Floppy Drive Music - General

I know this has been done many times before but I wanted to see if I could do it and it's cool so I wanted to share some of the songs I've done here. I did pretty much all of it without a tutorial, the only thing I needed was just a list of software and required hardware. Everything else was pretty straightforward once I tested the pins and figured out what did what. Getting the hard drives to function as speakers was pretty difficult but once I wired up an adequate amplifier and power source it was easy enough. I started with just one, then went to two, then got six. And then I just added onto it from there. A few of the videos with the hard drives were done when I had a horrible amplifier powering the coils, so the sounds are not nearly as pronounced as some of the later stuff. Now they run on a cheap $4 chip-amp that can go up to 30 watts. I've been trying to do things that most people haven't done. A few of the songs I've tried so far were really just for novelty, but there are definitely a lot of songs I've done so far that nobody has tried yet. Currently I'm working on designing a case/chassis for it so I don't have to tear it down every time I want to use my desk. I'm open to requests if anybody wants to hear a song done on it. I don't set it up that often but when I do I usually play around with it for 3 or 4 hours and get a lot of recordings in. [video=youtube;VZPJche7yAs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZPJche7yAs[/video] [video=youtube;nPSG0Z931Pw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPSG0Z931Pw[/video] [video=youtube;ZUyS1n1PTsE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUyS1n1PTsE[/video] [video=youtube;45AQomYBhDk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45AQomYBhDk[/video] [video=youtube;nBaNzoJsmfs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBaNzoJsmfs[/video]

I deeply love these kind of videos! Using some old piece of technology that never was intended for music, to play stuff like this is so fucking cool!

I'd like to hear Money for Nothing on floppy. I think the riff would lend itself well to being played with floppy drives. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwDDswGsJ60[/media]

Bump for a little progress update. [vid]https://my.mixtape.moe/droiib.webm[/vid] Spent this morning figuring out how to get the stepper motor inside of a scanner to play music. Result is pretty good. It will sound less clanky and grindy once I screw everything down. The next problem will be to figure out how to get the motor to turn the other way once the scan head hits the end of the track, which is something I should be able to program into the pin output for the Arduino.

I have made one of these hdds a while back. i dont know much about electronics so figuring out how the stepper motor for the rotating disk works required some googling. the magnet thing was easy though. It isnt amplified though and i have to hold the wires to a male-male audio jack for it to work also you should totally use the flash in the scanner for cool effects

Someone do the Doctor Who theme.

[QUOTE=uitham;50281231]I have made one of these hdds a while back. i dont know much about electronics so figuring out how the stepper motor for the rotating disk works required some googling. the magnet thing was easy though. It isnt amplified though and i have to hold the wires to a male-male audio jack for it to work also you should totally use the flash in the scanner for cool effects[/QUOTE] You can get a cheap amplifier. The one I have was literally like $4. I have it wired up to 12v on the power supply for the floppies. I used pressure and stuck the male jumpers I was running from the amp to the drives by sticking them in the pin headers. There's pin headers on the bottom of every HDD and two of the pins will go straight to the coil, it's just a matter of identifying them. Once you found them you can just force the male wires into the tiny gap in the plastic around each pin. This only works for a little while though. Eventually the gap will open too wide and the wires will fall out. I recently just soldered wires to the pins because I was sick of them constantly coming lose. Also, I ought to be able to do that with the light. It's a matter of figuring out what handles it on the controller PCB and wiring it similarly to the LEDs for the floppies.

This is so awesome. For some reason I instantly imagine this in some sort of contemporary art gallery, quietly playing tunes. [editline]8th May 2016[/editline] You seriously deserve a [B]lot [/B]more views than that.

These are really well done compared to a lot of the later videos seen on YouTube. A lot of recent floppy drive music videos seem to just barely sound like the song now, but in your vids, the song actually sounds great.

