RSSThis week Eric Beug joins me this week to make a musical instrument out of walkmans. The mellotron is an instrument that uses taped audio through a keyboard interface. Finding inspiration in Mike Walters' Melloman, we hacked together a simple circuit to trigger loops of tape to make a super simple sampler. We had originally thought to use getlofi's parallel port sequencer, but ended up going with the arduino instead. I'll have the pdf, including the program that goes on the arduino, available for download Saturday. - Subscribe Link
We got the walkmans for two bucks apiece on the west end of Canal Street in New York City and there were still a lot left there.! If you need an arduino, we sell them now in the Make: Store - Link
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I've always been a fan of hte weekend projects, and this one is incredibly cool. I had seen the melloman before but never thought of making my own mellotron.
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And as if by magic this auction appears: http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-of-7-Sony-Walkman-WM-FX290-AM-FM-Cassette-Player-NR_W0QQitemZ230174250851QQihZ013QQcategoryZ15053QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD7VQQcmdZViewItem
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I built mine almost entirely out of garbage... a year and a half ago:
http://www.siemprelaluna.com/index.php?itemid=11
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neat idea. mix master mike would be proud.
dang flash player volume slider getting stuck.
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Very cool. Has anybody created a digital mellotron? I'd like to make a folder full of ogg samples playable by a midi controller. Would that not be cool?
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Awesome project, but on the YouTube link you closed your "a" tag twice, so it doesn't work. I thought about doing this with little Radioshack recording modules, but then realized that that would probably be crazy expensive, and decided not to do it. In response to the digital mellotron, I think that's your basic synthesizer.
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Still having a hard time finding cheap walkmans. Must be all the "Make" fans buying them up! :)
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Great! But where is the PDF with the instructions?
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