HOW NOT TO MAKE A SELF PLAYING ROBOTIC GUITAR

[@dykodesigns]

It’s pretty impressive considering the 48 hour time constraint. Just engineering the mechanical design for the actuators is a thing in it’s own right. Just come to think of it, if some big audio tech company where to create such a product they would have a large multi-disciplinary design team and they’d spent months to get it to a prototype stage.

[@Canilash]

And he learned to use a 3D printer while doing it. That's incredible.

[@DirtyPlumbus]

The amount of work and knowledge that goes into these videos in almost unfathomable.

[@GuacJohnson]

Your "Sam you don't know what your doing" type voice lives in my head, and whether intended or not I always take it the opposite since you really really seem to have a knack for getting this stuff to work regardless of the quality of material or what you're building. Massive props for being a great video producer, musician, and engineer of all types of instruments

[@alexanderthomas2660]

It's bonkers that you managed to build this in only 48 hours! Using actual plectrums glued into 3D printed mounts would probably have been a better idea, but hindsight is always 20/20 of course…

[@iAmTheSquidThing]

You can 3D print pretty decent plectrums, but really they have to be extruded with their layers parallel to the printer bed. I think you could redesign this part rotated 90º like that. But the fact that Sam made these adequate parts in 48 hours with minimal experience is frankly quite astounding.

[@jimbobur]

"In with the old and broken, out with the new" is the perfect descry of a lot of the build projects you've taken on 😁

[@russianbigbird4161]

9:20 that's the best part about robotics, parts break, hell sometimes they get to you broken, sometimes they're broken during delivery, sometimes parts turn out to be really good at breaking but really bad at-well, not doing that, sometimes parts just aren't built with the uses you might have in mind, sometimes parts really aren't compatible with other parts, sometimes parts break themselves trying to follow lines of code and go through with an action when there's obstacles in the way or the they get stuck in a loop and keep trying to complete the action over and over, my personal favorite as a programmer is when your (never not super expensive-seriously if you intend to take up programming and robotics as a hobby you damn well better be loaded) robot breaks itself trying to complete an action with a wall or something in the way, especially when the robot doesn't come with any way to immediately stop it and the only ways to stop the current program its running are to plug it in and stop it or grab it and try to get it away from whatever it's trying to break itself on and hope you don't break anything I the process and hope it isn't wedged on anything and also 99% of the time suffer some kind of injury because THE DAMN THING WOULDNT STOP MOVING ITS WHEELS AND IT FUCKING BURNT AND CUT ME UP AND WHY OH WHY DID THE PEOPLE WHO DESIGNED THAT DAMN THING MAKE IT SO THAT THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THE PROGRAM IS A LITTLE STOP BUTTON ON A BULKY TOUCH SCREEN ON THE ROBOT THAT I COULDNT GET TO BECAUSE THE DAMN THING WAS WEDGED UNDER A VENDING MACHINE AND WOULDNT STOP TRYING TO GO FORWARD....sorry, just a little flashback to when I was just a wee child in the world of programming and robotics still learning the most basic things, like the fact that robots will do their damnedest to complete their current task, even if it means completely breaking themselves and my teacher said it was okay but I could see the disappointment in his eyes, what was I talking about?

[@AlanW]

It's absolutely amazing that you could make this in 2 days. Were you to revisit this, perhaps angling the plectrum attack like a guitar player does it (45 degree angle to the strings) might help something, somehow?

[@d00dEEE]

I was thinking that using real guitar picks in clamps would be easier and more readily repaired when they inevitably break. Use thins or extra thins and setting the height probably becomes less of an issue.

[@maxjkl6304]

This is awesome! Once made a stereo made out a broken acoustic, portable CD player, and a speaker slapped into the sound hole.

[@theoriginalrecycler]

Caught some of your output on KZbin music, fully support your approach. Impressed by the transparency of development, and approach to failure. In my opinion you are on a good path, just imagine what you could create in the next 20 years.

[@McTroyd]

Don't worry about the engineering Sam. There are whole industries that solve each of those problems, with scores of people who do it professionally, and you still did it yourself in 48 hours. Certainly better than anything I've done! 👍

[@neino36]

Considering this thing was made for "Junk Rock TV" I believe it's design and function are spectacular!

