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Marissa Cetin
10 October 2023, 13:51

Play a synthesiser that’s floating in space, crowdfunder launched

Set to launch into orbit on 1st November, the synth's hardware is described as a "miniature spaceship" with a floating marble inside

Play a synthesiser that’s floating in space, crowdfunder launched

A new project wants to help supporters play a synthesiser in space.

The Blue Marble Synthesiser Kickstarter is raising money to put a remotely playable synthesiser into orbit. The synth's hardware is described as a "miniature spaceship" with a floating marble inside. The marble will interact with sensors inside the body of the hardware, and that data will be sent to a Patatap web-based interface and VST plug-in with which people can access and work with the produced sounds. There'll also be a microphone feed that'll record the sounds within the pressurised container and an exclusive live mode to manipulate the modules in the synthesiser.

The Physical Synthesis and Odyssey SpaceWorks campaign plans to launch the synth on 1st November aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket. The Kickstarter goal is $50,000 (USD) or about £41,000; nearly £3,000 has been raised so far. 

Artists Andrew Huang, Benn Jordan, Trovarsi and Maysun will compose music using data and sound from the Blue Marble synth, to be released as an album for supporters at a later date.

Learn more about the project on Kickstarter and watch the promo clips below.

For more space related sounds, last year NASA released an audio recording of a black hole to mark "Black Hole Week". The "sonification" arrived a month after NASA unveiled a recording that revealed that Mars has two speeds of sound. 

Earlier this year, NASA unveiled an audio recording of plasma waves hitting Earth's magnetic field.