: a soldering iron. Hey you've got a soldering iron on
Speaker 1: my speaking spell? Hey you got speaking spell on my solder?
Speaker 1: Say and uh, but yeah, there's there's this interesting music
Speaker 1: that can be created from these electronics. And and in fact,
Speaker 1: the Circuit Benders website has a few different tracks that
Speaker 1: you can listen to. Um. So, again, these two different approaches.
Speaker 1: It's trying to achieve that similar outcome using these electronics
Speaker 1: that were uh they had sound incorporated in them from
Speaker 1: the beginning. But in order to make music, you are
Speaker 1: you're actually making it do something it wasn't intended to do.
Speaker 1: And in fact, They Might Be Giants did a re
Speaker 1: recording of their incredible cover uh Istanbul, which is in
Speaker 1: to cover Uh. They Might Be Giants made that famous
Speaker 1: back in their Flood album. That was a fantastic cover,
Speaker 1: one of the most popular songs when they play live.
Speaker 1: I've seen Thing Might Be Giants play live many many times.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan. Well, they did a h they
Speaker 1: covered it again. They did a new version of it
Speaker 1: where it was more of an electronica version yea, and
Speaker 1: they use a speaking spell in that in that version.
Speaker 1: If you listen to it, you can hear the different noises,
Speaker 1: um and uh, it's really creative, a fantastic version, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'll linked to that. I've already linked to
Speaker 1: the video once on the tech stuff Facebook page, but
Speaker 1: I won't hesitate to do it again because I love
Speaker 1: the band that much. Well, they're they're kind of funny
Speaker 1: too in a way because if you know anything about
Speaker 1: the band, they started out, as you know, just the
Speaker 1: two of them, John and John, John and John, and
Speaker 1: then they added some dance. Yes, they did a band
Speaker 1: of dance, and then eventually one of the dance left
Speaker 1: and Marty came on. But yeah, when they when they
Speaker 1: first started, they were they used a lot of electron
Speaker 1: instruments and loops and things, um, and then they, if
Speaker 1: you will, sort of went unplugged. They started using more
Speaker 1: guitars and and live drums rather than or acoustic drums
Speaker 1: rather than digital electronic drums, right, you know stuff. And
Speaker 1: that was sort of a shock for those of us
Speaker 1: were you know, fans before they used to it when
Speaker 1: it was just the two guys up on stage and
Speaker 1: then suddenly there were three other guys up there. But
Speaker 1: if you if you follow them, you've known uh for
Speaker 1: the last few years they've started experimenting with little gadgets
Speaker 1: and gizmos and stuff and throwing things in. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun too. They did a cover of Chumbawemba's
Speaker 1: tub Thumping they for the A V Club and that
Speaker 1: that is phenomenal, what a wonderful, wonderful video. But they
Speaker 1: used they used devices like that as well. You know,
Speaker 1: they create some electronic music live in a in a
Speaker 1: big group of people who were all shouting the lyrics
Speaker 1: along and uh a joyous video. Absolutely love it. Um
Speaker 1: we're where we uh moving on? UM actually sort of
Speaker 1: a hybrid instrument sort of came to me UM when
Speaker 1: I was looking at the guitar before, even when when
Speaker 1: Jonathan showed me that, he actually showed me before we
Speaker 1: had this idea for the podcast, just like, look at
Speaker 1: this thing, and I was and I was sort of
Speaker 1: fooling around with it, and I ran into UM. An
Speaker 1: instrument created by a very well reasonably famous hacker, Jerry Ellsworth. UM.
