Using an Awl as a ProTool

June 10, 2007 11:05 PM

How would one build a musical apothecary cabinet or locate someone who could build such a thing for you?

I read somewhere once about an artist who built a set of drawers that played different bits of music when you opened them. I would like to expand that to an apothecary cabinet, where each little drawer, when open, would play a repeating bit of music. By opening different drawers, you could modularly combine the musical phrases, like a series of loops. I doubt I have the skills to build something like this, but I have friends who are electricians and carpenters, so if someone could explain how this might work, I could conceivably build it with their help. I would also be interested if you knew of someone who one could hire to build this musical cabinet.

posted by Falconetti to sports, hobbies, & recreation (9 comments total)

Music boxes are traditionally mechanical, but I think budget mp3 players may be the way to go here - one per drawer. You can get them for as little as $10, they'd only need to hold one bit of music each.

The switch that starts/stops the drawer's player could be whatever you wanted - mechanical, a magnetic reed-switch, touch-switch, light-switch, whatever is easiest or most effective for the design.

Basically, it would work however you would want it to work. Design what you want and work towards that. You get lesser results if you come at it from the other direction.

Another time, I could be hired to make something like this, but I'm away from my workshop for the reasonable future.
posted by -harlequin- at 11:15 PM on June 10, 2007

Possible feature suggestion:
Since all drawer music players would ideally have music of the same tempo so they can combine, all switches could be buffered for the space of a beat, or maybe a measure, before triggering the mp3 player, to make it easier for the different drawers to combine music rather than create cacaphony.
posted by -harlequin- at 11:28 PM on June 10, 2007

At $10 a piece, you could just put triggers in the drawers, and then hook it up to a sampler or midi device (your computer, even). Each trigger could be assigned a sample, and presto: Unnecessarily complicated yet beautiful midi device!
posted by The World Famous at 11:44 PM on June 10, 2007

I think harlequin and others have suggested you need to look at how to combine the passages of music (or you need to think about a mechanism which will lock all other drawers whenever one of them is open so that you can work in traditional monophonic music box mode - something like a filing cabinet). If you are going with multiple voices then you will have to design the cabinet to be safe with multiple drawers open. I would consider a looping sample of music with several parts and have each drawer trigger a part in the manner of fading up a channel on a mixer. If you are happy for the device to be mono then each MP3 player can control two of these channels.
posted by rongorongo at 2:35 AM on June 11, 2007

E-mail Alan Berliner.
posted by longdaysjourney at 3:52 AM on June 11, 2007

I think The World Famous has a good idea in suggesting that you use an inexpensive sampler or midi device. I doubt that MP3 players could trigger fast enough to line up the different loops musically.
posted by umbú at 5:49 AM on June 11, 2007

I think The World Famous is onto something, but I'm also wondering how feasible it would be to A) obtain a bunch of those music modules they put in musical greeting cards B) upload your own MIDI samples to them, and C) install each one in the back of each drawer, so that opening the drawer activates the module (much like opening the card does).
posted by adamrice at 7:10 AM on June 11, 2007

Thanks londaysjourney (and everyone else for the great suggestions). Alan Berliner was the artist I was thinking of that I mentioned in the question. I read something about his "Audiofile" quite awhile ago and that is what prompted this question.
posted by Falconetti at 8:28 PM on June 11, 2007

I couldn't post this as my net was down, so it's a bit late but:

I doubt I have the skills to build something like this

I recommend doing it anyway. Doing it is the only way to gain those skills :)
(Then sell it, and use the skills to make an even better one for you :)

Rather than do it from scratch, just buy an apothecary cabinet that you already like and make as minor a modification to it as you can get away with - probably only putting a little extension at the back, ie creating a false back on it, thus creating a volume of space behind all the drawers which can be used both as the space to store the music mechanism, and as the mounting area for switches against the back of the drawers, such that when the drawers are pulled open, they no-longer press against the switch and so trigger the switch.
For the music mechanism, take guts out of some kind of small keyboard synthesiser that allows keys to be assigned midi or other recorded sounds, or similar device (ie what The World Famous said), and wire the keyboard switches to new switches on each drawer, so that opening them is the electrical equivalent of pressing a key on the keyboard.
Then play with samples until you have what you want.
posted by -harlequin- at 10:26 PM on June 11, 2007