Weirdness: PlayStation Eye Employed to Turn Trees into Orchestral Epics

You can count the number of truly great PlayStation Eye games on one hand, but German composer Bartholomäus Traubeck has achieved something that London Studio couldn’t, by actually making something memorable with the PlayStation 3’s ill-fated peripheral. Embedded below, you’ll find an excerpt from his record Years, which features a series of arrangements captured directly from Austrian tree trunks.

Using a custom record player comprising of a turntable, stepper motor, and parts of the abovementioned camera, Traubeck’s ingenious solution captures data from the cross section of trees, which is then sent to sequencer Ableton Live in order to trigger the haunting sounds that you hear below. This particular piece has been derived from an Ash tree, but the full album includes Oak, Maple, Walnut, and Beech trees, too.

The really incredible part is that due to the varying characteristics of the wood, each variety offers a unique sound. Does this justify the existence of the PlayStation Eye? We’d have to be pretty sad saps to say no.