Speaker 1: She's very hacked uh popular in the hacking community, and
Speaker 1: she's also part of Valve Software, which gaming community knows
Speaker 1: very well. Um Uh Catrix has done stuff with other machines,
Speaker 1: not just the Atari he's used UH, an Amiga and
Speaker 1: game Boy, but he's also used the Commodore sixty four
Speaker 1: and UH as an interesting tie in. UM Jerry Ellsworth
Speaker 1: used a Commodore sixty four to make a a bass guitar,
Speaker 1: but unline what Citrix did. She actually used the neck
Speaker 1: and strings from the bass and uses the Commodore sixty
Speaker 1: four to um interpret. The strings basically used as the
Speaker 1: pickup for the bass. As most of you know, Chris
Speaker 1: and I do our research separately, so this is all
Speaker 1: new to me and my mind has just been blown. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: now if you if you don't know anything about how
Speaker 1: an electric guitar works and a bassis a you know,
Speaker 1: electric bass is a bass guitar. Um. They they use
Speaker 1: the strings of a guitar. But you know, if you've
Speaker 1: ever been around one that's not plugged in, the sounds
Speaker 1: it makes are pretty quiet. Um. You know, the the
Speaker 1: mechanics of the strings are pretty much the same as
Speaker 1: you'd see in an acoustic guitar. But what an electric
Speaker 1: guitar uses along the body are those those little uh
Speaker 1: sometimes they're silver, sometimes they're darker. You'll see those little
Speaker 1: things that run exactly or not always exactly, but perpendicular
Speaker 1: to the way the strings. Um. So they they are
Speaker 1: on the body of the guitar. Sometimes they'll be one,
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll be two or three. Um. Sometimes I've seen
Speaker 1: I have friends who are musicians who hacked their own
Speaker 1: guitars and will change out. These are called pickups, and
Speaker 1: what these do is they basically interpret the sounds of
Speaker 1: They turned the acoustic vibrations into electron electric symbols, signals, signals,
Speaker 1: differently different symbols. Um, a little percussive memory there, right, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they turned them into electric signals which travel along the
Speaker 1: cable and into really now, they could be plugged directly
Speaker 1: into a computer, but traditionally they're plugged into an amplifier
Speaker 1: and that's how you can manipulate the signals. Well. Jerry
Speaker 1: Ellsworth has employed the use of a Commodore sixty four,
Speaker 1: has done some hacking on the device itself to allow
Speaker 1: her to to use the Commodo or sixty four as
Speaker 1: a effectively as the pickup for this electric bass and um,
Speaker 1: she that means she can use this to play you know. Basically,
Speaker 1: any bass guitarist could pick this device up and play
Speaker 1: a song on it. You know, in the traditional fashion
Speaker 1: and have it turned out as uh an eight bit sound.
Speaker 1: She can use um uh the device to play eight
Speaker 1: bit sounds or or something a little bit closer to
Speaker 1: the traditional electric bass sound. UM. Some of the keys
Speaker 1: function um as a key tar. Um. You know which
Speaker 1: is that uh, depending on how you look at it,
Speaker 1: really cool or really cheesy, really cool, That's how I
Speaker 1: see it. Uh. Where where was the body of the
Speaker 1: device was a keyboard, but there is a neck where
Speaker 1: you can manipulate the sounds. And this is what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. There is a professionally engineered, manufactured device where
Speaker 1: it is supposed to do all those things. Um. She
Speaker 1: sort of made her own uh bass guitar um hacked
Speaker 1: keytar device and it's just very very cool. There are
Speaker 1: videos online you actually, uh it's probably too much to
Speaker 1: do a clip of, but I would certainly encourage you
Speaker 1: to check out the videos of her playing this instrument, because, UM,
Speaker 1: there's really a lot that that she did to make
Speaker 1: this work. Of course, then again, she's known for building
Speaker 1: race car chassis when she was in her teens and twenties,
Speaker 1: so you figure she's probably pretty good at this. So
Speaker 1: I kind of hate her actually, it's more envy than hate. Yes,
Speaker 1: I envy her her ingenuity and skill astely. Hey there,
Speaker 1: it's Jonathan from two thousand nineteen here to tell you.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get into some more discussion about music in
Speaker 1: just a second, but first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: There's actually a contest that or a competition that I
Speaker 1: did not even know about until we started recording this.
Speaker 1: And my ignorance is something I'm kicking myself over because
Speaker 1: ignorance not so much bliss. In two thousand nine, uh,
Speaker 1: there was the first government musical instrument competition. All right,
Speaker 1: So this was a competition for designers to create musical
Speaker 1: instruments using technology and interesting ways, and they would, uh,
Speaker 1: they would submit them to this competition, and the winner
Speaker 1: of the competition would win a certain amount of money.
