Last Night's Party

Last night's NYC DIY meet-up was a blast: plenty of good people, good food, good drink and, of course, good MIDI hacks. This month's theme was handmade music, and as one would expect there were some pretty fabulous homebrew instruments on display.

Especially great was Jeff Hoefs's Beat Blocks, a 4-track beat sequencer with a tangible interface operated by blocks. Basically, if you put down a block with four stripes, you get four sixteenth-note hits on that beat. It's a blast to play with, which will hopefully be communicated in some way via this video:

For more photos, click on through below. And thanks to everyone at Etsy and MAKE for helping this first DIY meet-up happen. Stay tuned for details on next month's shindig. —John Mahoney

A closer look at Hoefs's Beat Blocks sequencer

Eric Singer, founder of the Brooklyn-based League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR) brought some amazing hacked goodies, including this MIDI saxophone/red herring—a work in progress.

Singer also brought this box of conductive slime, which generated different tones depending on the circuits created when the slime touched electrical leads in the box. Amazing stuff.

Comments

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Beware - the slime will take flight and destroy things!