Make: Online : ABSOLUT MACHINES - Amazing robotic, web connected ping-pong tossing musical instrument, a large-scale electromechanical sculpture

ABSOLUT MACHINES - Amazing robotic, web connected ping-pong tossing musical instrument, a large-scale electromechanical sculpture

Quartet 5 Copy-1
Quartet 9 Copy-1
Quartet 19 Small Copy-1
Quartet 2 Copy-1

I met up with Dan Paluska (the other maker is Jeff Lieberman) - they have created the "ABSOLUT QUARTET", an "automated multi-instrumental orchestral machine, a large-scale electromechanical sculpture consisting of three instruments and thousands of parts, working together to create one piece of music. The main timbre is a marimba played by balls shot from a robotic cannon. Other components include a series of wineglasses played by little robotic fingers and an array of robotic percussive instruments". If you're in NYC this is a must-see in person (186 Orchard st.).

Above - some photos and my video!

ABSOLUT MACHINES - Link.

Related:

Comments

Oldest comments listed first.

Posted by: JimmyHTSAC on February 20, 2008 at 8:34 PM

You know that seems like animusic thing. Really cool though.

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Posted by: Dirkus on February 20, 2008 at 8:44 PM

Argh. I'm not sure why, but Blip.tv, and ONLY Blip.tv, makes all the computers I use cry. The blip.tv player always renders a slideshow set to chopped up audio on all 4 of the computers I use on a daily basis, including 2 pentium 4's with 1 and 2 gb of ram each. Can someone kindly mirror this on youtube? I'm willing to sacrifice resolution for watchability.

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Posted by: pt on February 20, 2008 at 8:52 PM

@Dirkus - here is a giant AVI, download it and you can watch it without problems.

youtube died when i tried to upload it there.

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Posted by: Mitch on February 20, 2008 at 10:19 PM

I had both of these ideas in my head and I was going to make a smaller scale version of this, inspired is Animusic "Pipe Dream". Glad to see this made though it's awesome.

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Posted by: Mats Engstrom on February 20, 2008 at 11:25 PM

After 5 years the ATI Radeon 9700 demo video has become a reality. Almost.

You've probably already seen this really great video of an orchestra being played by balls. If you have it's time to see it again an relive old memories. If you haven't you really must see it.

Crappy youtube-version of it with the audio and video slightly out-of-sync:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmFow0TUZw

Or you can get it here:
http://ati.amd.com/developer/demos/r9700.html
Click on the link for the Animusic 34 MB MPG-file.

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Posted by: Bill on February 21, 2008 at 4:51 AM

really doubt they are ping pong balls--wouldn't be dense enough to play a marimba and give this tone. Most likely rubber I'm guessing.

Amazing machine!

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Posted by: necoro on February 21, 2008 at 10:54 AM

...Where is the AVI link? The Flash video is basically unusable.

And I was *just* in NYC yesterday. Wonder how long it will be there?

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Posted by: Paul on February 21, 2008 at 2:09 PM

not quite as clever, but amusing, are the musical magnetic trees - http://blip.tv/file/680682/

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Posted by: Sevolia on February 23, 2008 at 3:43 AM

So coooooooooooooooooool !!!

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Posted by: dan on March 3, 2008 at 5:29 PM

You can see a much clearer produced video of the machine in action here->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e9AJVtuCKc

It's important to note that the machine is interactive through the website. You login to the website, enter a melody, and listen as the machine plays a piece based on what you enter. Then you also get a video download link afterwards.

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