Floppotron 3.0

Disque. © Zadrożniak/YouTube.

Polish engineer Paweł Zadrożniak unveiled the third iteration of the Floppotron, a musical instrument built out of disks, hard drives, and flatbed scanners whose electric motors produce noises organized by note. Paweł’s first musical ensemble, a duo of floppy drives that played Star Wars’ Imperial March, went viral eleven years ago. In 2015, he upped the duo with many more readers and devices and called the resulting orchestra Floppotron. Currently, Floppotron 3.0 is composed of no less than 512 disk drives, 16 hard drives, and 4 scanning beds. Zadrożniak explains in a blog post that the system has become incredibly complex and massive. The wall of sound is made of columns of disk drives, each producing a single note. The number of active drives changes the sound envelope. The disk drives emit the bass notes, while the scanning section produces the high notes. A collection of hard drives clicking away makes up the percussion section. Listen to Julius Fučík’s catchy and upbeat Entrance of the Gladiators interpreted by the Floppotron 3.0 (earworm warning):

⇨ YouTube, “The Floppotron 3.0 - Computer Hardware Orchestra”

⇨ The Verge, James Vincent, “This PC orchestra, built from 512 floppy disk drives, is wondrous to hear and behold.”

2022-06-16