Captured by Robots also did this, but his look like humanoid robots and have conversations with the singer which are part of the act. The type of music isn't for everybody (or most people). But if you're musically open I'd recommend checking out one of his shows if he's in town. It's an entertaining performance.
An engineer has built and programmed an all-robot band
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Re: An engineer has built and programmed an all-robot band
#42Related but its all mechanical Wintergatan - Marble Machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q
He is currently working on v3 of it. v2 was more of what he did with v1 which was hack it together and try to get it right. He learned about half way thru v2 that method was good for prototyping and looking cool and was good for 'close enough' but was failing to get the control and precision he wanted. He ended up adding way more complexity than he liked. v3 he is starting with reduce part counts and 'how do I actually build this thing' and decent testing of each part iteration to find ones he likes.
Re: An engineer has built and programmed an all-robot band
#43Why not listen to a recording at this point.. While it might be impressive, it's not interesting (to me). The point of witnessing live music is to experience the hard work and character of a human with their instrument. An entire band in sync together - witnessing this incites some emotion in me. Improvisation... this is exciting.
Robotic musicians that could improvise - especially if they can do so alongside human musicians - would be interesting indeed. It seems to me that we have all the building blocks needed for this. If someone isn't working on it already, they should be.
Re: An engineer has built and programmed an all-robot band
#44Not really that new. An artist is Wisconsin made whole rooms of self playing instruments in the 60s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9HeaddNiqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnXu6YNrJ7A
First one dates back to 1805: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panharmonicon. I've seen small mechanical ensembles from the 1920s, which included multiple bowed string instruments (which sounded horrible, BTW). Apparently, it was the ‘Phonoliszt Violina’ made by Hupfeld. There is more than one video on YouTube.
Re: An engineer has built and programmed an all-robot band
#45The Logos Foundation in Belgium has been in the robot musician game for a long minute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos_Foundation
Godfried-Willem Raes is a fascinating guy and builds the robots. I asked him once about how he coded his firmware and he insisted that nothing but a very specific flavor of Power Basic was appropriate.
I can't remember the exact tech he uses, but a lot of the performances of the orchestra involve human dancing and movement that is translated into musical phrases for the robots. The sensors have excellent latency, but don't work so well with clothes on. As any engineer would conclude, the true problem was in wearing pants and so the performances are mostly in the nude.
Re: An engineer has built and programmed an all-robot band
#46Not really that new. An artist is Wisconsin made whole rooms of self playing instruments in the 60s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9HeaddNiqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnXu6YNrJ7A
(And if you haven't been to The House on the Rock, it's honestly worth a trip to Wisconsin /just for it/.)
The one tragedy is that they seem to be having issues keeping the self-playing instruments in good repair. Many were barely functional last I was there a few years back.
Of interest is that House on the Rock is the setting for the showdown at end end of Season 1 of "American Gods". Worth a watch if you enjoy the place.
Re: An engineer has built and programmed an all-robot band
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I expected the article to be about Showbiz Pizza.
There’s really only one analog worth mentioning in this thread about robots-cum-musicians. https://youtu.be/Fd5c3Qtcr_w
I quite like this one:
AUTOMATICA - Robots Vs. Music - Nigel Stanford
More industrial robot arm choreography and creative film making, but with some fun mindless destruction too.
(And if you like that, another one of his I like is tghis: https://youtu.be/Q3oItpVa9fs )
Re: An engineer has built and programmed an all-robot band
#48Almost 15 years ago I saw this kind of thing in Seattle.
The tower had electromechanical / pneumatic fingers and pluckers running over the strings.
Here's a blogger's experience http://maiden-voyage-travel.com/one-of-my-fave-museums-exper...
Re: An engineer has built and programmed an all-robot band
#49But we already have Kraftwerk...
Re: An engineer has built and programmed an all-robot band
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this case these are more like machines that play instruments than what most “common folk” would consider a robot. This is certainly an interesting creation but for some reason the lack of sensors or some ability to respond to what it is doing or it’s environment seems to fall short of “robot”.
If we constantly have to change our technical terms to fit whatever misconceptions the "common folk" have... well that's a lot of pointless redefinition and recoining.
Which one of these counts as a "music playing robot"?
- Toyota Partner Bot [0] - A general purpose humanoid robot that can play a trumpet
- Automatica [1] - A group of assembly arms that can play instruments
- A Player Piano [2]
- A bunch of servos stuck to musical instruments
Arguably they're all robots - they use automation and mechanical means to actually play the instruments (not a synth reproduction of an instrument). But you'd be hard-pressed to convince someone that a player piano is a robot these days.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Partner_Robot [1] https://www.themusicman.uk/kuka-robot-nigel-stanford/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_piano