Sonic Pi Glockenspiel MkII

Just finished version 2 of my Sonic Pi controlled Glockenspiel project. I’ve switched to a more modern instrument by Plus Percussion (PP1130) available from Amazon, and also switched to overhead lego hammers using home made return springs. This version had wider spaced notes than the previous one and so I switched from a 3 to a 4 hole lego spacing, which was a little too.much, but by incorporating one 3 hole spacing then over the whole 13 notes the hammers connected OK with the notes. This Glockenspiel plays in C major, but comes with some replacement notes which you can slot in which change it to F major or G major so it is quite versatile. You specify the key in the software, and it adjusts note input accordingly. It can be driven by midi input to Sonic Pi, which then sends OSC messages to control the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins connected to the driving solenoids via two driver intergrated circuits, so you can either play it directly with a midi keyboard, or write tunes in Sonic Pi and get that to control it directly, with accompaniment if desired.
Here are two links to a picture and to a short video on twitter.

I’ll do a fuller write up later.

4 Likes

I’ve now published full construction and software details on this project, with a video on you tube as well.

1 Like