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Beamz Laser Harp, as You’ve Never Heard it Before

by Peter Kirn

Forget all my blathering on about the Sharper Image Beamz thing, because this video says it better than I possibly could. No, it’s not the video you’ve seen already. Think Beamz gone experimental — and keep watching until about :30. (Thanks to Chachi and Matt for this one.)

It’s official: Beamz has become stuff of Web legendz. I can haz alternative interface, or whatever.

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  • http://robotanalysis.com/music robotanalysis

    It had me at the "More Cowbell" part…

  • manuel

    Hahaha John Zorn, now you have competitors.

    the Jam session guys… too cool for this world

  • Wilbo

    Needs more St. Sanders

  • http://www.geocities.com/fkmooney kempton

    awesome. Also, or the sunglasses required safety gear?

  • Barry Wood

    That was so much more interesting than the original demo. Using it in that context would actually work pretty well.

  • Chad

    i LOLed

  • D. Kristian

    This would make a great musical cat toy.

    Drop some flour (or any other dusty substance) over the lazer beams and listen to the resulting masterpiece as Toonces paws away at the "dancing shiny things".

  • http://www.bcdixon.com brian

    Ahaha, the Stravinsky part actually made me lol…

  • http://markforscher.com mark

    wow. the cowbell part… i can't remember the last time i laughed so hard. this is genius.

  • MonksDream

    I think they're going for the wrong market. This this is *obviously* an exercise tool!

  • apalomba

    Man, that clip just got 100 times better. I want

    to be a Stravinsky Hero!

  • guidedbyVOIP

    MORE COWBELL! (now with more cowbell)

  • http://keithhandy.com Keith Handy

    I don't know if this would have been as funny if I hadn't just watched the real video five minutes ago, but I give this video remix a standing ovation. I especially like how it didn't "reward" people for wiggling their hips when their hands weren't doing anything. Made them look all the more like dipshits. :)

  • http://www.myspace.com/k1ru k1Ru

    lawls…

    sharper image made teh razors…

    i want to see someone make music on one of those

  • dan s.

    There's definitly not enough Stravinsky on CDM.

    Is the bald guy the publisher from californication BTW?

  • http://www.createdigitalmusic.com Peter Kirn

    I can never get enough Stravinsky.

    Of course, I'll probably wind up owing Boosey & Hawkes money … has *any* of his music gone public domain yet?

  • GaryG

    I'm sold now, I now understand the possibilities of this instrument.

  • dead_red_eyes

    Hahahaha. Hilarious!

  • dead_red_eyes

    Also, this kind of reminds me of the guy who does (insert rock legend here) shreds videos.

    Example.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_M9zWORBuA

  • Joe Bicker

    Needed more GM synth. Also a perfect opportunity for some rick rolling!

  • http://www.myspace.com/garykibler GaryK

    I wonder if Deutsche Grammphon or Pierre Boulez are aware their masterful 1962 recording of Gyorgy Ligeti's "Aventures" (the source of the avant garde classical vocalists here) was being used as part of the demo for this gizmo. I happened to spot these samples easily enough having sampled them for my own work years ago. The difference is I always knew my stuff could never see the light of day as a result of the copyright issues.

  • http://blog.ortz.org Ortzinator

    Suddenly waving a Wii remote around doesn't seem so embarrassing.

  • Pingback: Beamz Lazer Harp just got cool… « DIGITAL AUDIO SERVICE

  • chris

    This instrument sucks. A simple Pioneer CD turntable could do all these things more efficiently. How does using a motion sensor to press play on a sample with a cue point make it a good instrument. You can't even modify the pitch of the sample.

    I mean, I'm open minded, I wouldn't mine owning one of these things, but I think I'd rather own a piece of sampling equipment that didn't make me look like an idiot.

  • http://myspace.com/k1ru k1ru

    well…

    you coooouuuuld use something like that to control all kinds of shit (vst's, midi)

    ableton live? fl studio?

    do you need to install drivers for this to your comp???

    midi yoke?…is any of this possible?

    razors?

  • http://www.createdigitalmusic.com Peter Kirn

    It would make ABSOLUTELY no sense to try to use this as a controller without the software — that I can say with some confidence. Thing is, you could use an Arduino and build the thing for far, far less $. Then you could do whatever you want with the sensors. And I'm not even sure it's possible to use it with standard MIDI software; there's no indication of that.

  • http://www.figby.com/ Michael Moncur

    They fixed the MORE COWBELL part. yay!

  • m-clis

    better go and buy, or they will make more videos and all music industry will be paralyzed! :)

  • john z

    i lolled. i lolled three times. at least.

    and it started with my favorite radical music,

    Zorn's Naked City!

    i can sleep happily after a tuff day!

    THANKS, cdm!

  • bobobobobo

    looool

  • chris

    You could use it to control any music software, yes. But, would you really want to? What's the point?

  • http://www.createdigitalmusic.com Peter Kirn

    @Chris – I think the parody video actually (bizarrely) gave people more of a sense that this was a fun controller. ;) But yeah, you'd be better off with your own.

  • http://www.createdigitalmusic.com Peter Kirn

    Hey, anyone want to try to identify every piece used here? Hmmmm?

  • http://www.professorwhimsey.com Dr. Apostrophe X

    Razor scooters. Not the (slightly) cooler phones.

  • http://stretta.com Matthew Davidson

    Zorn: 'Speedball', 'Blood Duster' and 'Igneous Ejaculation'

    Ligeti: 'Requiem' 'Nouvelles Aventures'

    Stravinsky: 'Sacrificial Dance' (obvious)

    Schoenberg: 'Pierrot lunaire (Moonstruck Pierrot)'

  • mckewans

    this looks soooooo rubbish! All it does is make people look like cats playing with dangling string. adding a full 12 notes with an octave switch would be more useful.

  • Damon

    I would seem it would not have been too difficult to give this thing Midi connectors and a simple built in ability to control external instruments. I think these guys missed the boat on that. Maybe I don't understand what that entails, but from an abstract point of view, I would not think it too difficult a thing to incorperate.

  • http://www.wha.com wha?

    was it zorn at the beginning or hemopheiliac?

  • http://www.myspace.com/tadoma pineapple palace

    i've watched this like 30 times and i still laugh so hard that i start crying.

  • http://www.brainstatik.com Ken P

    Inspired by this, I overlaid one of my band's really strange songs over the Beamz video, and somehow it works (almost) perfectly!!

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=lC9c6kLxjZY

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