[QUOTE=Snickerdoodle;50281772]These are really well done compared to a lot of the later videos seen on YouTube. A lot of recent floppy drive music videos seem to just barely sound like the song now, but in your vids, the song actually sounds great.[/QUOTE] I often have trouble recognizing the song being played, but this definitely ain't the case. Good job, OP

This is some great work, something I wish I could do. I think it seems appropriate right now that some Doom songs could be done. Some songs have been done before but its barely scratching the surface. I don't think my favourite tunes (Nobody told me about id, The Demons From Adrian's Pen) have been done.

[QUOTE=Genericenemy;50281961]This is some great work, something I wish I could do. I think it seems appropriate right now that some Doom songs could be done. Some songs have been done before but its barely scratching the surface. I don't think my favourite tunes (Nobody told me about id, The Demons From Adrian's Pen) have been done.[/QUOTE] Speaking of, my personal favourite one: [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a7-5WYOKxE[/media]

[QUOTE=Nerts;50282109]Speaking of, my personal favourite one: [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a7-5WYOKxE[/media][/QUOTE] I can top that one I think. I'm posting a webm of this one because someone decided to turn on the attic fan and pollute the audio, but it's still good. I'll go back and do a proper recording when people decide to actually be quiet around here. E2M1 [vid]https://my.mixtape.moe/avlflh.webm[/vid]

[video=youtube;t0dJqlvOSq4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0dJqlvOSq4[/video] my favorite song of all time, i'd love to hear a full floppy cover of it

I think this would be a fantastic song for floppy drives, it has the kind of feel that floppy drives would work well with this: [video=youtube;_F5459jCtuM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F5459jCtuM[/video]

[QUOTE=haloguy234;50282806]I can top that one I think. I'm posting a webm of this one because someone decided to turn on the attic fan and pollute the audio, but it's still good. I'll go back and do a proper recording when people decide to actually be quiet around here. E2M1 [vid]https://my.mixtape.moe/avlflh.webm[/vid][/QUOTE] Thats fucking cool.

How is the music transcribed, MIDI I presume?

[QUOTE=Socram;50284809]How is the music transcribed, MIDI I presume?[/QUOTE] It's done with a program called Moppy. A guy named Sammy1Am wrote it years ago. He wrote both the Arduino code and a Java program that goes alongside of it, but they're of course very open-source so lots of adjustments can be made to it. I modified the existing code for things like faster note switching and to also send square waves along with each step signal to make the hard drives function as speakers. The program basically takes a MIDI input and converts it into serial packets that instruct each motor to move. Different packets results in different movements. You could hook up a MIDI keyboard if you wanted to and play it with various motors. You'd need a much faster microcontroller for any kind of high tempo song though. Due to the nature of the MIDI standard, the technical limitation of things that you can have playing MIDI files is 16. MIDI's can hold a max of 16 channels, and think of each channel as a single floppy drive/motor/hard drive/etc. I've worked around this by splitting existing step signals to other devices. The hard drives are both connected through a splitter at the amplifier, and the amplifier receives an input from the first floppy drive in the arrangement. It makes things easier to edit and transpose when putting together a MIDI to play, because whatever is on the first channel is going to be what the HDD's are playing. The floppies also have a very limited note range, it's about 3 octaves starting at C2 to C5. C5 is barely audible on a single floppy, which is why I usually duplicate those particular notes to a large number of them or pass them off to the HDDs because they can handle the higher pitches.

Ah that's really interesting. I've done work with hardware synthesizers and midi before, built one using an arduino a couple years back. Mostly doing digital audio work these days, this makes me want to find a microcontroller based project worth doing. Nice work man.

[QUOTE=Bordellimies;50284493]I think this would be a fantastic song for floppy drives, it has the kind of feel that floppy drives would work well with this: [video=youtube;_F5459jCtuM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F5459jCtuM[/video][/QUOTE] Cartoon looks kind of cool, thanks for linking.

I'd love to hear Beverly Hills Flops. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4kWpi2HnPU[/media]

[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;50285826]I'd love to hear Beverly Hills Flops. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4kWpi2HnPU[/media][/QUOTE] Seems like it would be a good candidate as well.

