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Music

Mixtape Alpha Is A Tiny Synth With Massive Ability

MIT Media Lab’s cassette tape-sized instrument is a new way to create and share music.

The High-Low Tech group at MIT’s legendary Media Lab specializes in integrating simple and complex technologies, enabling a more universal ability to create useful items. By stripping down all the nonessential parts of a simple synthesizer, High-Low Tech’s Jie Qi whittled the instrument down to its most basic parts. The end product is the size and shape of a cassette tape.

Musically, the Mixtape Alpha has four voices, four effects, five-note polyphony, and is fully hackable to expand its range of sound options. You can also loop a pattern and play a second part on top. As for the design, it doesn’t just look like a mixtape. You can record your own patterns onto the device itself and share your compositions. Yup, they thought of everything. Except for a beverage holder, which we’re hoping for in the next model.

To get into the nuts and bolts of Mixtape Alpha, check out their wiki page, and order one of these things here.

@ImYourKid