Used by such musical luminaries as David Bowie and Rolf Harris, the Stylophone was THE instrument du jour back in the 1970s. And now Latestbuy are selling them. For 40 bucks. If that’s not enough to convince you that you need one to unleash your inner Rolf, then perhaps this video of the Stylophone playing the Star Wars Imperial March will:

Inspiring stuff.

[Latestbuy]

The drive is 4GB of musical goodness and available through the BackyardBrand Etsy store. Geez, gadgets like this make me wish I had a lick of aptitude for playing instruments. [Etsy via Coolest Gadgets via OhGizmo!]

I ask because with a Stradivarius, the age is the sound. Those 300-odd years aren’t just a bullet point snooty musicians can bring up over cocktails—they add character and uniqueness to the instrument’s sound as well. The wood ages, the sound changes, more often than not for the better.

This new Gavari Semiacoustic Violin design from Austrian designer Gerda Hopfgartner lacks all of that. No f-holes (sound holes), a decidedly electric look… I dunno. Like Picard and his books, I think in the far future I’ll still be holding onto my archaic, wood violin. [Gavari via Yanko Design via DVICE]

You tap out sounds with a stylus, and a loop mode lets you build and layer loops using the included percussion, human beatbox and bass samples. There are also record and scratch modes, plus an MP3 input feature.

The Beatbox started shipping late last month, and follows last year’s return of the 1970s Stylophone mini-synthesiser (in physical and iPhone app form). For the uninitiated, the original Dubreq Stylphone was used by Kraftwerk on Pocket Calculator, and has also been used to kitchy effect by everyone from David Bowie to Marilyn Manson to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Oh, and I don’t know what’s up with the guy in the video below, but he’s too super excited not to share. [100milligrams]

Each of the peripherals on each of the platforms will have an RRP of $399.95. That’s more on one instrument than the entire instrument+game pack for Guitar Hero 5. The PS3 version is out now, the Xbox version will land late October and the Wii version lands in late November.

While I’d love to take my music rhythm gaming to the next level, somehow I don’t think dropping $800 on instruments is the way to do it. With that kind of cash, I could buy real instruments and go on tour (at the local pub)…

[Logitech]

The Audi Design Team collaborated with piano maker Bosendorfer to construct this grand piano, which was commissioned to celebrate Audi’s centennial. Here was their philosophy:

Generous surface areas ensure formal clarity; there are no decorative applications, the edges and lines are sharply drawn, the joints logically positioned. All these are important aspects of the Audi design.

And coincidentally, none are important aspects of piano design. But that’s not the point, I suppose. The piano—brushed aluminium pedals, hood-prop-esque stand, wraparound body and all—will be debuted at the July 16th Audi Forum in Ingolstadt, and is (probably symbolically) prices at around $US140,000. $140,000. [Autoevolution via Newlaunches]

It’s a single input, stereo output device, offering 24-bit audio between 44.1 and 48KHz sample rates in a package around the same size (though thicker) than an iPhone. Apogee’s putting emphasis on the built-in mic (they even offer a stand so you can treat the whole thing like a handheld mic), though it’s got one input for instruments or your own mic. That input is coupled with a preamp, customizable using the ONE’s controls.

The ONE is designed to work with Apple’s range of audio software, including iTunes, Garage Band, Logic, and Final Cut, though we don’t imagine it would have trouble working with non-Apple software as well. It remains to be seen whether the built-in mic is everything Apogee claims; on such a small device, we’re skeptical but remain hopeful. It’ll be available sometime in “late July” at a pretty reasonable $US250. [Apogee]

These insane goggles aren’t just weird looking; they also make weird music. Housing the tweaked guts of a Pikachu doll, these bad boys are able to make your grandparents wonder just what the hell is wrong with your generation in record time.

As you can see from the video, the instrument itself is controlled by an external box that lets you adjust the speed and pitch of the sample. The flashing light is, I guess, just for style. Awesome?

[Get Lofi via Hack-a-Day]

[Logitech]

The Price: Each module costs $US100, and you need at least two to make things happen, so you’re looking at $US200 or even $US300 to start. (Haven’t seen any combo pricing deals yet.)

The Verdict: It’s a unique set of wireless toys that is a lot of fun to play with, and would have been a must-have back when I used to play guitar in a band. But these things can be cool even in the home of a total non-musician, which is why I’m bringing them up at all.

Think of it as Sonos Portable. You set one of them to transmit, and start playing a song from your computer, iPod, any audio source at all really, including, mind you, a CD or DVD player with S/PDIF output. Set another one to receive, then attach that to earphones, a boom box or your home theatre system, and you hear everything with no latency. Well, with about 10 milliseconds of almost totally unnoticeable latency. In “broadcast” mode, you an add additional Pipelines—E-Mu says “any number of receivers”—so that many rooms, or many people, can catch your tuneage at the same time.

Of course, if you do play music, you can plug your guitar into one, set it for “pairing” mode, stick another one at your amp set to receive. In this scenario the latency is just 6.6ms, and you are suddenly completely unfettered.

I tested it in my house using prerecorded audio, and it sounded great. I stuck my computer with the source music down in the basement, and clipped a receiver to my belt with headphones plugged in, and wandered throughout the house. The signal faltered only when I was at the absolute farthest point away from the source, which probably was right around the advertised 15 meters (49 feet) of range that these babies can get.

Battery life is good, perhaps the big reason this thing even brushes the $US100 point: You get 10 hours in receive mode, and 5 while transmitting.

The only issue I ran into, if you could call it that, was the “DIP switch” setup, which you can see in the rear shot above. I am not afraid of a few switches, but it seemed a complex way to set the channel, the receive or transmit mode, and the audio preferences. Not sure what would have been better, and once you set them, you can almost forget them, but it was, initially, a bit of a pain.

These babies aren’t cheap, but setting up a way to wirelessly listen to music at home (like, say, piping music outdoors, syncing music between multiple rooms, or even walking around with earphones, listening to music playing somewhere else) seems worthwhile for $US200, and the one-to-many broadcast mode makes it quite a unique product. My only gripe is that it would be cool if E-MU made an even better priced unit without the battery, so you could pick and choose.

Regardless of that, if you jam in a band, you definitely need a pair of these buggers—though the rest of your band might suddenly hate you for getting all Angus Young on them. Of course, Angus did all that crazy guitar shit with cord attached, but that’s plain super human. [Pipeline Product Page]