How To Make Blips & Beats With 100,000 Bees & Your Synths

Want to create a buzz with your music? How about using a bunch of home made synths and 100,000 bees. Just don't call yourself Sting.  

Bioni Samp from London makes electronic bee music. That's not bee-sides, but actual bee beats. In an astonishing (and brave) example of what can be done with DIY synths and a significant amount of protective clothing, he explains in this short, 60-second video how he goes about it. Using synthesizers he's made himself and other DIY equipment lets him design specialised setups to interpret the data and turn it into music. 

"I record the bees in their hives, run that through my synths then extract rhythms from it. I use three notes - for worker, drone and queen bees respectively". He does this - amongst other reasons - to highlight the global drop in bee populations, which poses a risk to the environment. 

Here's a link to the original Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/60SecDocs/videos/1574202949344492/

We'll bee honest, we were a little relieved to see that this technique involves recording the bees rather than trying to get them to land on MIDI triggers or something. Still, it's an interesting way to create a buzz around your music. Let's hope he takes it further, and this unique setup doesn't remain forever in bee-ta. (Sorry).  

Learn more about hacking and DIY synths in the Ask.Audio Academy: https://ask.audio/academy?nleloc=new-releases

Hollin Jones was classically trained as a piano player but found the lure of blues and jazz too much to resist. Graduating from bands to composition then production, he relishes the chance to play anything with keys. A sometime lecturer in videographics, music production and photography post production, Hollin has been a freelance w... Read More

Discussion

Want to join the discussion?

Create an account or login to get started!