[@gcl2783]

Saw the results video. Saw this video. Does make musical noise and does not harm the user. Great success!

[@rictownend]

It makes me giggle the amount of times you say I was questioning my life’s choices… your a top bloke and make awesome toys that entertain life juice! Genius!

[@1specificfrequency220]

Cool. The clicking solenoids really add to the performance.

[@TitoRigatoni]

Yeah I could definitely design and build a better self-playing guitar, but it would take at least a year to get it done 😀 You've done a great job for a 48 hour effort, I would still be in the preliminary design phase after 48 hours, with nothing at all actually built

[@juhanaleiwo]

You made THAT in 48 HOURS? I take my hat off for you. That's frankly awesome engineering. Wow!

[@roblow8126]

Sam is the man, love what you do. So good to watch and learn from

[@CausticCatastrophe]

It was a stroke of genius to tune the guitar so that your bar chords simplified the design, rather than over-complicating the solution!

[@VincentGroenewold]

I mean, no need to apologize, having little experience and then churning out this within 48 hours is amazing! That would look great on any resume. :)

[@russianbigbird4161]

Another beautiful problem with combining robotics with music is that motors and gearboxes and shit like that tend to be pretty noisy and drown out any actual tunes and distort pitch

[@miklov]

Cool project! Very well done with such harsh resource constraints regarding time and parts =D

[@stumcconnel]

At 6:25 reminds me a bit of some parts of Igorrr's Opus Brain on their Savage Sinusoid album (or even more particularly, from the 'making of' videos of that album)

[@ches74]

I want a "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!" Tshirt. It's ideal to wear when playing one's IT'LL KILL YOU 5000.

[@nathanherrold6887]

I appreciate your ability to eat humble pie.

[@JonBck]

The time constraints are amazing! In 48h, there's not really time to evaluate so I completely see how some choices just 'are' :-) In rhe previous video I was wondering about the chords, but now realize of course it's about tuning the guitar in a chord. Sure, you can't do everything, but with the time constraint it still give you quite a lot of freedom in controlling it!

[@GeorgeBratley]

To put into context how mad it was that you managed to pull this off in 48 hours, my A-Level technology project was a robotic guitar. It took me a whole 2 school terms, and it played only one string (any note on the one string), and was significantly worse sounding than this. Admittedly this was before 3D printers were a thing - maybe I should have another go with modern parts!

[@umbertoyltp]

When it is time to abandon ship, we know you spent a decent amount of effort to get as far as feasible. Thumbs up!

[@steevendemers83]

You still are awesome mate. Keep rocking!! 🤘😀🤘

[@andyg7769]

mental would be great to see this on an electric coming through an amp

[@countzero1136]

I've been messing with synths and other musical gadgets since the early 80s and I sure as hell couldn't build that in 2 days! - These days it can take me a whole day to get a single VCO to play in tune LOL :)

[@charliehawco6626]

I just adore this guy

[@Kington99]

Love that at 7:57 you can see one of the nuts gentle spinning itself loose

[@xpndblhero5170]

That's actually a funny show... I watched a couple of the videos but I don't remember these so I'm gonna have to go back and watch the rest of them. 😁

[@merman1974]

This is great fun having watched the Junk Rock TV episode, maybe with more experience you can revise and improve the "plectrum" prints and get a better result

[@THarSul]

idle thought that occurred in passing as the 3-D printed plectrum broke; that problem could be avoided by printing a little holder arm for an actual plectrum, with enough rigidity to hold things steady without the risk of a thin delicate part breaking under the unusual stresses of playing guitar strings.

[@BenSonOfJohn]

For a 48 hour build it is super impressive.

[@chrischrome9923]

Love you man

[@asn413]

in 48 hrs... brilliant. maybe sometime you could use electromagnets for solenoids or to attract the strings. kind of like a clavinet?

[@UkiMalefu]

Six chords!? “One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz.” -Lou Reed 😜

[@drewdemien481]

well that pot controller servo is balls

[@MadLabZ]

EPIC!!!! keep the videos coming.

