USB with style

Design your own USB blank cassette just like the old mix tapes.

If you are a little nostalgic of your past, companies are investing solutions. The tech from the past becomes the trend of now. A classic such as these kind-of-cool usb-devices-looking-tapes by Mixa that can be tailored with personal digital stickers, like a day at the beach or your dog with some 80's hair style.

Typewriter

Ambo Dextro
Reconfigured typewriter, enamel
2005

A sound machine

What could that be? The sound machine project consists of a pneumatic quintet that will be playing at the Hanover Fair, the world's biggest industrial fair.
Five automatic sound machines will provide musical accompaniment for the opening celebrations at the Hanover Fair. Pneumatic components and a PLC control system will be applied very differently from the way they are used in industrial automation: They will create a bridge between technology and art.

21 micro-cylinders are used in each sound machine. The micro-cylinders imitate the mechanical movements of a musician's left hand on the string instruments, determining the pitch of the tone by changing the length of the strings. Various drumsticks and a jazz brush are moved on the drum by micro-cylinders.

Enjoy the movie of the sound machine project.

"The idea of constructing musical robots or music machines is by no means new. The 18th century was the heyday of the machine constructors. However, the technical possibilities of Roland Olbeter’s sound machines by far transcend those of earlier music-boxes, especially since electronic media open up entirely new realms of sound." - Festo

See also the fantastic Chandelier, a large scale robotic musical instrument created by Mike Fabio, Steve Pliam and Tod Machover.

Video of the Chandelier



Don't forget to check Untitled sound objects by Lang + Zimoun that are absolutely gorgeous. Thank you commentator gr Hicham for the link!

Video

Back in the future

Poster by Iso50.

There is something charming in an interface with only 5 buttons, a knob, a screen and headphones.

Triggering music + visuals

Some use Hyperscore, a music software program designed to teach students and adults how to compose music simply by drawing lines on the screen, some use loop tracks, by simple drag of slider left or right and up and down using vertical lines.

Idea generator

If you need a title for your project, this is the way to go.

Giant Robot

I recently heard that I love robots. So here you go. A robot invader by Giant Robot!

Paper toys

Awesome paper toys to download and assemble. You also have the choice with a different style of paper toys!

Bootleg objects

Rebraun by Marcus Wolf + Marcus Bader

Designed in 1962 by Dieter Rams, the “Audio 1 Kompaktanlage” is a milestone of german post-war design. It embodies, even more than its predecessor, the famous “snow-white’s coffin”, the design ideals of the rationalist “Ulm School”. These sober paradigms of utility and matter-of-factness are playfully remodelled in the “ReBraun”: Two TFT-Displays take the place of the radio scales, the lettering on the anodised front plate ironically quotes the lingo of the radio era. A randomly positioned button, labelled “Zufall” (Randomness) stands for the freedom from mechanical constraints. The antenna does not receive any FM radio, but is used to connect the system to the internet via Wireless LAN. The case and acrylic hood were lowered by several centimetres for sporty reasons (think: hot rod!), and the window that formerly contained a signal strength readout now becomes a tabernacle for the old Braun nameplate.

A phono-radio without the phono, a cassette receiver sans cassette, and a non-turning turntable are the first three pieces in a series called “Bootleg Objects”. Obviously, something has been stolen here from these three right honorable design classics. Or rather, was something added?

A Poster with an alterable Structure

Jessica Nebel created this poster with an alterable structure that I discovered on Type for you. The poster displays tangible pixels as messages.“Pixel It” consists of two layers of paper. Cuts on the white outer layer allow the user to fold parts out and therefore create a "Pixel-Structure" by showing the colored layer underneath.