Will Ferguson, reporter
(Image: J?rgel L?sel)
The tinny electro beats of yesteryear are making a big comeback - quite literally.
Inside the wall-fitting behemoth of a drum machine that is the MR-808, robot hands pound the bass drum and tap the snare just as if Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing or?Planet Rock?by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force were the latest tunes around.
Created by electronic music tinkerer Moritz Simon Geist, it is the mutant stepchild of the classic?Roland TR-808 programmable drum machine used by everyone from Yellow Magic Orchestra to Madonna to make the soundtrack of the 1980s.
Geist reproduced the 808's 11 key sounds using real instruments played by robotic hands within a massive light-up frame. Within the device, motorised actuators are triggered by a powered electronics device and an Arduino microcontroller computer.
The machine has the same key layout as its far smaller predecessor but to spare Geist acrobatics, it can be controlled from its computer terminal.
Unlike the original, the robot 808 has a bit of a human touch, however. Geist designed it to sound more "real" with the help of its less-than-perfect robot musicians, which add a bit of variety to the TR-808's unvarying sounds.
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