Other ideas and plans

Even though the EnsembleBot project already is far too big, we can still dream of other instruments we simply must have. Some plans and ideas are more theoretical and far out than others. Other ideas are absolutely serious candidates, coming soon in an EnsembleBot near you!

HURDY-GURDY

This is an awesome robotic project. The history of the hurdy-gurdy (or Drehleier)  is very long, with roots back to medieval times. Over the centuries it has evolved to an immensely complex instrument. One could characterize it as an evolutionary dead end. But, in the hands of a master player, a good hurdy-gurdy can produce a fantastic, interesting and rich sound.

The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument like the violin or cello. However, instead of a straight bow the strings are made to vabrate by turning a rosined, hand-cranked wheel against the strings. The instrument is played by cranking the wheel and pressing keys on a keyboard.

We are going to base the hurdy-gurdy on an existing instrument – a cheap mandolin. We’ve done some tests replacing the flat bridge of a mandolin with a violin bridge reshaped into a concave string arrangement and replacing the strings with cello strings. Placing a rotating and carefully rosined wooden whell above the strings can easily make the instrument sing (or scream, if you like) like a hurdy-gurdy.

Here is a very crude test of the concept:

Where a normal hurdy-gurdy has the wheel inside the instrument body, we are going to place it outside the body and above the strings. The wheel will most likely be cranked by a Nema17 stepper motor or a strong and highly geared DC motor.

The test used 5 strings, and we will most likely use 3 or 4 of the strings as drones (or mouche/bourdon) and the 1 or 2 strings as melody (or chanterelle). The melody string(s) will be controlled with a number of tangents that essentially shortens the vibrating length of the string, thus changing the pitch.

The EnsembleBot Hurdy-gurdy will not feature a trompette/chien or sympathetic strings.

NACHTIGALL

Take two small organ pipes tuned a third apart, submerge the open ends into water and sit back and listen to the nicest bird whistles and songs. This is basically the recipe for a so-called Nachtigall (aka. nightingale, Vogelschrey, bird whistle or a million other names) stop. It’s a rather special sound effect in baroque pipe organs.

A more precise design of such a setup is hard to find, but it may not be more than described above. It could be a fun supplement to the zimbelstern.

ROBO-THEREMIN

Why not combine robotics with the world’s first electronic instrument? The theremin is in principle a very simple instrument, unique in that it’s probably the only instrument played entirely without touching it. Instead, the player moves his or her hands in the air close to a pair of antennae. One antenna controls the pitch – the closer the hand to the antenna, the higher the pitch/note. The other hand controls the volume.

The principle is very simple, and so is the electronics making it happen (pretty much just an open-ended heterodyne oscillator), but as a musical instrument it is insanely hard to play anything but funny sci-fi sounds.This is mainly due to the fact that you have no tactile feedback when playing it, as well as a non-linear distance/pitch response. Only a precious few people has mastered the theremin since its invention in the 1920’s.

Our plan for EnsembleBot is not to build a theremin, but to build the robotic “hands” to play it.

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Next: Check the videos of EnembleBot in action