Want You Gone (Portal 2 Credits)

By popular demand (and this is the last of the Portal songs for now) "Want You Gone" by Jonathan Coulton from the credits of Portal 2.

Another splendid arrangement by Sebastian Wolff. Check out his website ( http://sebastianwolff.info/ ) or his YouTube channel ( http://www.youtube.com/germanseabass ) for all sorts of cool video game and movie covers!

I tried something a little different this time: I stood the floppies up vertically (though it's hard to tell in the video), and moved the mic to better feature the lead drives. I don't know if any of this had to do with Drive 2's clicking noises, but sorry about that. The hiss / whine is gone though because I'm using a different mixer this time!

I promise I'll move on from Portal songs now, I've got some Christmas stuff brewing and possibly an original composed-for-floppy-drives piece on the way. PLUS: Future recordings will be in S-T-E-R-E-O. It'll be like listening to The Future™.

The software for this project is available here: http://github.com/SammyIAm/Moppy

Tutorial video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6tuMn5sPyM

Thank you all soo much for your subscriptions and complimentary comments. These videos have exceeded any expectations I had for them, and what makes me happiest is making random strangers smile (even if it's over the Internet and I can't tell).

Check out some more musical floppy drives on my playlist here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL36C5EBE91FEA5146

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Portal 2
• want
• you
• gone
• Jonathan Coulton
• floppy
• disk
• drive
• music
• Arduino
• midi

[MrSparkle404]

How would 5.25" floppy drives sound?

[oletubeify]

i give you your ultimate challenge: through the fire and flames

[dimmddr1]

@Sammy1Am Thanks.

[Sammy1Am]

@dimmddr1 The only thing I had to buy was the Arduino (technically I got it as a gift), the wiring and PSUs were just laying around from previous stuff. The drives were actually given to me by a friend who was salvaging a bunch of Dells to make a computing cluster and didn't need the drives. I imagine you should be able to find an old PC somewhere that isn't using its floppy drive.

The audio recording equipment I paid a bit more for, but that comes down to what you're doing with the setup.

[dimmddr1]

@Sammy1Am No problem. This is the sort of thing I'd like to do as well. Just as something to expect, how much did you pay for your hardware? Did you salvage/steal any drives?

[Sammy1Am]

@dimmddr1 Actually, now that you mention it, it might make sense to make a couple of the drives double-drives (just stack two floppies on top of each other). There'd still be 8 channels, but some could be louder... Hmm... thanks!

[dimmddr1]

@Sammy1Am It would be a good idea just to balance the sound. Floppy drives are uncommon (nor inexpensive).

[johnchandara]

OMG GLaDOS is hacking into your tech

[Sammy1Am]

@dimmddr1 I can do that, and depending on the song I do. Sometimes though I don't want to give up an extra note just to make the melody louder. I've had a lot more success with just placing the microphones nearer to the melody drives (especially in She Has a Girlfriend Now, and In the Hall of the Mountain King)

[dimmddr1]

@Sammy1Am Could you increase the volume in the higher registers by doubling the drives that play those pitches?

[dimmddr1]

@Sammy1Am You should also try 8" drives. Mind you, those may belong in museums.