Makeymakey Hacked Turntable
turn your old record player into a midi controller/ loop pedal/ intsrumenty thingy with very basic technical knowledge and a cheap budget.
things you will need
> one Makeymakey
>a laptop
>a fairly sturdy but bendable copper rod
>thin copper wire
>a brass or copper brush
>a drill
>small copper plate
>soldering iron/solder
>scrap wood
Understand
The Makeymakey basically allows you to turn surfaces/objects into keyboard controls by using these surfaces/objects to connect a circuit.
Little conductive wires will be spread around the outside of the record on the turntable, these pins will individually connect to the makeymakey and basically represent the W,A,S,D,F,G,UP,DOWN,LEFT,RIGHT keys.
The ground or earth cable will be a copper wire that feeds from above, stuck onto the record that spins and touches the outer pins connecting the circuit for a split second and triggering the keyboard keys.
it is up to you for what you choose the keyboard commands to do but I downloaded a free software called Soundplant and this allowed me to assign any audio file to the keyboard keys on my laptop so as the record spins and touches the outer connecters it sets of a kick,snare,synth,acapella ect. This allows you to build up songs like a loop pedal would.
Cut or find a small block of wood and wrap your length of copper cable around a few times making sure that the copper end is exposed, you can stick the wooden blocks to the turntable with sticky tac, this allows the blocks to be adjustable at any time. Repeat this 5-10 times depending on how many controls your want, feed the excess cables away off the side.
Bend your thicker copper rod so it comes across up and over so it hangs right over the centre of the record, this doesn't need to be perfect you can position it how you like it just needs to hang over the centre
find or make a little copper plate and drill a 8mm hole through the centre, place it on top of the record and let it sit on the turntables centre pin
you can now solder your brass or copper brush the end of the copper rod hanging over the record, if you play around with the positioning you should be able to have the brush touching the circular copper plate allowing the record to spin freely but still having the metals constantly connected, then you grab another thin rod of copper and solder it to the circular plate and have it hang over the edge of the record, this is the rod that touches the outer cables
'Soundplant' is what I have been using to output sounds but you guys can use it to do anything
patatap is quite fun and easy too, it does all the work for you basically (audio/visual)
you could have one turntable playing an instrumental and the other hacked one laying accapellas and FX over the top.
heres one of my Soundplant files, take a listen and feel free to email me for more and please share yours with me (bbmxbbill@live.co.uk) + any questions
happy making !