Greetings from a grey and drizzly Lincolnshire. Fortunately for those of us living inside Tupperware, there are plenty of exciting and colourful things happening in the world of MIDI, soundchips, electronics, small-scale instrument-making and music-related retrocomputing.
The xylophone seems to be the theme this month. Some demos have popped up of the Blockenspiel - an entirely-Lego and remarkably playable xylophone. There's also a demo of a a 5-octave MIDI controller marimba/xylophone that uses piezos as triggers, with instructable for making your own. Piezo discs also work out of the box as contact microphones and Sound of Machines has published a tutorial about that, including a myriad of suggestions for places to find interesting sounds to record.
Recently I had reason to revisit the tuning of SID chips, the legendary sound chip from the Commodore 64. This probably isn't a concern if you're using the chip(s) to play classic SID tunes or listen to a new release of Rob Hubbard tunes but it is important if you're using them in a synth that has to be in tune with other things. There's more than one factor that affects their tuning and not all modern replacements behave the same. I documented my investigation and made a video.
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I haven't yet settled on a schedule for this but it may become monthly. I was driven to publish this one by the announcement of the winners of the MIDI Innovation Awards and the release of new Rob Hubbard material.
So without further ado, read on for more musical news, views and reviews.
Not all SID replacements behave the same and so I recently had to take a look at the tuning of various chips in commodore 64s and in MIDISID. It was an interesting exercise, which I documented in this video.
The winners of the 2025 MIDI Innovation Awards have been announced, with Andrew Huang doing the honours.
On 25 Sep, he presented the finalists and winners in each of the categories; Commercial Software, Commercial Hardware, Artistic Project or Installation, Prototype/Noncommercial Software, Prototype/Noncommercial Hardware and MIDI 2.0.
Congratulations to the winners. The entries in all of those categories are worth a browse. Andrew's video is halfway down the main MIDI Innovation Awards page.
This is a video by Jack Pearson in which Roger Linn, creator of the legendary drum machine, tells his own story.
This is part 6 in a series of blog posts in which Kevin makes a vintage speech synth chip sing!
He initially wanted to experiment with the speech but then discovered that he could vary the speech-chip's clock programatically to make it sing musical notes.
In this most recent instalment he's hooked up a MIDI keyboard to make the speech chip sing Do, Re Mi etc as appropriate. He comments that it's not as responsive as he'd hoped and has a limited musical range, but it's a fun experiment.
On my very long to-do list is building a plate reverb. It may not happen due to space, but you don't need a massive slab of steel to create an interesting reverb. David Hilowitz has used a discarded angle-poise lamp which has some interesting properties thanks to its springs. He also coaxed some interesting sounds from the lamp by bowing, stroking and striking it.
It's well known that a piezo disc can be attached to any surface and act as a microphone, but I learned from this tutorial how to wire two to make a balanced microphone with a stronger output. I was also inspired by the number of interesting places that The Sound of Machines found to record interesting sounds.
Brady has turned his childhood dream instrument into a polished project. It's a violin-like MIDI controller which includes a ribbon, force-sensitive buttons and rotary controls.
It's open-source, so you could make one too!
I think that as a musical instrument, this brushless DC motor (BLDC) isn't the most exciting, but as a technical exercise it's cool and fascinating.
SIROJU is using SVPWM to drive the motor to a specific angle and then send it a 10 kHz sampled wave. The result is very lo-fi but he can also control the amplitude of notes and therefore give them an envelope and even generate up to 7 notes at the same time.
There's a performance at 6:27 which is a worthwhile watch.
Chris was moved to create this MIDI marimba/xylophone due to the high cost of the real instruments.
He provides full instructions and Teensy code on this Instructable. The video of him playing the instrument is well worth a watch, however, if you have trouble withVimeo's age verification or account requirement, I found part of the video posted here
www.instructables.com/61-key-5-Octave-Mallet-MIDI-Controller
This cardboard-box-enclosed (or rather not-enclosed) prototype allows Yann to record short samples and then travel through time using a string controller. It uses the granular sampler running on a Daisy Seed and the string controller is from a GameTrak.
