Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Feast your ears on the nightmarish melodies of this Furby-powered synth organ

THE FURBY ORGAN, A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT MADE FROM FURBIES

We’ve covered some pretty oddball musical instruments in our time at Digital Trends, but perhaps none weirder than this Furby Organ, which repurposes the “must-have” robot toy of the late 1990s to form a nightmarish choir.

Recommended Videos

“The Furby Organ is a musical machine made from Furby souls,” its creator, U.K.-based synth scientist and YouTuber Sam “Look Mum No Computer” Battle, told Digital Trends. “The Furbies gave me their consent to build them into a purpose-built organ machine, with each Furby assigned a musical note on the keyboard. Think of it as a Furby retirement home, but where the Furbies have to work for their supper.”

Okay, so that’s a fairly offbeat way of describing the instrument (although perhaps no more strange than one would expect from a man who has built a music machine made of furry bird-like creatures), but it does explain a bit about how it functions.

Seizing upon the synthesized chatter aspect of the Furby, Battle’s ingenious concept involves linking the creatures up to a MIDI keyboard that lets him control their chatter and movement. There’s the ability to loop sound, 45 tone controls for each Furby note output, knobs for changing the individual vowel sounds, and more. It’s all kinds of bizarre, but all kinds of brilliant, too.

“I came up with the idea a good six or seven years ago,” Battle said. “I was modifying Furbies for a few years. I bought a ton of Furbies, but I didn’t have the technical know-how, so the plans laid dormant for a few years. I found myself mentioning to people about this Furby Organ, but whenever I mentioned it, I felt like a dreamer with an empty idea, which got on my nerves. So this New Year’s Eve, I made a resolution to finish this idea. After four weeks of soldering and swearing at inanimate toys, the world has a Furby Organ!”

Furby Organ Vlog #2 - Building It

Sadly, it may well remain the world’s only Furby Organ. That’s because Battle is hanging up his gloves as a Furby instrument maker. “The Furby Organ is done, case closed,” he said. “The joke is on whoever is going to have to sort through all my crap after I conk it. Who the hell is going to want this creepy monstrosity of an end-of-days machine in their living room, staring them in their face?”

We’re guessing the answer may prove to be a few more folks than he might expect.

Luke Dormehl
Former Digital Trends Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Range Rover’s first electric SUV has 48,000 pre-orders
Land Rover Range Rover Velar SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition

Range Rover, the brand made famous for its British-styled, luxury, all-terrain SUVs, is keen to show it means business about going electric.

And, according to the most recent investor presentation by parent company JLR, that’s all because Range Rover fans are showing the way. Not only was demand for Range Rover’s hybrid vehicles up 29% in the last six months, but customers are buying hybrids “as a stepping stone towards battery electric vehicles,” the company says.

Read more
BYD’s cheap EVs might remain out of Canada too
BYD Han

With Chinese-made electric vehicles facing stiff tariffs in both Europe and America, a stirring question for EV drivers has started to arise: Can the race to make EVs more affordable continue if the world leader is kept out of the race?

China’s BYD, recognized as a global leader in terms of affordability, had to backtrack on plans to reach the U.S. market after the Biden administration in May imposed 100% tariffs on EVs made in China.

Read more
Tesla posts exaggerate self-driving capacity, safety regulators say
Beta of Tesla's FSD in a car.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is concerned that Tesla’s use of social media and its website makes false promises about the automaker’s full-self driving (FSD) software.
The warning dates back from May, but was made public in an email to Tesla released on November 8.
The NHTSA opened an investigation in October into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with the FSD software, following three reported collisions and a fatal crash. The investigation centers on FSD’s ability to perform in “relatively common” reduced visibility conditions, such as sun glare, fog, and airborne dust.
In these instances, it appears that “the driver may not be aware that he or she is responsible” to make appropriate operational selections, or “fully understand” the nuances of the system, NHTSA said.
Meanwhile, “Tesla’s X (Twitter) account has reposted or endorsed postings that exhibit disengaged driver behavior,” Gregory Magno, the NHTSA’s vehicle defects chief investigator, wrote to Tesla in an email.
The postings, which included reposted YouTube videos, may encourage viewers to see FSD-supervised as a “Robotaxi” instead of a partially automated, driver-assist system that requires “persistent attention and intermittent intervention by the driver,” Magno said.
In one of a number of Tesla posts on X, the social media platform owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a driver was seen using FSD to reach a hospital while undergoing a heart attack. In another post, a driver said he had used FSD for a 50-minute ride home. Meanwhile, third-party comments on the posts promoted the advantages of using FSD while under the influence of alcohol or when tired, NHTSA said.
Tesla’s official website also promotes conflicting messaging on the capabilities of the FSD software, the regulator said.
NHTSA has requested that Tesla revisit its communications to ensure its messaging remains consistent with FSD’s approved instructions, namely that the software provides only a driver assist/support system requiring drivers to remain vigilant and maintain constant readiness to intervene in driving.
Tesla last month unveiled the Cybercab, an autonomous-driving EV with no steering wheel or pedals. The vehicle has been promoted as a robotaxi, a self-driving vehicle operated as part of a ride-paying service, such as the one already offered by Alphabet-owned Waymo.
But Tesla’s self-driving technology has remained under the scrutiny of regulators. FSD relies on multiple onboard cameras to feed machine-learning models that, in turn, help the car make decisions based on what it sees.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s technology relies on premapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar, and lidar (a laser-light radar), which might be very costly, but has met the approval of safety regulators.

Read more