I don't know if it would work well, but I would love to hear Stairway To Heaven.

Do you guys do the arrangements by yourself or pull midis off the internet and rework them? I have a very good ear and a lot of experience with transcription, and could handle some arrangements if you outlined the rules as far as the number of each kind of drive and their pitch ranges and such.

[QUOTE=Splarg!;50287036]Do you guys do the arrangements by yourself or pull midis off the internet and rework them? I have a very good ear and a lot of experience with transcription, and could handle some arrangements if you outlined the rules as far as the number of each kind of drive and their pitch ranges and such.[/QUOTE] Take existing MIDI files and rework them. In cases where a MIDI doesn't exist or can't be found I generally look up sheet music and run it through MuseScore and then clean it up in FL Studio, then mix and separate to different channels. Still good to know though because honestly that process is a pain in the ass. [editline]9th May 2016[/editline] Got some Doom songs for you guys. [video=youtube;ZY29Rqdf6WY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY29Rqdf6WY[/video] [video=youtube;SUImRp7JYJk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUImRp7JYJk[/video] [video=youtube;uOIDv5ef5Us]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOIDv5ef5Us[/video]

[QUOTE=haloguy234;50287297]Take existing MIDI files and rework them. In cases where a MIDI doesn't exist or can't be found I generally look up sheet music and run it through MuseScore and then clean it up in FL Studio, then mix and separate to different channels. Still good to know though because honestly that process is a pain in the ass.[/QUOTE] Yeah most of the time it's 20% figuring it out and 80% writing it all down. I treat anything that comes off the internet as a suggestion. It's always easier to compare what someone else has written to the song than it is to start from scratch, but honestly most midi files are terrible and it's rare to find one that doesn't need tweaking. Sheet music can be weird too because a lot of things come from piano books that are arranged for solo and don't compare to the actual song that well.

I'd really be curious as to how this would sound on floppy drives: [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEq8DBxm0J4[/media]

[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;50285826]I'd love to hear Beverly Hills Flops. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4kWpi2HnPU[/media][/QUOTE] [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrIvu3w458Q[/media]

[QUOTE=Splarg!;50290708]Yeah most of the time it's 20% figuring it out and 80% writing it all down. I treat anything that comes off the internet as a suggestion. It's always easier to compare what someone else has written to the song than it is to start from scratch, but honestly most midi files are terrible and it's rare to find one that doesn't need tweaking. Sheet music can be weird too because a lot of things come from piano books that are arranged for solo and don't compare to the actual song that well.[/QUOTE] Yeah, I've learned that the hard way. Some MIDIs are an absolute nightmare like this one I'm currently working on. Whatever asshole made this decided to throw everything into one channel, which will not work for floppies. I started working on it about a month ago but I missed a lot of important parts like some harmonies and melodies and lots of duplicate notes, and lots of parts that were just out of key. Dupe notes on a channel make it harder for the Arduino to process. So I'm re-doing it. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/AXov6C8.png[/IMG] On the upside when I'm done I'll be the only person to do Blumenkranz on floppies. Fortunately not all the MIDIs I've encountered are like this.

[QUOTE=haloguy234;50296152]Yeah, I've learned that the hard way. Some MIDIs are an absolute nightmare like this one I'm currently working on. Whatever asshole made this decided to throw everything into one channel, which will not work for floppies. I started working on it about a month ago but I missed a lot of important parts like some harmonies and melodies and lots of duplicate notes, and lots of parts that were just out of key. Dupe notes on a channel make it harder for the Arduino to process. So I'm re-doing it. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/AXov6C8.png[/IMG] On the upside when I'm done I'll be the only person to do Blumenkranz on floppies. Fortunately not all the MIDIs I've encountered are like this.[/QUOTE] Couldn't you delegate which notes to play with the aurduino? Start playing a note on a floppy, send it to the back of the queue, play the next note on the next floppy?