3D-printed musical instruments

[Jacob]

Custom-made sounds of world's first '3D-printed band' in BBC video clip.
A professor at Lund University in Sweden says he has formed the world's first musical band made up of 3D-printed musical instruments.
The band's instruments include a drum, keyboard and two guitars.
BBC Click's LJ Rich spoke to Professor Diegel about his plans to make and develop more 3D-printed instruments.

Note: Video will auto-run with audio.

[Tavy]

Cool: I'm impressed that they're strong enough to take bass guitar strings etc.

For those of you who are foolish enough not to live in the UK and therefore can't access the BBC website, here's another interview and the video performance:

[Petrus]

Kind of cool. It can make solid plastic bodies with various designs and shapes, but not the neck or fittings. I'll be interested when they have one that can carve a block of wood into an arch top.

[Marty Jacobson]

I'll be interested when they have one that can carve a block of wood into an arch top.

Indeed - That's what a CNC router is.

[fscotte]

I'm currently working on a fertilizer that will cause trees to grow as mandolins. No success yet. I'm calling it "Fertiloar".

[Jan Viljoen]

Here is a thread I posted in The Steel Guitar Forum about 3D musical instruments.

Let the games begin!



http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewt...er=asc&start=0

[Petrus]

I like the basic idea of 3D printing and I think it will take its place alongside CNC milling, but I'm not overly impressed with the orangey plastic stuff that most of the 3D stuff has been made out of. The steampunk looking guitar in the video (:40-:45) with the rotating gears inside that had a faux old-metal look was the most impressive part of the set, imo, but I suspect the parts had been painted and "distressed" by hand after printing.

3D printing has a great future but at least in the case of luthiery, it will be alongside old-school methods, not replacing them. It will have a bigger impact on factory production, inexpensive imports, wood substitutes, small interior electronic parts, and so forth. It may well replace routing, however, in as much as you will be able to take a block of wood and program lasers to cut it to exact specifications, rather than routing and milling it with steel tools. So maybe the steel router manufacturers need to be more worried than other industries.

[mtucker]

The world is changing rapidly here in Cali… ask SpaceX.

http://www.spacex.com/news/2014/07/3...chamber-crewed