Speaker 1: That first year, it was a ten thousand dollar uh,
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars for all of the different prizes. In
Speaker 1: first place would take five thousand of that, so ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. So two thousand nine was when they first
Speaker 1: had it. And you know where it's located down the street,
Speaker 1: down the freaking street over and Georgia Tech. So Georgia Tech, Atlanta,
Speaker 1: we're in Atlanta. We we are in Buckhead in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: which is so when we say down the street, it's
Speaker 1: actually a little further than just down the Street's not
Speaker 1: like a block or two away, but it's easily Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like two train stops and we are
Speaker 1: next to a train station. So anyway, it's really really
Speaker 1: accessible from where we are, and we have never been.
Speaker 1: We didn't even know it existed until today. And uh,
Speaker 1: the fact that this exists is now something that tells
Speaker 1: me I have to attend next year if I can, uh,
Speaker 1: if I if I've got that that day free. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk a little bit about some of
Speaker 1: the devices that were submitted that first year. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And the nice thing is is that we can actually
Speaker 1: play a little bit of the music that these devices generated.
Speaker 1: Will have some clips as well. So the first one,
Speaker 1: the one that actually won the prize in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: was the Silent Drum, which was from a an inventor
Speaker 1: named Jamie Oliver, but not the Naked Chef, not that
Speaker 1: Jamie Oliver. Jamie Oliver. I have to say though that
Speaker 1: the name of the instrument sort of reminds me of
Speaker 1: a title of a mystery science theater or three thousand video.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, silent drum. Silent It makes me think of
Speaker 1: what all people who live with a drummer wishes the
Speaker 1: drummer would own as a drummer. Yes, okay, so silent
Speaker 1: drum is. Well. They in the on the side they
Speaker 1: actually talk about it being a kind of like using
Speaker 1: shadow puppetry to create music. This really cool thing. All right,
Speaker 1: So you've got this this device where you've got uh
Speaker 1: uh light that is projected from the bottom of the
Speaker 1: device up to the top of the top has a
Speaker 1: membrane across it that acts as that what would be
Speaker 1: the drumhead, but you're not striking it like a drum. Instead,
Speaker 1: you're pressing down on the membrane. You're creating a shadow.
Speaker 1: There's also a camera that detects where that shadow is.
Speaker 1: The cameraston signals to this processor that has specialized software
Speaker 1: on it built by Oliver that interprets the shadow as
Speaker 1: a command to create a certain kind of sound. So
Speaker 1: depending on where in the membrane you touch, that's going
Speaker 1: to determine the sound that comes out, and how deep
Speaker 1: you go changes the quality of the sound, whether or
Speaker 1: not it's going to be allowed one versus a quiet one,
Speaker 1: and you can create this weird, weird soundscape this way,
Speaker 1: and we can actually play a little bit of that.
Speaker 1: So here is a short clip of Oliver demonstrating the
Speaker 1: silent drum, and if you get a chance to look
Speaker 1: at the YouTube video, I highly recommend it because he
Speaker 1: adds a lot of theatricality to his performance. So here
Speaker 1: we go. Now, that was what took home first prize
Speaker 1: that year, and there were many other uh uh submissions
Speaker 1: that you can look at, and I picked out a
Speaker 1: couple of others to talk about some that we can
Speaker 1: listen to, not all of them. We don't have video
Speaker 1: or audio clips of all of them, but I can
Speaker 1: play some of the stuff. One of them is called
Speaker 1: the Guitar Bot, which took second place that year. I
Speaker 1: was developed by Eric Singer and uh it forms guitar
Speaker 1: parts for the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots. It's
Speaker 1: a robotic guitarist and uh he actually used four separate
Speaker 1: robots that each had a single string. Alright, so imagine
Speaker 1: think about like the four guitar necks side by side,
Speaker 1: but there's no there's only one string on each one.
