Sound Minded

Microfiche:  Heidi Blobaum

Microfiche Reader

As this old microfiche reader scans an image of a newspaper, blueprint or other medium, light hits a photoreceptor. The greater the intensity of that light, the faster a circuit in the base charges. San Francisco computer programmer Andrew Turley used a microcontroller to measure that speed and convert it to a MIDI value that can be played through an attached Casio keyboard. Turley has added dials to change keys and control octave range, but in general, the darker the microfiche source area, the lower the pitch. Details at pillowsopher.com/blog.
Cost: $80
Time: 10 hours

Key Info: The keypad sets the range of pitches a connected synthesizer can play.  Sebastian Tomczak

Toriton Plus

Australian musician Sebastian Tomczak’s invention allows him to control a synthesizer by displacing the contents of a bowl of water with his hands. Lasers beam through the water onto light-dependent resistors, which are mapped back to sounds on the synthesizer. The more agitated the water, the more harmonics the synthesizer adds. Details at little-scale.blogspot.com.
Cost: $180
Time: 2 days