Making An Air-Powered Wind Instrument Using LEGO Pneumatics
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Published 2023-09-21
See my latest experiments and behind-the-scenes footage!
Like many folks, I love Lego pneumatics, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone build an air-powered wind instrument using Lego pneumatics - so today, we’re going to see if we can make music using Lego!
The principle is simple. We’re going to store compressed air in an air tank, and then release that air across some panpipes to play the notes. The keyboard will be built of Lego, and we can use valves and pipes to control which notes are played. There are a couple ways to do this, including standard Lego pneumatic valves, and a technique that involves crimping pipes to hold them closed, and then ‘uncrimping’ them to release the air.
This has been a somewhat challenging build, but I’m delighted with the final result. I personally am not musically talented, and this is a strange instrument to play, but I’m sure someone with musical talent could make this machine truly sing!
#lego #pneumatic #music #wind #instrument
All Comments (21)
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One funny thing about this is that the keyboard is reversed! Usually when you go from left to right the pitch of the note goes up. But here its the other way around. Really fun build!
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You weren't cheating, you were sampling! It's proud tradition in the world of music production.
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I think you're mostly just limited by the keyboard only having 7 notes (less than an octave) whereas most melodies will go over multiple
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As a person who loves Lego technical builds this was an absolute joy to watch! As a musical person this was a very special version of joyous torture - like enjoying good clean dad jokes and suddenly watching “the aristocrats” for the first time. Keep it up! I’m here for BOTH emotions!
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I like how the first attempt at Greensleeves was almost spot-on except this setup doesn't allow for accidentals, but then the second was just completely off.
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As an organist, this is INCREDIBLE!!!
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It is amazing how good this instrument is in mimicing an 8 year old with a sweet flute 😂
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I know this is late but as an organ builder i have to say this is excelent. To fix the tuning you likely just need to adjust the wind pressure for each note. Alternatively you could add adjustable sleeves to the end mouth ends of the flute to allow you to tune it by altering the length of the pipes. Also if you want a more consistant wind supply you could add rubber bands to your bottle and connect a hairdryer to it to supply constant air. Pipe organs work on very low pressures but very high volumes of air. All in all though you did a great job.
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it's so cursed playing it while the notes are in the reversed order
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What you should do is increase the number of pipes so you have more notes, most songs use "accidentalls" which means that a note outside of the scale is used (a C is replaced with C sharp for example). That way, the songs should sound much nicer
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A very nice lego project, this channel definitely deserves much more attention!
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you can use this keyboard to make some meme parodies (like the ones with the screechy detuned flute 🤣)
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Making a musical device with zero understanding of music is amusing. I know how you feel! I made a couple of acoustic guitars, a lute, several flutes and a hurdy gurdy. I have zero idea how to play any of these haha
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The key mechanisms is genius!
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Having multiple sets of the output tubes connected to the keys via valves could allow you to have a switch to change octaves, much like small digital keyboards let you move up and down octaves with a button press
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This instrument seems to only have the notes of A minor/C major (starting with the lowest note being G), so you'd need to transpose everything you see to one of these keys depending on the original key: A minor (natural minor only) C major (these two are the most common ones) D dorian E phrygian F lydian G mixolydian B locrian Any song or piece that uses more than seven different notes will not be possible, and even songs that use harmonic or melodic minor will not be playable without detuning the physical pipes. This makes the instrument quite limited in its choice of possible tunes but there still is a lot of music that could be played accurately if you put in the work to transpose it to a possible key. Also, from a musician's perspective, the keyboard is the 'wrong' way around; for the sake of musical convention it'd be easier to learn how to play on it if you switched the high and low notes. I know, there is no real 'wrong' when it comes to music but there is this strong convention with almost every key based instrument that the low notes are on the left and high ones on the right.
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holy crap! if this was a lego kit I would 100% buy it. these are the kits i wish they made when i was a kid
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This is why you need a pressure regulator. You want to limit the pressure going into the tubes to what is required for playing the note accurately, but a high pressure in the tank to extend your playing time.
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You can do one thing, build a drum that rotates with legis on it so that when those legos touch keys music plays automatically
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Well, you could go the music box route with pins on a rotating drum. Songs can’t be long though with a drum. Perhaps like a player piano with a roll of holed paper?
