All Entries Tagged With: "cool kits"

The Gakken Premium Gramophone Lets You Make Your Own Vinyl Records…In 2010

Still professing your love for vinyl?  Show it like you mean it with the Gakken Premium Gramophone, an old-school record player with the ability to put your music to vinyl.
If you’ve ever looked at one of those vinyl to MP3 recorders and wondered, “Why would you digitize such a pristine art form,” then there’s no doubt about it: this analog music kit is for you.  Not only can you play records of all sizes (33, 45, 78 rpm), you can put down your own music directly to vinyl (you sing into the horn and the bamboo needle cuts the track).  Finally, you can cut your own independent demo and release it in 1939.  If you have a time machine, that is.

The Gakken Premium Gramophone is as authentic as it gets, rocking a metal needle for playing, a bamboo needle for recording, a nickel-plated iron horn and…gasp…a hand crank.  Yep, it [...]

Drawdio Electronic Pencil Kit Turns Your Ugly Doodles Into Horrible Noises

Want to be the most annoying person in any room?  Grab a chair and a piece of paper, then begin sketching using a Drawdio, an electronic pencil that creates sound while you’re doodling.
Forget about making beautiful music, though, the thing creates ear-splitting electronic noise that’s more akin to psychological torture.  It uses the pencil graphite’s conductive properties to create some sort of musical synthesizer, which results in buzzing, dragging, teeth-gnashing audio.
As you’re drawing with the pencil, simply put a finger on any part of the sketch and it will begin to make different sounds.  As long as both the pencil and some part of your body are touching the drawn items, it will eke out various types of electronic hum.
The Drawdio is actually an electronic kit.  While it’s shipped with a pencil, you can easily remove it for placement into other objects that you want to turn into noise-generating “musical” [...]