I stumbled upon the YouTube channel of Paweł Zadrożniak and to tell the truth, it's heavy. Indeed, this slightly crazy tinkerer/programmer has created a new and unusual musical instrument that he has named the "Floppotron".
The "Floppotron" is a "hardware orchestra" that combines 64 floppy disk drives, 8 hard drives and 2 scanners to play all kinds of melodies.
Scanners and floppy disk drives use stepper motors to move the sensor head that scans the image or performs read-write operations on a magnetic disk. The sound a motor produces depends on the speed at which it is operated. The higher the frequency, the higher the note. Hard disks use a magnet and a coil to rotate their read head. When the disks are powered on long enough, the read head accelerates and hits the edge of the disk, imitating a drum sound.
Using software that he developed in Python in his spare time, he manages to use all this material to reproduce famous songs and the result is absolutely mind-blowing.
In fact, when you listen to the music below, you will have a hard time imagining that it was produced using the sounds of old floppy disk drive motors.
It's super effective and it's called the Floppotron ! I'll let you listen!
The Final Countdown of Europe
Seven Nation Army of the White Stripes
The Imperial March of Star Wars
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
Game of Thrones credits
