Probably The Most Expressive and Interesting Analog Instrument You'll See Today

This rather cool looking, and even more cool sounding instruments is Koka’s Stepper Miniature. it's made of a single stepper motor. "The sound of the motor is amplified with a contact microphone. The keyboard is made of metal screws and it senses capacitive touch. Attaching different objects, such as springs and office binders to a rotor, changes colour of the tone and its texture."

Honestly, this instrument looks like so much fun to play... and the concept is simple yet very expressive.

Koka's Stepper Miniature from nikoladze on Vimeo.

The following is from Mesmerising Instruments and Sounds' Facebook post:

"A new creation by Koka Nikoladze ! In his own words: " You can actually make quite an expressive instrument with a single stepper motor!

"I made this little monster overnight to cheer up my Mariam a little bit. She liked it very much. Sound comes from the stepper and it is amplified with a contact microphone. Intonation is adjusted by changing speed of the motor.

"I was thinking of making it microtonal, but then I said - ok! Twelve-tone screwboard is geeky enough! "Screwboard" - a keyboard made of touch-sensitive screws. Somebody please add the term to Oxford Dictionaries.
These are just some of the capabilities of the “Stepper Miniature”. It becomes a real monster with some distortion pedals and other effects connected. This is just a raw recording of the original sound.
And yes, don’t you dare watching this without headphones! "

About Koka Nikoladze

Koka is a Georgian artist based in Norway; educated as a violinist, composer & technology developer. He believes that the will of creating is one of the most dominant human instincts, composes music and invents things.

Koka lives and works in Norway. Now he conducts a PhD research project at the Norwegian Academy of Music with the main question: how to hack performers. 

He collaborates with a number of artists internationally and also holds lectures in composition and computer music worldwide.