PRINTER ORCHESTRA


PRINTER ORCHESTRA, Chris writes –

So glad to be able to share this!

We, and by we I mean isthis.gd, built a MIDI orchestra for Grey London and Brother from old computer junk. Photocopiers, scanners, fax machines, printers, hard drives, modems and the like.

We thought it’d be most fun to do it for real.

We were really inspired by Tristram Cary, James Houston, BD594 and other radical tinkerers. Making cold stuff warm is fun.

We found loads of old machines destined for landfill, took them to bits and reverse engineered them to make noises that we could control via MIDI.

Badman Will Cohen made an arrangement of Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ but the orchestra can play any MIDI arrangement, or indeed be performed live.
Maximum respect to Bonnie Anthony, Jason Oakley and all at Partizan, Neil Mendoza, Marek Bereza, Will Cohen, Stefan Dzisiewski-Smith, Justin Pentecost, Mike Harrison, Mat Holloway, Liat Wassershtrom, Ben Joffe, Tim Leask, Jack Ellis, Ozzie Pullin.

Awesome cinematography by Denzil Armour-Brown and Daniel Lowe. Tight edit by Ross Hallard.
Post and psychotherapy by Sheldon Gardner and time-based-arts.com


Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Join Adafruit on Mastodon

Adafruit is on Mastodon, join in! adafruit.com/mastodon

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 36,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


Maker Business — “Packaging” chips in the US

Wearables — Enclosures help fight body humidity in costumes

Electronics — Transformers: More than meets the eye!

Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Silicon Labs introduces CircuitPython support, and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Guardian Robot, Weather-wise Umbrella Stand, and more!

Microsoft MakeCode — MakeCode Thank You!

EYE on NPI — Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — #NewProds 7/19/23 Feat. Adafruit Matrix Portal S3 CircuitPython Powered Internet Display!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !



1 Comment

  1. There is another video with the behind the scenes look:

    Brother Printer Orchestra behind the scenes .

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d837riy56Ug

    I also read the Youtube user’s comments and they said it is a shameful copy of James’ Houston’s work. I found James Housten’s radiohead remix remixed and the opening sound seems to be the same sound from Brother’s video although the remix goes off into another direction.

    James Housten’s radiohead remix remixed .

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=djnCPE8M-qc

    So maybe someone else can do more research into this.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.