‘Years’ modified turntable plays a tree’s inner rings like a record.

Brett a

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Have you seen this? I really like the music it makes too!

There's a video in the article:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/music/...record/#ooid=dqZmtiMzr0ArDcvlUBMk-Ht74zEtDwZg

"Traubeck’s make-shift tree-spinning turntable makes use of an old-school modified record player, a PlayStation Eye Camera, and a stepper motor, which controls the record players arm. Once data is analyzed and collected, and with the help of computer running Ableton Live software (a loop-based software music sequencer), the inner rings of a tree are transformed into audible arboreal sound."


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That is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. So in a sense it is analyzing the color and physical appearance of the rings and assigning matching piano sounds to it. Very very cool.
 
What do you think? Like Sanc is saying - The minute variations in some chosen length of each ring gets represented by a note from a piano and a series of them represent a chord? Kinda bit, byte, and string-ish? It would be weird to make them represent words and see what it has to say.
 
Very cool sounding, although it is and isn't really "arboreal" sound. Seems more like piano to me! :D

You could probably put any patterned thing on that device --say, a disc of veined marble, and get a similar result, perhaps tweaking the program algorithm a bit. (Say, would that be shifting from woodwind sound to rock music? :headscrat :D) I wonder what a photo showing muscle striations would sound like?


The next step might be a duet, with the tree slice being played as in the video, and someone sitting beside it playing the saw, using the same saw that cut the tree slice... and then a trio, with someone playing a drum cut and carved from a length of the same tree trunk...and then a quartet, adding someone playing a flute carved from a branch of the same tree... and then CDs of the music, packaged in cardboard boxes made from scraps of the tree's wood... a gallery could have a field day making up psuedo-sophisticated marketing twaddle to accompany such stuff!

Seriously, I do wonder EXACTLY how that thing is "reading" the rings, and how the servo is set/adjusted. Does it gradually move inward as if following a spiral? Does it then signal a tone every time it crosses a line, or in response to the rings getting narrower or wider, or what? And how does it determine the frequency (low vs high) of the notes? It's hard to be sure from what one can see and hear on that video, and I can think of a couple of different ways to do it. Does it sound exactly the same every time you play a particular tree slice, or is each time different? I wish they'd given a clearer explanation!

Anyway, it's still an interesting idea. I think having it in the location, lighting, etc... that is in the video increases its effectiveness a LOT, too. It seems to add "atmosphere" to the performance.
 
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Didn't Jethro Tull do this already?

That didn't take long.

Very cool sounding, although it is and isn't really "arboreal" sound. Seems more like piano to me! :D

You could probably put any patterned thing on that device --say, a disc of veined marble, and get a similar result, perhaps tweaking the program algorithm a bit. (Say, would that be shifting from woodwind sound to rock music? :headscrat :D) I wonder what a photo showing muscle striations would sound like?

Now I wonder what a large pepperoni, sausage and mushroom sounds like?
 
He should have use MDF--solid wood is prone to warping.

Seriously, that's pretty cool. I like the music, too!
 
Great, now we have to worry about inner ring distortion...

Really, very cool. I like the music. Kind of makes sense, since so many instruments are made of wood.
 
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