Teletron: The Mind-Controlled Moog Synthesizer Built by The Apples in Stereo's Robert Schneider
What if you could play a synthesizer with your brain?
Back in 2010, Robert Schneider, musician, producer, mathematician, and frontman of psychedelic indie-pop band The Apples in Stereo, decided that playing a synthesizer with his hands was apparently too conventional.
His solution? Hack a children's toy, connect it to a vintage Moog, and build an instrument that responds to brain activity.
He called it the Teletron.
And yes, it actually works.
From a children's toy to a brainwave synthesizer
The main ingredient was the Mattel Mindflex, an electronic game that used an EEG (electroencephalography) headset to measure the player's brain activity.
Originally designed to let players move a small foam ball through an obstacle course using concentration, the Mindflex was already a pretty unusual piece of consumer electronics.
Schneider saw something else in it.
Instead of using the brainwave data to control a toy, why not use it to control a musical instrument?
He opened up the Mindflex, studied its electronics, and figured out how to redirect the electrical signal normally used to control the game's internal fan.
That fan was responsible for levitating the little ball. Its speed changed according to the player's measured brain activity.
Schneider tapped into the fan's power connection, added an output jack, and routed the resulting variable voltage to the pitch-control input of a vintage Realistic Concertmate MG-1, a synthesizer designed by Moog.
The result was the Teletron: a brainwave-controlled analog synthesizer.
How does the Teletron actually work?
The concept is surprisingly simple.
The Mindflex headset measures electrical activity in the brain through EEG sensors. Its electronics process the signal into a measurement associated with the player's attention level.
That information controls the speed of the toy's fan.
Schneider's modification takes advantage of that changing electrical output and uses it as a control voltage for the synthesizer.
In practice, greater measured brain activity can produce a higher pitch, while lower activity produces a lower pitch.
This isn't telepathy, mind reading, or direct access to someone's thoughts. The instrument responds to changes in an EEG-derived signal.
But that's still pretty amazing.
Instead of pressing keys, turning knobs, or moving a pitch wheel, the performer influences the sound through changes in their mental state.
Schneider described the experience as something that requires you to become very conscious of your thoughts and deliberately agitate your mind to alter the sound.
A rather different approach to playing a Moog.
A DIY instrument with a punk-rock philosophy
One of the coolest things about the Teletron is that Schneider never presented it as some exclusive piece of expensive laboratory equipment.
He wanted other people to be able to build one.
In his interview with Wired, he described the project as a kind of punk rock experiment. The Mindflex was an affordable consumer toy, and the modification was accessible to anyone willing to open it up and experiment.
He even published a video demonstrating the instrument and explaining how to build a version of it yourself.
This is exactly the kind of thinking that makes DIY electronic music so interesting: taking an object designed for one purpose, ignoring what the manufacturer intended, and finding an entirely different use for it.
No expensive proprietary technology. No complicated commercial music controller. Just a hacked toy, a few connections, and a vintage synthesizer.
From brainwaves to experimental music
The Teletron wasn't just a laboratory curiosity.
In 2010, Schneider demonstrated the instrument in a performance at the LVL1 hackerspace in Louisville, Kentucky, alongside experimental keyboardist Robert Beatty.
The performance involved two Teletrons, with EEG sensors worn by another participant, Chris Cprek. The signals were used to control two separate Moog synthesizers.
The musical concept was particularly unusual: the two synthesizers represented different sides of the brain.
Schneider described the left-brain synthesizer as more logical and dry, while the right-brain instrument was more dreamy and surreal.
Things became even more interesting in 2011, when Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel composed an experimental piece specifically for the Teletron.
The composition used a collage-like score featuring opposing images and ideas intended to stimulate different ways of thinking.
During the performance, Schneider and Robert Beatty manipulated the synthesizers' filters while the EEG signals determined the melodies.
It was a strange intersection of experimental composition, visual art, neuroscience, and analog synthesis.
And honestly, it sounds like something that could only have emerged from the wonderfully eccentric world surrounding the Elephant 6 collective.
The Teletron: proof that musical instruments can come from anywhere
The Teletron is a reminder that innovation in electronic music doesn't always come from synthesizer manufacturers or expensive technology companies.
Sometimes it comes from musicians who are curious enough to take things apart.
Robert Schneider took a toy designed to entertain children, repurposed its EEG technology, and connected it to an analog synthesizer to create an entirely new way of interacting with sound.
It's not necessarily the most practical instrument ever invented. Nor is it a replacement for a keyboard, sequencer, or conventional MIDI controller.
But that's missing the point.
The Teletron is an experiment in musical interaction, an unconventional instrument that challenges the relationship between performer and machine.
And if you ask us, that's a pretty good reason to keep hacking things.
Watch the Teletron in action and, if you're feeling adventurous, look up Schneider's original DIY modification tutorial. Your old Moog might be waiting for a little brain surgery.
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