Category Archives: DIY Music Projects

Robotic Egg Hunt

Usually I only post about music technology, but a subject that is always fun to talk about is Robotics.  My Autonomous Robotics class (ECE 564) is one of the more fun classes I’ve taken in college.  The whole class builds up to a final robotic competition where each team builds a robot to compete head to head against another robot.

The competition for this semester was a robotic egg hunt.  Robots got 1 point for bringing a pastel colored egg back to their base and -3 for a brown egg in their base.  You can see our robot (designed by myself, Michael DeVeau and Mostafa Farag) running a test to bring back pastel eggs below.

For more details about the robot design, construction and more videos, please keep reading after the break.

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Great DIY Speaker Stands for $30

So you’ve just bought your first pair of studio monitors.  You’re obviously excited, but if you’re like most people, you probably forgot the small detail of monitor stands.  You options are to either improvise and sacrifice optimal placement (kind of ruining the reason you got the monitors in the first place) or go out and spend nearly $100 bucks on a low quality mass produced stand.  I’m here to show you there’s another option.  You can build your own great looking and high quality speaker stands for around $30.  Details after the break.

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“Ultralight” Pure Data Based Launchpad Performance Tool

So I’m always kicking around new ideas for loop based tools for solo electronic music performance.  My latest idea involves a very simple interface, the Novation Launchpad tentatively called “Ultralight”.  I plan to incorporate audio looping, a step sequencer for electronic drums, a beat slicer for both the audio  and drums, as well as a few simple synths and audio effects who’s routing can be flexibly controlled using the launchpad.  Right now, most of my work has focused on understanding how to read and write from the launchpad (simple in a language like C, but harder in the graphical dataflow environment of PD).  I’ve got an overall view with a few “modes” and have started to program some basic read/write light abstactions, as well as a few simple step sequencer and storage building blocks.  Please see a few demos below if you’re interested.

Running Sound for an Outdoor Festival: Lessons Learned

Running live sound for an outdoor festival presents a unique set of challenges compared to many more typical situations.  Last weekend, I had the great opportunity to setup and run the sound system for the Fiesta Latina stage at the very fun WorldFest event in Louisville.  WorldFest was a three day event and the Latin stage featured around 8 acts per day ranging from solo guitarists, mariachi bands, jazz fusion, and very large and energetic salsa groups.

Outdoor festivals present a unique set of challenges for running live sound. Check below the break for a list of a few things I learned.

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DIY Ableton Live Foot Pedal

Those of you that use Ableton for looping know how nice it is to have a foot pedal to start and stop recording when your hands are full playing an instrument.  The problem is, many MIDI pedals are expensive.  So I developed a workaround solution that involves using Ableton’s great keymap feature.  By gutting the inside of an old PS/2 keyboard, and rewiring the keys to a series of buttons, you can make a great footpedal for very cheap or even free.  Keep reading below to find out how!

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