Control Voltage

Wax Cylinders for the New Millenium March 15, 2010

In an interesting take on the old wax cylinder, hotchk155 has developed a cylindrical hand-cranked MIDI sequencer using a baked beans can, some magnets, some Technics Lego bricks, and an electronics breadboard.

From the horse’s mouth:

One empty baked bean tin, some lego and a stack of little magnets… stick magnets on the tin and slide them about to ‘program’ the sequencer, then grab hold of the ‘transport control’ and crank away…. The breadboard contains 5 hall-effect switches and a PIC16F688 to generate MIDI note on/off information. This is piped to Reason in the first half of the clip and to a Dave Smith Mopho synth in the second half.

I reckon with a baked bean tin about 16ft in diameter and about 25,000 magnets you could dump your sequencer software.. and you’d be getting some good aerobic exercise to boot )

Found on Synthtopia.