Later in the video, he was vibrato-ing with the keyboard key itself! I think it’s more than an on/off switch. And yes, there’s the funky thing in the pull-out drawer too. But watch until later in the vid and he’s doing vibrato with his right hand as well…
right before the 5 minute mark, check it out
Yeah, sorry, I missed that. It is vibrato indeed - he’s varying the pitch by moving the key contact sideways a bit. That makes sense and is easy enough to do on an analogue monophonic keyboard - the pitch is determined by the length of the keyboard rail where the key contacts it. M. Martenot evidently designed in some sideways play.
Yeah, besides vibrato with the thumb-ring or the button in the drawer, you can wiggle the entire keyboard a few millimeters for vibrato on the fly. It’s truly bonkers.
Crazy, isn’t it? What a wonderful instrument. I also love that potbelly harpsichord you posted, too.
What’s the rotating glass disc one? We need one of those in this thread, too.
here it is!!!
The “glass harmonica”
I also found this thing. Holy CRAP!
We looked after this Strohviols for a while:
My other half occasionally fantasises about the Lira organizzata:
Here’s something by Messiaen done by Yvonne’s sister’s group:
Don’t let your other half near the claviorganum, then - it’s likely much more expensive. 
And one for @japhroaig (I hope your wind is up to it):
I’d go for structured light 3d scanning. A camera, a small projector (maybe a laser, maybe a mask, maybe a tiny display, maybe a line laser) and pull it through the tube. Do it several times in several tube orientations, and you should get a decent scan of the inner profile. Not sure you could get down to ten micrometers, though.
Another possible way is an xray tomography.
There are way more options, too.
You can see an entire stage full of those things if you see a Blue Man Group show! Or, if you don’t have one nearby, just listen to their album Audio to hear what they can do with PVC pipes.
Yeah. There are even lower flutes and recorders than that sub-contra I put up, but, when you get to those sizes, you’re getting grunts and key claps. I likes me them sub-bass instruments, but comes a size point where the utility becomes marginal. This octobass may be skirting that point. I’m getting the impression that the bow’s stick-slip was falling into lockstep with the string frequencies.
I don’t think these instruments are really compatible with how most people listen to music these days. To reproduce 16 Hz, you need a specially designed subwoofer or alternatively, good headphones-- but then you miss the tactile aspect with headphones.
The typical bookshelf speaker or “2.1” setup doesn’t get close.
love it! the whole video, too.
made me think of this, which is part of Bringin the Noise, Bringin the Funk, which i saw many years ago.
they play the armature behind them, too, but i can’t find a full video of them doing so (the audio is on the soundtrack album, though)
True enough, but even live, at 16 Hz the tactile is all that most people get - what they might hear are the upper partials (which drop off very rapidly for flutes, at any rate). With string instruments, those upper partials will be inharmonic, because those strings are thick.
The other problem (from a composer’s viewpoint) is that these instruments speak very slowly, which means that their utility is limited to serving as the foundation of a very slow moving organum.
Adolphe Sax invented a ton of weird stuff. Here’s my favorite: a valve trombone with six valves and seven bells. I think the concept here was to to have a more consistent taper for different possible airflows.
I don’t really like this thing. It sounds like crap! At least via YouTube, to be more precise. But I’m guessing it sounds like crap in real life too.
It’s moody. Good thing it’s rainy here today, perfect soundtrack for it.
