Lego machine creates acid house music using analog block movement

Play House is an integrated analog installation that produces original music using a complex series of interconnected systems made from Lego Technic pieces. Devised by programmer/artist Alex Allmont, the sculpture is an elegant, music-machine equivalent of a Rube Goldberg contraption, where sound effects are produced by over-engineered music modules and every component is visible.

 
The intricate, motor-driven contraption causes Lego-made cogs, pedals, and levels, to rotate and tap, creating a signal that’s interpreted by a synthesizer mimicking the classic TB303 synth’s “squelching” sound. Simultaneously, a drum generator uses pads routed to a snare and bass drum to produce percussion sounds. The ensuing ensemble culminates in a spatial-sounding, “squelching” bass-driven beat called Acid House, a sub-genre of House music. 

Allmont told Wired.co.uk he was inspired by a down tempo acid house sound that shifts attention between rhythm and lead parts. “You don't so much have the big drop common in dance music where the energy is released on cue, it's more an internal exploration picking it apart whilst the rhythm holds together the space.” Regardless of what that may mean, one thing is certain; watching Play House in action is mesmerizing. 

“I wanted to capture the observation of detail in this piece but not force the audience into it,” Allmont explains, “the goal is to make listeners shift their attention between the sound itself and the mechanism that generates it.” Just see for yourself in the video below.

Allmont has spent a great deal of effort designing Play House, and in a sense, the project is an aggregate of various music prototypes the artist has previously designed. The key distinction here is the unison of such a wide array of components.

Some of the research and development behind the project is arguably brilliant, such as the analog random number generator and the mechanical memory element, albeit time constraints prevented the artist-scholar from including these features within the final design.

For example, Allmont conducted the random number generation using an analog ball run. First, a miniature Lego basketball would wind to the top and bounce down through a set of pegs, landing in one of four slots. Next, a mechanism would push beams through all four slots, forcing the ball to get moved into a catching mechanism that pushed an actuator in the machine. As a result, the machine would perform one of four operations each time the beams were pushed through. Initially, the actuators were intended to tweak the melody of the acid bass line. The mechanical memory element is even more intense, involving Lego actuators pulling cassette tape over tape heads to create a sound sampling effect.

Ultimately, dropping these features helped consolidate the final design and provide a consistent feel, devoid of any one overly complex system. As for the finished project, Allmont exclaimed that plugging it in for the first time yielded a massive grin on his face, although he would have preferred even more sound manipulation. “I'm very happy with it, but personally I would have liked more movement around the sound space.” 

Via Makerzine and Wired.co.uk