Avicii and David Guetta better watch out; Legos are taking over the EDM world. Full time coder and part-time PhD, Alex Allmont premiered his Lego machine called Play House. It was originally meant for AudioGraft, an experimental music festival but has become a huge hit. It has gathered over 300,000 views online.
The melody is made by a dropped basketball that collides with various pegs and ends up in one of four spots. Allmont explains how he made the decision to play this music. “I decided instead to use 2/4 with quarter notes, partly because going from 16 to 8 saves a lot of space and complexity, but also because it would generate a melody that repeats on every other beat, and I found this ideal for the hypnotic music I was producing. The construction is very simple because Lego has a 16-tooth gear, so to make an 8-step sequencer you need a central shaft with 8 of these gears on it and from each gear you drive another 16 tooth gear, each being rotated two teeth on from the last. Each driven gear is 1/8th out of phase with the last, and if you put little tappers under each gear and you have a sequencer that taps out 1/8th notes.” Although it is just the beginning for the Lego world to join the EDM world, everyone can look out for some amazing things.