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Watch a 78-fingered robot rip a guitar solo

Roboguitarist uses 12 picks at once

Christopher Hooton
Monday 17 February 2014 13:42 EST
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X-Machines show off terrifying shredding skills
X-Machines show off terrifying shredding skills (YouTube)

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A new band called Z-Machines will be releasing an album through Warp Records soon, comprised of a robot guitarist with 78 fingers and a robot drummer with 22 arms.

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The band's creators teamed up with Squarepusher in the hope of exploring the types of music that could be created using machines with such dexterity.

"In this project familiar instruments are used in ways which till now have been impossible," Squarepusher said, adding that he hoped to 'break new ground for emotional machine music".

A teaser clip of the robot band in action was released in September, seeing the guitarist playing multiple melody lines at onceusing 12 picks.

Squarepusher said that writing music for non-humans was not without its challenges.

"Each of the robotic devices involved in the performance of this music has its own specification which permits certain possibilities and excludes others," he explained. "The robot guitar player, for example, can play much faster than a human ever could, but there is no amplitude control."

X-Machines' first album, suitably named Music For Robots, will be released on 8 April.

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