If you are really enjoying a song, you may start to bob your head to the tunes, but what if you could instead create actual music with this subtle movement? That’s exactly what Andrew Lee’s “Nod Bang” system accomplishes.

An accelerometer mounted to a pair of headphones senses nods in order to dictate the beat, while four 3D-printed arcade buttons are used to select which sounds will be played. An Arduino takes these inputs and passes them to a computer via a MIDI USB interface. The board also controls lights on the buttons for visual feedback.

Be sure to check it out in action below and read Lee’s entire write-up here.

Sequencers, as YouTuber “LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER” explains, are musical devices that go through a sequence of tones one by one. While this can be done quite simply with a 4017 counter chip, if you instead substitute in an Arduino board for the counter, you can make your gadget behave normally, go backwards, or even act as a sort of keyboard using input buttons.

This particular project employs a Nano for control, giving it a conveniently small form factor to fit inside your equipment.

Since the start of building modular synths, ive always been looking for an arduino powered sequencer. but never really happy with the projects that were about. because it was still menu dives and button combinations. which is not what you wanna be messing about with! you may aswell use a computer and a mouse ha.

Be sure to check out LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER’s entire build process and a demo of the keyboard sequencer in the video below. You can also find circuit diagrams and Arduino code in the project’s write-up here.

Most musical sequencers use an array of buttons to control sounds played in 16 or perhaps 32 steps. As seen here, Moscow-based artist Dmitry Morozov (aka ::vtol::) created an installation called “Ivy” wth not 16, but 240!

The sequencer is based on an Arduino Mega along with 74HC40967 multiplexers to handle input from the 240 sliders arranged as controls for each step.  There’s also a bunch of WS2811 LEDs, which are driven by a Teensy board.

Ivy stretches five meters in length, and several “voices” represented by dots on the 1-dimensional light array travel both right and left at different speeds simultaneously. This allows it to be programmed in ways that wouldn’t be possible with traditionally-operated musical devices.

The project is created specially for Open Codes exhibition in ZKM center, dedicated to codes and programming in art. On one side, Ivy is a representation of an archaic method of electronic music programming for analog synthesizers. On the other side – gigantic scale and obsessive multiplication of simple primitive elements turns this project into an art installation, that is referring to the topic of graphic and physical organization of parameters in electronic music.

You can read more about ::vtol::’s latest sound installation here, and see it in action below!

Most projects have one or two significant aspects in which custom work or clever execution is showcased, but this Music Box Hole Punching Machine by [Josh Sheldon] and his roommate [Matt] is a delight on many levels. Not only was custom hardware made to automate punching holes in long spools of paper for feeding through a music box, but a software front end to process MIDI files means that in a way, this project is really a MIDI-to-hand-cranked-music-box converter. What a time to be alive.

The hole punch is an entirely custom-made assembly, and as [Josh] observes, making a reliable hole punch turns out to be extremely challenging. Plenty of trial and error was involved, and the project’s documentation as well as an overview video go into plenty of detail. Don’t miss the music box version of “Still Alive”, either. Both are embedded below.

As [Josh] mentioned on his project page, he was inspired by a tutorial video showing how to punch music by hand. It led to this tool to take a MIDI file and cut the music paper out on a laser cutter, whereas [Josh] and [Matt] were inspired to automate the entire process in their own way.

For those of you who don’t think science should stop there, why not automate the creation of the music itself with the output of this Bach-emulating Recurring Neural Network?

Thanks to [Tim Trzepacz] for giving us a heads up on this delightful project!

What do you get when you combine three small motors with a guitar pickup and a touch keypad? That would be the Motorgan by Moscow-based media artist Dmitry Morozov (aka ::vtol::). The result is a unique Arduino Mega-controlled instrument that looks and sounds like he somehow combined a V8 engine with a pipe organ.

The electromagnetic/electromechanical organ uses two differently sized PC cooling fans, as well as a gear motor to produce various sounds. A separate keypad is used for each motor, and each of the 24 keys can be tuned with a potentiometer, which reportedly allows one to “make any kind of music.”

The speed of each motor is controlled by voltage changes via touch keyboard with 24 keys. Keyboard is split into three parts (registers) for each motor, so it’s possible to play chords/polyphonic lines by taking one note from each register. Electromagnetic fields produced by motors are picked up with a single coil guitar pickup.

