Kosmophone - Space Age Midi Controller - literally...

Sent to me by Charles Vestal. Thanks Charles! Click through for more info, shots and samples. Amazing.

That silver cylinder in the rack is the Kosmophone.


"The Kosmophone is a gamma-ray spectrometer operating in the range of about 3 to 7 million electron-volts (MeV) controlling a MIDI music synthesizer.

This octave of the electromagnetic spectrum, about a million times higher frequency than the octave our eyes respond to, contains very little energy that originates in our solar system. Almost all of the energy in this band is a result of unbelievably energetic radiation coming from the far reaches of the universe, 'Cosmic Rays'. Fortunately, they tend not to make it all the way through the approximately 100 miles of air over our heads. As they smash their way through the atmosphere the collisions produce energetic emissions and it is these secondary emissions the Kosmophone responds to. The energy level of each detected event is measured and that information is sent to the MIDI control port of a music synthesizer. The 'cosmic data' is not altered or supplemented in any way and would be presumed to be completely random.

The measured distribution of energy values is indeed very uniform and the rate does not vary from local day to night. Apparently the normal output of our sun contains no significant gamma rays (which is a very good thing for us!) but they are produced in bursts during solar flares. "

Update via the comments:
"Many thanks for your interest and kind words, but please note the silvery cylinder at the bottom of the rack is just the detector; a 3" Teledyne Isotopes 4Pi-well-type NaI scintillator previously owned by a government weapons laboratory. The 1RU panel above it is the Pulse Height Analyzer and of course above that the synth and power amp."