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Toa Mata Band – Lego Robots
Our friend Giuseppe Acito builds robots, that control sensors, that control electronics – with lego! His Toa Mata band is a wild mix of 80s synthies, Glockenspiel, self-made drums and oll of them are controlled by lego motors and solenoids. The future of robotic music will be cute!
Be sure to check out his website
Old Spice – Muscle Music
Well know for their mind-boggling, reality-shifting, viral old-spice commercials US-actor Terry Crews made another piece for the body wash company where he combines muscle controllers with music robots. It all looks a bit thrown-together but we cannot deny – this man got the groove!
The overall system seems to be controlled pneumatically. Whether its pre-written or live played cannot be said.
Sonic Robots – Glitchy sounds w/ mechanics
Glitch Robot is an installation by Moritz Simon Geist where acoustic sounds used in electronic music are created by … Robots!
The Installation consists of several robotic actors. When the actors make contact with their instruments, they produce a sonic impression of an omnipresent texture of modern life: electronic music. The music robots used in this performance consists of recycled and 3D-printed parts such as harddisks, relays, tongues, motors and solenoids.
Pedro Reyes – Turning weapons into music
Heavily featured on media arts festivals and in the internet, mexican artist Pedro Reyes turns weapons into musical instruments and robots.
Pianola & player piano
Made first public at the world expibition fair in 1876 and invented by Forneaux, the pianola or player piano is an automatic version of a normal piano. It uses paper rolls with imprinted notes to play the piece. The pianola was advertised which resulted in peak sales in 1920s. With the invention of the phongraf and other recording equipment sales droped. Now, rthe only available self-playing piano is the Yamaha Disklavier.
Festo & Roland Olbeter – Pneumatic robot
Valve supplier FESTO has a sense for upcoming trends and gave robot art specialist Roland Olbeter free access to Festo’s stockroom. He came out with a nice automated electrical string quartet and one drum, which he presented on Hannover Messe 2008.
The Trons – self playing band
The heavily featured New Zealand based self playing robot band “The Trons” by Greg Locke is one of the most popular robot-only band.
RobOrchestra – vibraphone robots
TeamDARE – Panflute and other robots
Founded at the University of Eindhoven, Team Dare develops musical robots since 2002 with a focus on the technical layout. They also have the only pan-flute robot we know of!
Link
Godfried-Willem Raes & Logos – Music Robots
Godfried-Willem Raes is together with Pierre Bastien on of the godfathers of european music robots. Not only did he build robots for Aphex Twin lately, he also developed more than 50 instruments in the last decades.
Logos is his belgish artist group, providing more then 50 several robotic instruments like pipes, organs, beat-makers and drums. They also have some of the most detailed technical paper on robotics for musical instruments explaining the progress and details of his machines and electronics.
Link
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