For many people, Rob Hubbard's name is probably the first to come to mind when the subject of Commodore 64 game music is mentioned.
Chris Abbot of C64Audio persuaded Rob back in front of a C64 to compose an album of new SIDs, working with fellow SID composer Jason Page and producer Max Hall.
The album Rob Returns contains 20 tracks and is delivered complete with .sid files and a .d64 for the more authentic real-hardware experience. The record is also available as part of a bigger Project Hubbard box set. You can listen for free on Bandcamp and on Youtube.
In the latest issue of the Chip SID Show (as I write), Max Hall pays tribute to Peter Clarke, SID musician and videogame composer, who passed away recently.
In this short tutorial, LukHash demonstrates a couple of ways of driving real SID chips from your DAW
Paul Duffy of The Coral has reworked their entire debut album in 8-bit style and it sounds amazing. The album is called The Coral Caves Of Illusion and it's available for streaming on Spotify here.
Paul used miniBit platform and was inspired by Megadrive games such as Sonic and Castle of Illusion.
www.nme.com...the-coral-rerecord-entire-2002-debut-album-in-retro-video-game...
Most of the music on this list is modern game music but coincidently I spotted Sonic the Hedgehog - Green Hill Zone at number 4, shortly after watching this detailed analysis of it which is worth a look if you're into composition.
The Philips SAA1099 sound generator is a 6-voice sound chip used in some home computers, arcade games and sound cards.
One of those computers was the Sam Coupé. Colin of Sam Revival magazine has announced that he still has reprints of back issue number 11, originally published in 2004. It includes a CD and showcases the capabilities of the Sam Coupé.
oldbytes.space/@quazarsamcoupe@mastodonapp.uk/115197093781401365
This very weird device has the "WTF" factor. It's a "Passive, analogue, rhythmic instrument", powered momentarily by gate and control voltages. This is a short from Venus Theory.
The Blockenspiel is a xylopyone which is entirely made of lego - even the beaters. It sounds surprisingly good.
It was designed by Zung92 and appears on Lego Ideas, where you can create an account if necessary and give the idea a vote.
beta.ideas.lego.com/product-ideas/0b54f8fc-e926-4d53-8cca-e3937b794e6f
MONKEY is a 2-octave pocket-sized bluetooth MIDI keyboard that promises ultra-long battery life and low latency.
ferluht has published this short video documenting his five hardware revisions to reach the Loopa synth as it exists today.
Andrew Chapman has two or three neat studio tricks but what I find most interesting about this video are the hundreds of viewers' tips in the comments.
I enjoy a free improvisation and the notable thing about this one is the atmospheric backing track, which is entirely reverb provided by the Echolocator, it's a delay unit by Erica Synths.
Think of the fabulous otamatone and a theremin and the track Popcorn will not come to mind. I did enjoy this performance in which Analise shows amazing control of those two tricky instruments.
As a brass player, I've never made a connection between speaker and wind instrument design.
Hasehiro Kogyo have developed a laminated design which allows them to create curved sound paths for a more lifelike sound.
The Gemshorn is an early instrument; modern ones have recorder fingering.
Veronika demonstrates the bass that she has waited for since 2023.
Mike the Modustrial Maker believes that he's made the world's first hollow-body concrete guitar.
Does it resonate? Rob Scallon visited to find out. He speaks to Mike during the build and makes a track that's as heavy as the guitar.
Benn Jordan bought this magnificent 'transmission line waveguide' device from the designer/builder who had advertised it for $50.
It uses about 90' of pvc pipe (plus some that Benn added) to divide and delay the sound in order to create the impression of a large space.
In the most recent episode of David Lien's "Instrument Makers" series, he went to visit Boris Cellar of Woodpack, who makes wooden tongue drums. They have a beautiful mellow meditative sound. He tunes them with various and custom scales.
The description is Love Hultén's own. The ferrofuid display is a nice touch.
All that remains is for me to thank everyone who blogs, vlogs, writes articles or posts pictures on the subjects I'm excited by.
Nor can I do the things I do without your support, so thank you for that.
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Happy music-making!
Shiela Dixon - Editor / curator
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