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Music

The ‘Music Box for the Digital Era’ Is Back and Better Than Ever

Axel Bluhme’s XOXX Composer has now has an app, a sleek black look, and may be on the market soon.
Images courtesy the artist

To make looping, sampling, and sequencing more intuitive, XOXX Composer uses magnets, resulting in a music tool that can be easily visualized and understood. After we first learned about the project about a year ago, Axel Bluhme has made significant developments to his “music box for the digital era,” most notably, a sleek black makeover. XOXX Composer will hopefully soon be available for purchase, and it now hooks up to a desktop app so you can work with your music digitally. The device also recently received a coveted Bill Moggridge Award for its design. Axel Bluhme is showcasing XOXX Composer at Royal College of Art’s graduate exhibition in London until July 3rd.

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Magnets snap into place on XOXX Composer to play different sounds. The device is made up of eight rotating discs, which represent the eight sounds, of your choosing, that can be played at once. Each disc contains 16 music steps as well a knob to control volume and pitch. XOXX Composer is MIDI-compatible and can be used with any digital audio workstation or with its own app. In the original demonstration of XOXX Composer, we saw how the sample instrument could create music out of everyday sounds. Now, the new video above shows how traditionally talented musicians can sample and loop various instruments. Watch it to see how elegant and simple the design for XOXX Composer can be:

To learn more about the XOXX Composer, click here.

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