My friend Callen tried to help me run a DC motor to roll my curtains up and down. We didn’t make a ton of progress, but we had some fun making a little music.

Hack-a-Day is a challenge to complete ~30 fun new projects in 30 days. In my case, I aimed for 20, because I knew I was getting a job and moving. I just barely made it with this last entry, a collaboration with nsh.

Music of the Spheres lets you hear songs on different tonal scales. Listen to the warped melodies. Watch the pretty planets orbit. Surely their sizes and orbits are significant and connected to the tonal scales? Go mad with afterimages of… okay, well it’s kinda fun, anyway. Demo is here, code is on github.

My friend Kragen and I wrote a little bytebeat synth tool. You can mess around and have fun. Demo here, code is on github.

It’s november, and I’ve decided this month that I’m going to do 30 projects in 30 days. It’s an all-month hack-a-thon!

Yesterday’s project was Hack-A-Battle (demo, source). It’s two dueling music visualizers (sound warning!). Red vs blue. As each hits the other with bullets, they lose heath. As a band takes damage, it gets dimmer and quieter. Eventually one band will win out and be the only one playing.

I thought this was a cool idea, but I’m not really happy with the implementation

• It’s a little laggy, especially when explosions happen.
• It’s probably a little too fast of a battle.
• I wanted to the things coming out to actually be linked to a music visualizer, which I almost had time to do.
• It would have been better if the “bands” took turns playing instead of both going at once, for the poor listener.
• It requires a fairly big display, and beefy computer/phone. It doesn’t work well on a small screen at all.
• I wasn’t super pleased with the code. It was so-so
• I wanted you to be able to upload your own songs and duel a friend

It’s november, and I’ve decided this month that I’m going to do 30 projects in 30 days. It’s an all-month hack-a-thon!

Today’s project is Hack-A-Song (demo, source). It plays greensleeves, and you can edit the music to play something else, too.

It’s november, and I’ve decided this month that I’m going to do 30 projects in 30 days. It’s an all-month hack-a-thon!

Today’s project is Hack-A-Sound (demo, source). It’s a small soundboard.

You can:

• Play 25 built-in samples
• Record your own samples with your mic
• Play samples directly, or record them on up to 4 tracks
• Have tracks play one time only, or loop
• Adjust the alignment of tracks
• Use a keyboard or mouse
• (Mobile not supported)

Have fun. I think this was a pretty good toy.

I copied the list of songs I favorited from Pandora.