Speaker 1: And then instead of there being frets all the way
Speaker 1: down the neck of the guitar, there's only one fret,
Speaker 1: but the fret can move up and down the length
Speaker 1: of the string, so it changes the pitch of the
Speaker 1: note that that string produces because the fret self relocates
Speaker 1: to make the string the right length to create the
Speaker 1: pitch you want. And then at the base of each string,
Speaker 1: there's a little circular drum that has on it four
Speaker 1: picks mounted to the drum, so when the drum turns,
Speaker 1: the pick picks the the string, and you can turn
Speaker 1: the wheel a very specific number of times to to
Speaker 1: do the the equivalent of finger picking really or you
Speaker 1: could turn it really quickly so that it's just playing
Speaker 1: faster than any human being with the possible exception of
Speaker 1: certain members of Van Halen, could ever accomplish. And so uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's really interesting to watch this work as well,
Speaker 1: because you actually see the frets going up and down
Speaker 1: those strings to generate the tunes that that you hear
Speaker 1: from it. And here is a short sample of the
Speaker 1: guitar bot that actually sort of reminds me if you've
Speaker 1: looked at it. Um Uh. The video company named Anna Music.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen those UM They used to be
Speaker 1: advertised on on TV a lot. Basically, they do UM
Speaker 1: three D videos of music and it's it's all MIDI type,
Speaker 1: you know, it's all C G I. But the UM
Speaker 1: the music is when you look at the video, it's
Speaker 1: created by these fantastic instruments, things that are are essentially
Speaker 1: robotic in character, and uh, you know they're playing these
Speaker 1: all sorts of otherworldly you know, they're playing themselves basically,
Speaker 1: and watching that just reminded me of one of the instruments. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there are actually probably several of the instruments, so
Speaker 1: which is kind of cool. Yeah. There there are so
Speaker 1: many that were submitted that year that I thought were
Speaker 1: really interesting to the submitted to the competition. Another one
Speaker 1: was well. Third place went to David Wessel, who was
Speaker 1: a Berkeley University professor, so a guy who knows what
Speaker 1: he's doing. And he had an instrument that he introduced
Speaker 1: called the slabs. So you know a lot of laptops
Speaker 1: have those have touch pads. He did what he did
Speaker 1: was he took a bunch of those touchpads more than
Speaker 1: thirties I recall, and made an array of touch pads
Speaker 1: and each touch pad was capable of producing certain tones
Speaker 1: based upon where your finger was on that on that
Speaker 1: touch pad and how much pressure you were putting on
Speaker 1: the touch pad, and all of the information was fed
Speaker 1: through a device that was running the max slash MSP
Speaker 1: audio program, and he would be able to create music
Speaker 1: by moving his fingers along these different touchpads and could
Speaker 1: create a pretty sophisticated range of sounds. I mean, they
Speaker 1: were essentially ninety six channels for this device, so lots
Speaker 1: of lots of options. And uh and here's a little
Speaker 1: sample of the professor playing along on slabs. M m
Speaker 1: m m m m m hm. Now that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Chris is gonna keep the beat, keep it strong in
Speaker 1: just a moment. But first let's take another quick break.
Speaker 1: If you want something that sounds a little more primitive,
Speaker 1: here's another. This this will be our final little sound clip.
Speaker 1: But here's one that I wanted to talk about. A
Speaker 1: guy named Neil Feathers created an instrument called vibra wheels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he he creates the sound by rotating these discs
Speaker 1: that have within it some vibrating pellets. So the vibrating
Speaker 1: pellets are making this certain noise, and then by rotating it,
Speaker 1: you're creating this kind of Doppler effect, and by rotating
Speaker 1: a different speeds you can actually alter the pitch. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then there are batteries that are supplying the power
Speaker 1: and to create the music, you run it at different speeds.
Speaker 1: Uh and it Uh they're going past guitar pickups, like
Speaker 1: you were saying, that's what that's what's ended up interpreting
Speaker 1: these vibrations and turning it into electric signals, which then
Speaker 1: can go to an amplifier, which then can send an
Speaker 1: amplified signal to speakers and then they get to hear them.
Speaker 1: And I can talk all about the physical abilities of sound,
Speaker 1: but we've done that in previous podcasts. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: cover it. But anyway, so moving this around and around,
Speaker 1: you can make them go in and out of phase.