[@dcallan812]

They are not grerat BUT the idea and time restraints really made an interesting video. Looking back at them today you learned so much from them. We all need to keep learning 👍👍

[@s_m_north]

Not to go on a "you should have done it this way" But have you ever heard of the Kay KeyKord system? Was used on Tenor guitars in the 20's30's and might be a good source on inspiration for further developments.

[@shpongled587]

Don't EVER fuggin change, man!

[@DaveMenkehorst]

Impressive. Great machine There is a lot of mass on the body. Maybe the sound is weak because you block a lot of resonance of the body?

[@iAmTheSquidThing]

_"In with the old and broken, out with the new."_ You may have said that wrong. But I think you might have inadvertently summed up your your core artistic philosophy.

[@gutterg0d]

This is pretty much how you make anything digital more interesting. We can make everything perfect, but turns out that gets boring very fast, so we use what we can to destroy it into something better.

[@_rlb]

I sound like a broken record, but you are a genius!

[@keithmarlow]

amazing outcome for 2 days, although it does make deceased Flamenco guitar players spin in their graves...

[@loopinnerthe]

Brilliant attempt at revisiting the work of the ghost of Sam of the past. To go back shows real grit. I am toying with making a robotic typewriter so I can have a typewriter printer on the home network but the cost of servos if I do one for each key makes it quite a risky venture. Are servos cheaper? And I can't yet figure out how to do the carriage return. I am scared but I will try it.

[@ZOOTSUITBEATNICK1]

I imagine Remko Scha would approve...

[@vincetaylor6126]

Congrats

[@MrMaxeemum]

I'm surprised you couldn't get your Junk Rock picked up by any TV stations. It looks great up to now, maybe they were a little scared of Kosmo.

[@popefang]

HA That pic of Bloviating Jackass holding the chord below the capo!

[@Pytchblend]

I hope to see that Korg SQ-19 soon!

[@maxwellramos40]

They did something like this at the mopop museum in Seattle

[@MarcoMugnatto]

Do you know Pianobook? A suggestion: make a piano sampling robot, to play one note at a time on a piano with different velocities. Imagine how something like this could help the sampling community

[@marius4791]

is there al full version of the song an the end available? I like it a lot an your videos in general. thank you for doing stuff like that.

[@sparkyprojects]

What about replacing the pluckers with wheels and normal motors, the wheels would be a bit like a hurdy gurdy Not sure if this would work, but 4 motors driving very coarse threaded rods to position the 'fingers', then something to press the fingers onto the strings

[@kaitlyn__L]

How have I not seen that picture of Boris using the wrong side of the capo? 🤣

[@tobitweaks]

LEGENDDDD

[@wasitthat]

7:51 close your eyes and it's every kid at a guitar center

[@PandaKattPk]

Love the Video LMNC

[@jmcarp0]

organ update?

[@fluffybriggs]

"Ohhh ya don't wanna do it like that you wanna do it like this (face grimace)" :)

[@adiohead]

Have you seen the 10cc guitar playing invention, the Gizmotron?

[@Veptis]

The extremely overhyped energy of those episodes is a bit worry some. But I am happy you have a more normal explainer afterwards. Hope the remained 3 episodes are as good, with follow-ups.

[@analog_mind]

I'm sure HM The Queen would have liked it ahah. R.I.P.

[@travisguide4516]

This is everyone’s dream

[@bjornlange635]

Please do yourself a favor, and replace the plectrums with robotic piano hammers or mallets, and hammer on the strings. And for the pitch, create some clamps with rolls, that roll from fret to fret. 6 rolls, that can roll to the desired fret / pitch on each string. The 6 rolls should be connected to one sledge and within that sledge they should be able to move within 6 different frets. This way the sledge would emulate a hand with 6 fingers. The sledge / hand should be able to move as a whole as well.

[@AnalogDude_]

You could use these metal mechanical with bearings rails they use on 3d printers and so, yo have a adjustable fret control if you wanna do a revisit. a lap steel guitar design would seat you better for robot mechanical experiments, i guess. Oh yeah, solenoids could be better on the fret and maybe plucking.

[@alexvdvelde]

Amazing job. I really like to make things for fun. This is one of them. Btw... What is the song on the end of the video? I hear it before.

