Koka’s Drone Box No. 1

I love four-voice polyphony. There’s something about the number four. I like it when four objects converse with each other. This is my Drone Box No. 1. It’s a four-voice physical synthesiser, for drones and more. The sound is produced by turning stepper motors that sit on the wooden box. Different objects attached to the motors change the character of the sound. Selecting and attaching the objects is like physical mixing. A pinecone adds rich buzz and makes the sound more like a square wave synthesiser, an egg doesn’t do much and leaves the work to the box, a paper cup makes the sound rounder and a brass coil provides resonant overtones. I exchange objects all the time. You can control the box with MIDI, either from a keyboard or from a computer. There is also a clever automatic voice management mode, so you can improvise without thinking which motor to turn. I’ve added pitch bending, vibrato, different kinds of tremolo and some other expressions. I’ll add more. And the second iteration of the box will have a single button on the side, so you can create a playlist of MIDI files on a SD card and play music during your morning coffee, just like with any music player. I’ll design more drone boxes. #art #modernart #contemporaryart #musicbox #sculpture #engineering #woodworking #arduino