Long and agonizing has been my wait for the pairing of a three-octave marimba's upbeat tonality and the synth kitsch of a MIDI player. Thank you, Player Marimba, for answering my prayers.

By deconstructing a standard marimba, assigning a mallet to each, and hooking the whole mess up to two MD24 MIDI decoders, Larry Cotton has found a way to enjoy the soothing plinking of a marimba that can be controlled by any a MIDI sequencer or keyboard. The result is, as you can see/hear, not far from magic. I just like to imagine how many shootouts could have been avoided if these had been around in the Old West instead of those rinky dink player pianos. [Highly Liquid via Make]