Beat Blender Prototype from Matti Niinimäki on Vimeo.
Sure, Wacom may be trying to get into the DJ market, but watch out for Hamilton Beach. This is a real flea market blender controlling Ableton Live beats with the aid of an Arduino and RFID-tagged fruits. Sadly, you can’t actually blend things (that might do nasty things to the RFID tags, and the blender would have to work), but it’s beautiful nonetheless.
“One-man collective” Matti Niinimäki has been giving us all kinds of goodness from his secret Finnish “ninja hideout,” working on projects like controlling real-time animation with Mickey Mouse’s head with the aid of Max/MSP.
This is only the first draft, so I hope to tune in again as the project progresses.
Ah, Fruity Loops:
The audio tracks are triggered by inserting different fruits into the blender. The buttons on the front panel control the mixing modes and you also have two different types of transformer switches for cutting the sound in and out.
The options are:
* Stir
* Puree
* Whip
* Grate
* Mix
* Chop
* Grind
* Blend
* Liquefy
* FrappéHow does it work?
* Arduino for brains
* RFID reader
* RFID tags inside the fruits
* Max/MSP for converting the serial data to MIDI
* Ableton Live for playback
* Mad skills to pay the bills
Side note: this also demonstrates why Max for Live should be nice for Live users; as I understand it, you could theoretically just drop in a plug-in style Device for inputting serial data, as easily as you can add Beat Repeat. (Speaking of which, maybe Beat Repeat needs an Osterizer Live Pack, complete with a Frappé preset. I get a cut of sales if you use that.)
Now, if I can just figure out a way to make my Breville an ambient music generator so I can make sandwiches while performing and producing. Mmmm… baked beans.
Wicked!
This is amazing! As strange as it may sound, what really appeals to me is the (dare I say it) pointlessness of it! Or perhaps "inefficiency" would be a better word, as it definitely has a purpose – just takes the Heath Robinson/Rube Goldberg route of getting there.
Awesome stuff 🙂
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YES BUT WHY?
Because it's awesome.
Finally a musician with some taste (for fruits)
[…] Ausnahmsweisebonuslink: Beat Blender: Actual Osterizer DJs with Real Fruit, Max, Ableton Live | Create Digital Music Das ist einfach nur geil! Geb´den Menschen Zeit und Maschinen und die machen jeder Menge […]
additionally it is clear that he didn't take this idea nearly far enough. Beets for the drum track? Largemouth Bass for the…bass? Come on!
There is a sprout called moong for god sake.
i particularly like the evil look/grin of the blender 🙂
[…] interfaces – and the whole project is getting better and better. We saw an early prototype of the Beat Blender, a re-purposed Osterizer with fake fuzzy fruit that stand in for loops. Now, Matt has added a […]