Robot mimics human voice with music instruments—weirdly

Posted by Rob Beschizza, May 6, 2008 8:59 AM | permalink

I've attempted three times to cut a paragraph that describes what this thing does, but I'm not getting anywhere. If it were simply mimicking the human voice with random plunky musical instruments, it wouldn't be what it is: wonderful mad magic emerging from a mindless brain.

The Looping Musical Robot [Vimeo via Make]

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Discussion

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#1 posted by ianm , May 6, 2008 9:14 AM

The internet shows me the depths of humanity's insatiable creative output, and it frightens me more and more everyday. We are oddity all the way down.

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#2 posted by strider_mt2k

, May 6, 2008 9:18 AM

He's really made the grade!

-and the papers want to know who's shirts he wears...

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#3 posted by technogeek , May 6, 2008 9:44 AM

Well, now we know how a steampunk engineer would construct a voice synthesizer... or the first stages thereunto.

I suppose this could also be considered a high-tech "talking drum" for languages which don't have the clicks and plosives those drums were designed for.

The claim that it's smart enough to explore the sonic characteristics of its "found" instruments and figure out how to match those against the audio input is what really impresses me. Not that difficult, I suppose -- but a nice concept. Meta-art.

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#4 posted by PetroleumJelliffe

, May 7, 2008 8:17 AM

Check out this RadioLab podcast which has an awesome example of hearing voice as music.

It's the first one on the page: Musical Language

http://www.nyc.org/shows/radiolab/2006/4/21

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#5 posted by drblack , May 7, 2008 8:55 AM

I always forget that non-musicians don't know all the cool stuff technology has given us to play with.
This is certainly cool but us musicians have been messing with samplers and midi for decades.
Remember the cheap Casio with the sampler in it?
We used to follow the cat around to get as many meow sounds as possible.
I love using found sounds to write songs with.
Technology is great stuff.

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#6 posted by dculberson , May 7, 2008 9:05 AM

DrBlack, this isn't a sampler.. it's using acoustic sounds triggered by electronics to approximate a voice.