Music

Band Industries first came to our attention in 2013 when the first Roadie automatic tuner launched on Kickstarter. Now the company has returned to the crowdfunding platform with its latest iteration, the Roadie 3.

The Subharmonicon was inspired by a mathematical system for musical composition from the 1930s/40s and by two analog innovations. It's said to create "a rich harmonic kaleidoscope that divides into itself until everything that is up becomes down."

If you like the look of a Les Paul but would rather have the tone of a Strat, guitars that come with modularity built into the design could help. The latest comes from Fern Guitars and sports a wood core module that's home to pickups and electronics.

It may look like a strange version of Reversi, but the Striso MIDI controller from Piers Titus van der Torren out of the Netherlands is designed to offer players the same kind of musical expression that you might find with acoustic instruments.

"It's Christmas time, and you know what that means," sings Sinatra, "Ohh, it's hot tub time!" A neural net has begun composing entire songs modeled on the prior works of artists in a wide range of genres, including lyrics and vocal performances.

Joué Music Instruments has launched the next generation of its modular music-making interface on Kickstarter. Where the original was designed with pro musicians in mind, the Joué Play has been developed so anyone can make music.

For the last few years, the G5n has been Zoom's flagship multi-effects floor unit for guitarists, but not for much longer. After launching at the NAMM show in January, the new G11 has now gone up for pre-order.

The latest digital audio player from Astell&Kern is being pitched as the Korean company's most affordable high resolution player yet. The A&norma SR25 offers high res audio playback, long battery life and support for the LDAC Bluetooth codec.

Instrument maker Frank Piesik has built a three-string robotic music machine called Greg's Harp where three different actuators excite the strings in different ways to produce sound controlled by a MIDI keyboard.

Rather than use magnets and coils to convert string motion into an analog voltage for amplified output, the ōPik uses infrared light to capture the vibrations of the strings above it. This versatile optical pickup has now launched on Kickstarter.

Created as a visual element for stage performances, the latest project from Love Hultén is an audiovisual sculpture called Slagwerk-101 – a set of percussion instruments driven by MIDI-controlled solenoids.

Musician and designer Yuri Suzuki has collaborated with Japanese education company Gakken to create a cute little record cutting machine that gets music-making consumers cutting their own five-inch vinyl records in a few short minutes.