[@blackchalksounds5278]

A servo probably wouldn't give velocity on the strings. I expect it would sound plucky, although that not bad thing.

[@andrebartels1690]

What a lovely fail 👍 For sure, I couldn't have done it any better, because I have no idea what I'm talking about. Plus I wouldn't have finished it, because I lack the mad-scientist energy that you seemingly have. For everyone to laugh at, here are my dodgy ideas to approach this thing: Maybe change the oscillating plectrum things for motors with a toothed disc on them and control their speed via photoelectric sensor. And use small but fast pneumatic cylinders to hammer the strings down on the fretboard. Now come and tell me everyone what's bad with my ideas and how to do it better, so everyone can learn something here 😊

[@Typical.Anomaly]

I envision using 12 straight bars for fretting all strings on each fret and adding one on the G string that pulls through a hole in the headstock and bends it to major. Tuning = E B E G B E

[@aengusmacnaughton1375]

"SOLANOID" -- aha, *green* -- solar-powered solenoid!!! 🙂

[@VirtualModular]

What's the latency like through the servos? Wondering if you changed it to play individual notes and sequenced it, how much offset would you need to get it in sync with other MIDI instruments? Great work btw!

[@gutterg0d]

Question: What's the latency like? Answer: Yes.

[@VirtualModular]

@@gutterg0d ?????

[@gutterg0d]

@@VirtualModular it's just a meme, but as for a real answer you probably need to measure it out for each servo. Even a small difference in angle would change it, and this is probably not a micrometer precision build.

[@VirtualModular]

Ah OK, that's a good point. I assumed all the servos were the same type and would be roughly equal, but even a small difference could affect the timing. I just wondered if this could be used in sync with other MIDI kit....

[@madhatte73]

Captired! By Robots took a similar approach

[@xKatjaxPurrsx]

Sleeping on Befaco's sofa, as one does... you've lead an interesting life Sam :)

[@spitfireloverplays6253]

Cool

[@chrisbliss7]

sorta like an electronic autoharp 👍🏼

[@diymodularsessions6984]

What a disaster! I love it! 🙌🙌🙌

[@JonBck]

"I kind of, sort of succeeded. Kind of." :-D

[@owenphillips6117]

You need to do a Hurdy Gurdy - most of the mechanics are already there 🙂

[@vape647]

Yes! 👌😎

[@PrimitiveInTheExtreme]

🔝🎸🤖🎸🔝

[@Hackercat77]

Interesting... I think someone should do something like this with a harp, if no one does then I will.

[@JM-mz1zj]

This is soo ITSA-BITSA

[@chrism4008]

Definitely plays better than I do 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@eddievanbasten1751]

“Oh my god, this is such a shit design”. I say that too.

[@x5-acousticguitarstuff.2]

Tune the Guitar to Open D..... D A D F# A D. Then you will ONLY need to use a Straight Bar Cord on Each Fret with NO other Fingering required. Also you need to Fret the Strings just behing the Fret Bar and NOT in the Middle between the Frets or you will get Lots of BUZ.

[@trex70]

Great work, it sounds like i play a guitar 🤪

[@SlyHikari03]

Animusic moment

[@jonathanrowles2685]

This Guitar Player Is (Not) Obsolete (yet 😁)

[@juanmanuelduran2912]

Crack!!

[@charade993]

Hi!

[@alvarobyrne]

noice noise. noise is noise

[@LenweSaralonde]

I can't imagine how much latency you get with that thing xD

[@wideyxyz2271]

Impressive but bloody awful at the same time. I like it!

[@CorryDMG]

6 more servos on the tuners and this would open a lot of possibilities... or sound absolutely horrible ;)

[@Sulcuryalt_Inone]

John Gomm better watch out.

[@russianbigbird4161]

You know what's creepy, I was just messing with my great grandpa's guitar which is now my mom's because he died a couple years back, I was messing with it and I thought I wonder if anyone has ever made a self playing guitar, and to be clear my mom absolutely loved my great grandpa, and he was from South America(my great grandma legitimately just yoinked him from South America) and he loved his old acoustic guitar so I would never even consider running it to make my own self playing guitar