SoundMachine LEGO drum sequencer

When it comes to those building blocks of life (no, I am not referring to DNA here, but rather the great Danish export that we call LEGO), you know that with a little bit of creativity (or a lot in this case) as well as the right kind of blocks, one will be able to come up with interesting concepts, fleshing out ideas – or should I say, bricking them out? Case in point, the SoundMachine LEGO drum sequencer from Mark Crosbie that actually create music using LEGO bricks alone – check it out in action in the video above, and you will have a better idea on how it works. This interactive music tool will let you hook up to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT, where it will then scan sets of drum “notes” that actually comprise of 2×2 LEGO bricks that are specially arranged in four tracks of eight beats on a 32×32 LEGO plate.

The NXT will rely on a quartet of color sensors so that it can detect the color of the bricks as the plate is scanned. This bit of information will be converted to MIDI note messages by a controller that is written in Processing, and are subsequently sent over to Ableton Live so that the corresponding sounds will play. What are some of the cooler contraptions that you have come up with where LEGO bricks are concerned?

Edwin Kee
Categories: Audio
Tags: Lego