Tech Talk

I just got back from Maker Faire in San Mateo, California, a two-day event where hackers, modders, makers, and inventors (I could go on) converged to show off their homemade projects. Inside the main expo hall, DIY synthesizers filled the air with sound - all sorts of blips, bleeps, and buzzes. But of all the musical projects, there were two that really caught my eye (and ear).

The Guitar Zeros are just what they sound like: a real band with zero guitars. Instead, they play using modified controllers from the video game Guitar Hero. The game itself is beyond popular (it raked in more than a billion dollars in sales last year) with wannabe rockstars (like me and my roommates) frantically mashing fret-buttons in living rooms and bars around the country. But tapping along to scrolling dots is different than actually creating music in a band.

The Guitar Zeros are not exactly the first to modify a toy guitar- check out Gizmodo's gallery of "circuit bending" videos- but they manage to turn the plastic axes into usable instruments that can create listenable music. Check out the video below for some of their performance and explanation of how the system works.

My other favorite musical-mod was Andrew Turley's MIDI microfiche reader. It's a great example of a simple but unique idea. Turley uses a photodiode to map dark and light areas of a microfiche to high and low notes. He even added some additional controls allow him to select the key and range of the device. Check it out: