Tag: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Dear Santa, We know it's quite a bit early, but we wanted to make sure we got our request in before all the other little boys and girls (who haven't been nearly as good as us, by the way). While everyone else is asking for PlayStation 3s and world peace, all we want is the Korg Monotron. The moment we saw video of the pocketable analog synth from the Musikmesse conference in Frankfurt, ...

Learning an instrument can be a long, difficult process, requiring years of dedication. The 'Haptic Drum Kit', shown at MIT's Fourth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, intends to streamline and improve the learning, getting musicians up and drumming in no time. Using both audio and vibrotactile (read: buzzing the wearer) input, the player not only hears the ...

Call us musical Luddites if you will, but we're wondering why people can't seem to leave the venerable, and long-ago perfected, electric guitar alone. Gibson just keeps jamming more and more robotics inside, EverTune has developed a potentially sustain sapping bridge that never falls out of tune, and Worst of CES honoree YouRock Guitar puts half stings and cheesy MIDI tones inside a video game ...

Interactive videos appeared on YouTube in 2008, but most of them have been limited to basic games and puzzles. A new movement in interactive viewing, though, is taking that participatory experience to a completely different, and awesome, level. A user known as kokokaka3000 has uploaded a new video titled, 'Play the Piano,' and the name is not at all misleading. Just let the vid load (after the ...

If Dr. Frankenstein was a musician, he might have produced -- instead of a creature assembled from corpses and reanimated via electricity -- something more like the patched-together Experibass. For his unique creation, Diego Stocco, a sound designer and composer who has worked on such films as 'Terminator Salvation,' and 'Transformers,' attached the necks of a violin, cello, and viola to the ...

Fans of odd, haunting electronic melodies rejoice! With the release of its portable Japanese Premium Theremin, Gakken allows you to entertain, or annoy, anyone, anywhere. In 1938, Leon Theremin patented the eponymous instrument, through which a player manipulates electronic frequencies by waving his hands, or other appendages, over two antennas. By raising and lowering the right hand next to a ...

So this may not be breaking news, but we're still wondering what on Earth made Intel decide that the Beamz laser harp was a good way to show off the power of the Core 2 Duo? (No idea what Beamz is? Check out the bizarre demo video here). Why would Intel, a well-respected manufacturer and developer of high tech products, break out this over-priced pseudo-instrument that was even an embarrassment ...

Technology allowing paraplegics to operate the right pedal of a piano has been developed by a team of scientists in Heidelberg Germany, trumping earlier systems which didn't allow for half pedal or flutter variations. The device consists of a tiny remote module that's placed inside the pianist's right cheek, and a wireless transmitter and motor attached to the pedals of the piano. A small ...

Former Talking Heads front-man David Byrne has always been a bit experimental in his artistic leanings, especially in his solo work (both musical and non). His latest project in New York City, though, takes experimental music to an entirely new scale, turning an entire building into a giant musical instrument that anyone can try for free. The building is the Battery Maritime Building in New ...

Well, we're at a loss for words here. The promo-video for Beamz is quite simply put the worst thing we've ever seen. We don't know where to start with the piles of unintentional hilarity. First there is the instrument itself, a $600 laser harp that sounds like somebody stepping on a Super Nintendo. Then there are the hilarious captions: "quiet reverie?" What is that even supposed to mean? But ...

Hey all you 'American Idol' hopefuls -- here's your chance to prove that you really are musical geniuses deep inside, by using a program called 'Musical DNA,' which visualizes the relationship between musical notes in a fun and semi-psychedelic fashion. We could begin a lengthy dissertation running circles around how the program actually works, but we'll spare you the eyestrain and ...

For an instrument with such an established history of mainstream popularity and an unparalleled level of cool, the accordion doesn't seem to need any improvements. But Roland recently released the battery-powered FR-2 Accordion, which combines the classic features of the original with new digital enhancements, including built-in drum loops (for adding some percussion to that romantic old tune ...

Yamaha just announced the release of its new Disklavier player piano, which now comes with an 80-gigabyte (GB) hard drive and Internet capability for streaming downloads of 'live' songs to literally play in your living room (these "songs" contain the data needed to make the instruments ivories move). Ever since radio took over the limelight some 65 years ago, real instruments such as the piano ...

If money is no object and your giftee just simply has to have one of everything, you might as well pick him/her up the Robot Guitar from Gibson when it goes on sale December 7. Price? We're not sure... but you can bet it'll be expensive. The Robot Guitar is available in a limited edition version only for now, with just 400 stores carrying 10 units each at $2,500 a pop. This axe hides a ...

It's hard not to look cool while walking along carrying a guitar or even just a guitar case. Lugging around a keyboard, though ... far less studly (despite some noble attempts in the '80s). For this reason, keyboard-maker Infinite Response recently unveiled the new VAX 77 keyboard. It weighs just 25 pounds and folds in half, zipping into a shoulder bag, which means you can realistically carry it ...