Auto Xylophone options hand-wound solenoids

A xylophone is, along with being one in every of solely two recognized English phrases that begin with the letter X, an instrument that the majority of us haven’t touched since we had been toddlers. However xylophones produce a really pleasing sound and their development is about so simple as an instrument will get. That makes them excellent for DIY tasks by these of us who aren’t grasp craftsmen, and is probably going why Rachad El Moutaouaffiq selected the instrument for this Auto Xylophone undertaking.

Because the title implies, this can be a xylophone that performs itself. Not solely does that allow it create lovely melodies that few of us are able to hammering out with our clumsy human fingers, it will possibly really exceed the flexibility of even an completed xylophonist. It might probably strike as much as 4 bars concurrently, permitting for richer and extra complicated music than an individual may play with solely two fingers. It really works with customary MIDI information and due to this fact can play an enormous vary of current MIDI music or something new {that a} musician creates in actual time or by way of different means—similar to AI technology that El Moutaouaffiq plans to experiment with. 

In fact, an Arduino is the important thing to the Auto Xylophone’s operation. As an alternative of conventional hammers or mallets, each bar is struck by its personal solenoid that drives a small nail. Solenoids depend on electromagnets and El Moutaouaffiq wound all of their coils by hand. Hairless MIDI transfers MIDI indicators over serial to an Arduino Mega 2560 board that prompts the solenoids by way of TIP-120 NPN transistors. These transistors are crucial as a result of the present wanted to drive the solenoid electromagnets is just too excessive for the Arduino I/O pins. Energy comes from a benchtop energy provide and El Moutaouaffiq constructed the xylophone’s body utilizing MDF.

At the moment, the Auto Xylophone solely performs premade MIDI information, however we’re excited to see what sort of AI music technology El Moutaouaffiq comes up with.