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The automat toolkit is a plug & play MIDI-controller and accessories kit that allows anyone to build awesome music machines using the real world as their instrument.

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“I also feel like there’s a new genre of music to be mined here. I’m calling it tinkertechno.” – Donald Bell I Make Magazine

The center of each toolkit is the automat controller. Plug in your favorite software or hardware MIDI input directly into the controller. For output, automat controller has 12 universal DC outputs to connect motors, solenoids, LEDs - whatever you want to start playing. No coding or soldering required!

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"The whole box reminds me of the first analog and MIDI connections for studio equipment. It has that same musician-friendly look – and feels like something that could really open up the way you work." – Peter Kirn I cdm

The automat is plug & play – offering unlimited possibilities. Simply connect your favorite MIDI hardware device, music App or DAW and trigger the actuators of your choice to create a composition.

Never played an instrument? Not a problem! Today’s music apps make it easy to get started.

Back in November 2014, Johannes held a workshop with friends in Lund, Sweden. This very special evening provided the motivation to build the dadamachines project after seeing non-musician friends get excited and experimenting with sound.

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Ready to get hands-on and explore your ideas? Digital tools enable you to be precise and fast about trying new things. Combine anything with the automat toolkit and start creating your own sound.

Taison is an old friend of Johannes and composes for theatre productions such as "20.000 Meilen unter den Meeren". This production became the original testing ground for the toolkit development.

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Want to create memorable moments when you preform? Build your own multi-sensory live experience faster than ever. With the automat toolkit, you can chain multiple controllers and go big.

In early 2016, Johannes was approached by BLACKSPACE to develop an installation with them for AUDI called the MUSIC BOX that has since played 50+ live sets.

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"automat is an innovative, hackable controller that turns MIDI signals into mechanical impulses and can be used to make musical instruments out of just about anything. Bring on the music robots!" – Rounik Sethi I ask.audio

mobile music making

Use one of many awesome music making apps available for iPhone or iPad.

your production environment

Integrate the toolkit into your studio workflow and with the DAW of your choice.

your hardware setup

You can also connect to your favorite MIDI hardware including keyboards, sequencers, drum machines and synth to play them alongside the toolkit.

your custom projects

Hack your automat and use it with Firmata and the Ableton connection kit, Pure Data or MaxMSP. Connect your own circuits, extensions, sensors or shields or code your own software with Arduino.

Get creative, and use many different actuators on one of the 12 universal DC outputs. [ 12-24V depending on your power supply - max 1.3A per channel ] You can do really cool stuff having a simple timeline based interface to control actions, not only to make music.

A lot of you asked for stretch goals. We have been thinking a lot about this and asked many people in order to do this right. Here is what we decided:

Stretch goal #1 - Hacking Guide 130.000 EUR

The second most requested thing was a hacking guide. We already created a draft for a visual guide which will explain you the foundations of how to use the automat toolkit. As part of the stretch goal we will create a series of tutorials for our backers, too.

Stretch goal #2 - Community - 160.000 EUR

Besides just having a piece of paper or video to explain things, we believe there has to be a central platform for the future of music making with machines / dadamachines. So I want to open and run a community platform based on discourse - like the guys from axoloti, monome and elektron run it for their communities It’ll be a platform where you can share new designs for adapters and elements, code or circuit designs and much more.

Stretch goal #3 - Configuration Tool / Velocity - 177.777 EUR [adjusted]

So far the most-requested feature has been velocity. What exactly does that mean? For people not as familiar with MIDI, the velocity value essentially maps to how strong the solenoid movement is when it hits something. This means that if you have variable velocity then you have more variety in the sound you output. This variety can offer more expressive and less mechanical noise making - and as music makers that’s pretty cool.

Currently, the toolkit allows changing the dynamic by changing the length of the note you are sending via MIDI which aleady offers a lot of possibilites. In order to give you guys even more control, we will create a configuration tool if we reach 190K EUR. This tool will allow you to customize the MIDI velocity values - meaning you can change the latency thereby ‘tuning’ the instruments you build. We are excited because we expect people can find cool ways to use velocity if they hooks up LED lights or DC motors as well. We will also make sure the tool includes the option to save favorite settings as presets.

Our friend Tobias who runs tubbutec made a similar tool for his product called unipulse, from which we will draw inspiration for the dadamachines configuration tool:

example config tool - Tubbutec uniPulse Configurator

We have discussed this with several experts and are confident that we can build this solution given the constraints of the campaign funding. There are of course many different solutions to this problem, but we believe this is the best solution for the automat toolkit and is viable with the extra funding if we reach the stretch goal.

To successfully build this configuration solution we will need extra help from a software engineer to consult on software and firmware. We have set the goal out far enough to be sure there is budget to include this extra testing and development.

Together with your support, we want to make the first series production batch of the automat toolkit. In return, you will get an awesome reward and become a part of our community of music machine lovers!

Early bird rewards are available for backers who support the campaign fast! These special rewards feature a big discount and will be numbered.

Get one of the ready-to-go toolkit packages including everything you need to get started.