As you might suspect, it’s not exactly an easy instrument to play, but the results are certainly stunning, or perhaps you might even say “shocking.” Be sure to check out ::vtol::’s latest project in the video below!

Not only does the GuitarBot project show off some great design, but the care given to the documentation and directions is wonderful to see. The GuitarBot is an initiative by three University of Delaware professors, [Dustyn Roberts], [Troy Richards], and [Ashley Pigford] to introduce their students to ‘Artgineering’, a beautiful portmanteau of ‘art’ and ‘engineering’.

The GuitarBot It is designed and documented in a way that the three major elements are compartmentalized: the strummer, the brains, and the chord mechanism are all independent modules wrapped up in a single device. Anyone is, of course, free to build the whole thing, but a lot of work has been done to ease the collaboration of smaller, team-based groups that can work on and bring together individual elements.

Some aspects of the GuitarBot are still works in progress, such as the solenoid-activated chord assembly. But everything else is ready to go with Bills of Materials and build directions. An early video of a strumming test proof of concept used on a ukelele is embedded below.

GuitarBot would fit right in to a band where only the instruments operate unplugged. Speaking of robot bands, don’t forget the LEGO-enabled Toa Mata, or the fully robotic group Compressorhead.

Perhaps you enjoy various flavors of electronic music, and would love to try making your own. Although this seems like a fun idea, after considering the amount of equipment and knowledge that you need to get started, many people simply move on to something else. On the other hand, the NOMNOM machine, seen here, allows you to create tunes visually using YouTube clips as samples.

The device has 16 buttons which can start and stop up to 16 clips displayed via a JavaScript web application. An Arduino Uno takes input from these buttons as well as four potentiometers to modify the clip sounds, and sends the appropriate signals to the computer running the app. There are also four knobs that control the repetition rate, volume, speed and playable length of each selected video. This enables you to make really interesting music without the normally steep learning curve.

For more details, you can check out the project log on Hackaday.io or on GitHub. NOMNOM will also be making an appearance at the World Maker Faire in New York City this fall, so be sure to see it in person if you’re there!

Have you ever wanted to perform as a DJ but found the equipment expensive as well as intimidating? Well, your prayers have been answered by [Dror Ayalon] who has designed Nomnom 2. It is an open source, music mixing project that uses up to 16 video clips to give you control of your next hit album.

You are given charge of a physical control panel that has 16 buttons and four knobs. Each button can be used to turn on or off a particular clip while the knobs control the repetition rate, volume, speed and playable length of each track. An Arduino sits under the buttons and is responsible for sending the information to an application that runs in your web browser. The browser app uses the NexusUI library to control playback of the audio clips and bring to life the entire experience.

[Dror Ayalon] has been busy polishing his project and there are some neat videos of him demonstrating it so check out the videos below. The code is available for down from GitHub and the BOM is available at the Hackaday.io project page. The web app can be ported to a desktop app using electron and a PCB can be designed for the controller for future versions.

For now, it is incredible to see hardware and software, come together in such a harmonious fashion. This may be the start of something wonderful but if you are just looking for a way to annoy the neighbors, check out the Midi Musical Siren instead.

[MrRedBeard] wanted to play a particular song from an Arduino program and got tired of trying to hand transcribe the notes. A little research turned up that there was a project to convert Music XML (MXL) files to the Arduino. However, [MrRedBeard] wasn’t a fan of the language it used, so he created his own means of doing the same thing. He learned a lot along the way and was willing to share it in a tutorial that will help you if you want to do the same thing. You can see a video of his results, below.

Of course, MXL files are probably not better than sheet music if you had to create them by hand. Luckily, there’s a large collection of them available online and the song of interest was there. Note that the link in [MrRedBeard’s] post erroneously has the site as a .com instead of a .org, so you’ll want to use the link here instead of there.

A C# application reads the MXL file and converts it for use on the Arduino. There’s also sample code for the Arduino to get you started.

The project that inspired him is on GitHub and uses Ruby if that suits you better. We’ve talked about MXL before, by the way. If you want to integrate multi channel music on the Arduino, you might start here.

Construct an Arduino guitar pedal stompbox with easy-to-find parts and you'll be having fun creating your own sounds in not time.

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