The $5 drum machine

Beatbox2 800
MedCosm writes -

I thought it would be a neat to build a toy that records and plays back beats like a simple drum machine. For those who are musically inclined, it provides endless hours of entertainment and even has practical purposes in learning and practicing music. Even better if it used less than $5 worth of parts and could be built in 30 minutes.

Here is such a toy.

Turn it on. The LED glows indicating it is in record mode. Tap out a beat and the controller records your beats. After sample memory is filled up (about 5 seconds), the LED goes out and the beatbox goes into playback mode, endlessly looping playback of your sample. Press the drum pad again and you're back in record mode again. Finally, a chance to put that finger-drumming to good use. And if you continue finger-drumming along with this $5 beatbox, you can easily tap out some very complicated rhythms.

The $5 drum machine, Thanks Chipwich! Link.



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Posted by: paulsw on April 10, 2007 at 8:08 AM

Hey that's pretty cool, it uses a Picaxe microcontroller and those are LDRs sitting inside those nuts. More of a 'drumming machine' than a 'drum machine'.


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