The World’s First Medieval Digital Instrument: The EP-1320 Lets You Play the Sounds of Hurdy-Gurdies, Lutes, Gregorian Chants & Extra

Right now of the yr, the Swedish island of Acquired­land places on Medeltidsveck­an, or “Medieval Week,” the coun­attempt’s largest his­tor­i­cal fes­ti­val. Accord­ing to its offi­cial About web page, it affords its vis­i­tors the prospect to “watch knights on horse­again, drink some­factor chilly, take a craft­ing course, prac­tice archery, lis­ten to a con­cert or pic­nic alongside the seaside, whereas wait­ing for some wreck present or per­for­mance in some moat!” If subsequent yr’s Medeltidsveck­an incor­po­charges elec­tron­ic-music ses­sions as nicely, it would certain­ly be due to inspi­ra­tion from the EP-1320 sam­pler, or instru­males­tal­is elec­tron­icum, simply launched by Swedish elec­tron­ics com­pa­ny Teenage Engi­neer­ing.

Billed as “the world’s first medieval elec­tron­ic instru­ment,” the EP-1320 is mod­eled on Teenage Engi­neer­ing’s suc­cess­ful EP-133 drum sampler/composer, however pre-loaded with a selec­tion of playable musi­cal instru­ments from the Mid­dle Ages, from body drums, bat­tle toms, and coconut horse hooves to bag­pipes, bowed harps, and, sure, hur­dy-gur­dies.

Customers also can evoke a com­plete medieval world — or a minimum of a cer­tain concept of 1, not untaint­ed by fan­ta­sy — with swords, stay­inventory, witch­es, “row­dy peas­ants,” and “actu­al drag­ons.” To get a way of the way it works, take a look on the video on the prime of the publish from B&H Pho­to Video Professional Audio, which affords a run­down of its many tech­ni­cal and aes­thet­ic fea­tures.

“Even the design of the sam­pler and music com­pos­er appears to be like medieval, from the font model everywhere in the board” — usually used to label however­tons and oth­er con­trols in Latin, or Latin of a sort — “to the col­or, pre­sen­ta­tion, pack­ag­ing, and imagery,” writes Design­increase’s Matthew Bur­gos. “The elec­tron­ic instru­ment is transportable too, and the design crew features a quilt­ed exhausting­cov­er case, t‑shirt, key­chain, and a vinyl report fea­tur­ing songs and sam­ples.” Clear­ly, the EP-1320 isn’t only a piece of nov­el­ty stu­dio gear, however a sym­bol of its personal­er’s appre­ci­a­tion for the trans­po­si­tion of all issues medieval into our mod­ern dig­i­tal world. It’s price con­sid­er­ing as a Christ­mas reward for the elec­tron­ic-music cre­ator in your life; simply imag­ine how they may use it to rein­ter­pret the clas­sic songs of the hol­i­day sea­son with not simply lutes, trum­pets, and citoles at their com­mand, however “tor­ture-cham­ber reverb” as nicely.

by way of Kot­tke

Relat­ed con­tent:

Meet the Hur­dy Gur­dy, the Hand-Cranked Medieval Instru­ment with 80 Mov­ing Elements

Hear Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” Per­shaped in Clas­si­cal Latin

With Medieval Instru­ments, Band Per­types Clas­sic Songs by The Bea­t­les, Purple Sizzling Chili Pep­pers, Metallic­li­ca & Deep Pur­ple

The Medieval Ban Towards the “Satan’s Tri­tone”: Debunk­ing a Nice Fantasy in Music The­o­ry

The Flute of Disgrace: Dis­cov­er the Instrument/System Used to Pub­licly Humil­i­ate Unhealthy Musi­cians Dur­ing the Medieval Peri­od

A Transient His­to­ry of Sam­pling: From the Bea­t­les to the Beast­ie Boys

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His tasks embrace the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the e-book The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll via Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­e-book.