Be warned: what you're about to see, hear and experience should you venture down beyond the break is exceptionally odd. Like, bordering on creepy. It's not so much the machine that's eerie -- after all, it's just a home built image scanning sequencer that uses LDRs to measure grey-scales and trigger MIDI notes from a selected threshold -- it's the audio we're concerned about. We're talking funeral tunes at their finest, which is honestly a bit heavy at this point in the morning. Those who can take it know where to head.

[Via MAKE]

Hot on the heels of one of our favorite music creations of all time comes the Bubblegum Sequencer, which would've certainly claimed top honors (if only momentarily) had it arrived just weeks ago. This homegrown music maker lacks the elegance seen in the BeatBearing project, but gets your body bouncin' all the same. The hole-filled board sits atop a computer-connected webcam, which feeds in signals when a particular opening is plugged with a gumball. From there, the Java-based software translates the data and pumps out whatever beats you can dream of. Ready to take a listen? Check out the video waiting after the jump.

[Via The POKE with No Name, thanks Kevin]

Rest assured, we've seen a fair amount of totally sexy music makers in our day, but Peter Bennett's BeatBearing has instantly become one of our favorites. The project is described as a "simple tangible user interface that uses ball bearings to program a sequencer," and it enables the user to create a myriad melodies using sounds from the basic components of a drum kit. As with most musical things, this truly is better appreciated through video, so do yourself a favor and click on through to see it in action. And yes, we too are waiting in tense anticipation for this thing to go commercial.

[Via Technabob]

A gentleman who goes by the name Gieskes has created an interesting conflation of seemingly opposing mediums. The DIY'er / artist in question has combined Game Boy-based music with a low-fi, mechanical system of lights and motors, which create kinetic-art visuals that are synced to the sound. The concept is to build screen-saver-like displays which are actually created with analog equipment. The device features three components -- cans, lights, and a camera -- all of which can be "sequenced" much like the Game Boy, thus producing constantly changing (and changeable) effects. Want to see it for yourself? Watch the video after the break (especially towards the end) to learn how it all takes shape.

[Via Boing Boing Gadgets]

M-Audio, known in the pro and semi-pro recording world as being... well, semi-pro, has just introduced a new product to its lineup which will make recording your American Idol demo reel way, way easier. Enter the Session Music Producer, a misleadingly named device which is essentially a USB, powered vocal mic with a built-in headphone jack, allowing you to monitor yourself in realtime without any delays normally experienced by using a separate headphone output. The mic comes with M-Audio's "Session" recording / production software for PCs (think GarageBand for Windows), which lets you build simple sequences and offers a 2GB loop library to get you started on a career in music. Take our advice though: get a good lawyer before you sign anything. No word on when the Session Music Producer hits stores, but it will run you $99.95 when it does.

No doubt we've seen quite a few attempts to mesh MIDI with, um, just about everything, but Jess Hoefs' Beat Blocks creation certainly brings back fond memories of our childhood days. Based around basic wooden blocks, colored with blue tape and adorned by bottom-mounted sensors, the system functions when a block is placed into a sensor-laden cube on the board, sending a signal to generate a specific loop. The "tangible interface for a rhythm sequencer" utilizes MIDI and contacts in order to generate sound signals, and by re-arranging the blocks on the fly, users can mix up the beats and create quite the musical masterpiece whilst reliving their days of innocence. Jeff is looking to ramp up two different flavors, with one being of a smaller, more performance-oriented design, and a larger matrix board to accommodate "multiple users." So if you're still curious just how fiddling with toy blocks can actually create musical delight, be sure to hit the read link and surf over to the video demonstration.

[Via OhGizmo]

Cram any sort of retro game onto a machine clearly not designed to play it and you'll probably color us impressed, and just as the off the wall Doom installations, MIDI hacks, and Wolfenstein ports have gone down, Japan's own JJ has struck a cord with vintage folk everywhere with his latest tweak. Reportedly, the hacker / entertainer re-wrote the actual operating system for a $999 Akai MPC-1000 drum machine, added a few features from the more expensive MPC-2500, and got the MIDI all setup precisely like he wanted -- all to play a little musical Pong. Aside from the snazzy custom loading screen, the game itself looks to work fairly well, and also triggers samples of your choice to loop in the background while gaming. The good news is that the Pong upgrade will only set you back $30, but the bad news is that would require you to actually already own the Akai machine, and just in case your wallet can't handle anymore abuse whatsoever after this past Monday, just click on through for a (gratis) YouTube demonstration.

[Via Joystiq]