Music Makers

Robotic Recorder Player

This project is an open source hardware project that is intended to be an automated way to play a recorder instrument. Build it for yourself and use the Python Interface to send your MIDI files to the robotic recorder player and hear them played on the recorder!

robotic-recorder-player-image

Demonstration

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/53816688/196008536-8c850554-d10a-48c4-a584-36b9e6b4f8ee.mp4

ICMC 2022 Presentation

How to Build and Use

This project had been designed so that it only requires a limited toolset and you don't have to be an expert to build it. An overview is below but more detailed instructions can be found in each folder.

Tools Required

FDM 3D Printer and slicer software such as Cura.
Basic workshop tools including spanners, screwdrivers, allen keys, drill.
A computer with the Arduino IDE and Python installed.

Build process

Get the hardware you need (you may even have some of what you need!) and follow the Hardware build instructions.
Upload the Firmware to the Arduino.
Load the Python Interface onto your computer.

Play a Song

Create your song in MIDI format as a .mid file (guide), use one of our examples, or find one someone else has made.
Connect your computer to the robotic recorder player and use the Python Interface to hear your song played on the recorder!

Project Development

This is an open souce hardware project and anyone is welcome to use and develop this project in line with the licences. We also encourage anyone interested to contribute to this development, especially in the areas outlined below.

Development Areas

These are some of the areas we intend to focus future development:

Double-sided or twin lung hardware and control to allow playing with reduced pauses.
Half-hole thumb technique to reach highest notes.
Tounging mechanism to implement the tounging technique and achieve staccato notes.
Increase OSH depth adapt the project to depend more on open source components.
Improved usability through an improved, maybe graphical, user interface.
Improved documentation and build instructions.
Increased robotic intelligence such as giving foresight of notes to make decisions on breathing.
Expanded scope of calibration to include timing and facilitate robot musicians playing together.

How to Contribute

Contributing to the project is easy and we encourage anyone who is interested to make pull requests.

The general process of contributing on GitHub is widely documented however the outline process is below:

Identify where you want to host the project locally. This could be a Music Makers projects folder for example.
Clone or fork the repository using GitHub desktop or the CLI into this location (CLI is recommended as this helps you become more familiar with Git in general). You can do this with the following command:
```
git clone https://github.com/ICMC22-tmp/OSH_Automated_Recorder
```
Update the project and then make a pull request!

Citation

If you use this project for research, please cite the paper:

@inproceedings{bennett2022towards,
  title={Towards Open Source Hardware Robotic Woodwind: an Internal Duct Flute Player},
  author={Bennett, James and Moncur, Bethan and Fogarty, Kyle and Clawson, Garry and Fox, Charles},
  booktitle={International Computer Music Conference, ICMC; 2022 Jul 3-7}, 
  year={2022},
  %organization={International Computer Music Association}
}

Other Robotic and Autonomous Music Players

Just for fun we thought it would be interesting to include other robotic music players. They range from the sublime to the wacky, but each one is beautiful.

Shimon, the robotic marimba player https://www.shimonrobot.com
Squarepusher x Z-Machines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkUq4sO4LQM&t=66s
Andrew Henry's self playing guitar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_BBCmcAXcs
Yamaha Disklavier self playing robot piano https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_GROsS4I7A
Waseda Flutist Robot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx8U1FgILCE
The original Flute automaton - Floutiste https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TxrjpWGRXU
A variety of robotic players including violin, piano, guitar, bongos, xylophone and others https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwh_acqT6J0
Wintergaten - Marble machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q
Automatica - Robots Vs Music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAdqazixuRY
Music genie - Hierarchical Music https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjrJD5nSYNjoQebwV7TWPe83k7g2FjIO6

Acknowledgements

The inspiration for this project was Andrew Henry's automated guitar player.

Licences

This is an open-source project and licences have been chosen so to give you the freedom to use, modify, and share this project. The licences also protect the project (by ensuring contributions remain open) and its contributors (by limiting liability and warranty). Please read the licences; helpful summaries are linked below and copies of the full licences are found in the repository root.

Software is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 LICENCE_GNU-GPL-3.0. Hardware is licensed under the CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2 - Weakly Reciprocal LICENCE_CERN-OHL-W-2.0. The other content of this repository including images, media, documentation, examples, sample MIDI files and anything not licensed under the other licences is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International LICENCE_CC-BY-SA-4.0.

The-Music-Makers / robotic-recorder-player

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