Speaker 1: These different rotating disks that have these vibrating pellets and
Speaker 1: batteries on them. Um, that's what creates the sound. And
Speaker 1: UH they say that the the the inspiration for this
Speaker 1: instrument came from a motorcycle engine. And I think you're
Speaker 1: gonna understand what they meant. When you hear and on
Speaker 1: lead motorcycle, it's could you imagine, Um, yeah. So. Actually,
Speaker 1: so I was a finalist for that first competition over
Speaker 1: at Georgia Tech, which has gone on every year since
Speaker 1: including there was one in as well, So hopefully in
Speaker 1: because we're recording this in twelve, hopefully I'll be able
Speaker 1: to attend that one and see these things in person,
Speaker 1: because I'm finding it really fascinating. There was another one
Speaker 1: that I don't have a sound clip for, but the
Speaker 1: idea was just so wild to me. Uh Katherine stone Rich.
Speaker 1: She created this device that used lasers, so you know
Speaker 1: I was gonna love it anyway, right, But they used
Speaker 1: lasers that would detect the texture of various fabrics, So
Speaker 1: we're talking about the thread count or the thickness of
Speaker 1: that fabric or even wherever the seams are in that fabric,
Speaker 1: and through the various changes in that detect it would
Speaker 1: send signals that would create music. So you would actually
Speaker 1: feed fabric through this machine and the output would be music.
Speaker 1: You could compose a symphony, essentially an electronic symphony, by
Speaker 1: weaving fabric and changing the pattern of the weave. That's unbelievable. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I think we're gonna end this podcast right here.
Speaker 1: One good pun just destroys the whole thing. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just comes apart at the seams. I'm hurting and I
Speaker 1: need to seek medical attention. So oh man, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sew this up right now and we're going
Speaker 1: to finish this by podcast. I think Jonathan's going to
Speaker 1: spindle me. There's that didn't even make sense. I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, like the kind that goes on a never
Speaker 1: mind you know what after this, I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: a yarn that has been in the back of my
Speaker 1: mind for ages. Sorry I didn't that's a totally different thread.
Speaker 1: Sorry guys. Um, I don't mean to needle Chris in
Speaker 1: this way. See two can play at that game, Mr Palette. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're wrapping this out honestly, Um, the realm of
Speaker 1: music and hacking is a rich one. There. There are
Speaker 1: incredible examples of ingenuity and musicality out there, some of
Speaker 1: which are higher on the ingenuity part and less on
Speaker 1: the musicality, but there's some. There's some incredible examples of
Speaker 1: people really putting their minds to new ways to create music,
Speaker 1: and it's it blows my mind. Uh, as someone who
Speaker 1: appreciates music but is still very much a novice As
Speaker 1: far as making music, I find it amazing. Well, it's
Speaker 1: one thing to uh to have something like pro tools
Speaker 1: to record uh analog instruments or something like Sabelius to
Speaker 1: write scores on your on your computer, but UM, it's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting to see how people are taking other
Speaker 1: things and making music out of it. I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking along the lines of people like uh Ben
Speaker 1: burt Over at introduct industrial light and magic making sound
Speaker 1: effects out of found objects and things like that. It's
Speaker 1: just UH need to see people making things make music
Speaker 1: you wouldn't ordinarily see. And there you haven't folks, another
Speaker 1: classic episode of tech Stuff. Hope you enjoyed that episode.
Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for future topics or you
Speaker 1: want to hear more about the intersection between music and technology,
Speaker 1: send me a message. You can reach out on email
Speaker 1: the addresses text stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or pop onto our social media sites and let us know. There.
Speaker 1: You can actually find links to those at our website
Speaker 1: tech stuff Podcast dot com. You can let me know
Speaker 1: if there's any particular topics you would like me to
Speaker 1: look into. I look forward to hearing from you. Also
Speaker 1: on that website, you will find a link to our
Speaker 1: online store, where every purchase you make goes to help
Speaker 1: the show, and we greatly appreciate it, and I will
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Ye hext Stuff is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
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Speaker 1: favorite shows.