This Synth Plays The Only Scale Everybody Knows

There’s something common to every form of music. Nearly every musical tradition, from western art music, to Indonesian folk music makes use of a pentatonic scale. This is just a major scale without fourth and seventh scale degrees, or just playing the black keys on a piano.  It’s the one scale everybody knows, and forms the basis of every school of thought for music education. Noodling over the pentatonic scale is what all the cool guys do in Guitar Center. It’s absolutely the foundation of all music.

For their entry into the Hackaday Prize, [randomprojectlab] is building a synthesizer around …read more

Continue reading This Synth Plays The Only Scale Everybody Knows

Curiously Delightful Things Done with Lasers and Projectors

Seb Lee-Delisle has built a career around large installations that use powerful lasers and high-end projects to make people happy. It’s a dream job that came to fruition through his multi-discipline skill set, his charismatic energy, and a mindset that drives him to see how he can push the boundaries of what is possible through live interaction.

His talk at the Hackaday | Belgrade conference is about his Laser Light Synth project, but we’re glad he also takes a detour into some of the other installations he’s built. The synth itself involves some very interesting iterative design to end up …read more

Continue reading Curiously Delightful Things Done with Lasers and Projectors