People doubted its strength and versatility. They thought it was outdated and old. Well it’s back baby! The floppy disk drive is back! It has been for a while now, actually. It all started on September 16th, of 2007, when a YouTuber by the name of drbpony uploaded a video titled “The Singing 1541 Floppy Drive.” The video featured a Commodore 64 floppy disk drive playing a programmed melody. Ever since, from the Ghost Busters Theme, to Imperial March from Star Wars, to Nyan Cat, to tutorials on how it’s done, videos relating to floppy disk drive music have been popping up left and right.
Here’s how it works under the hood: in a standalone floppy disk drive, a magnetizable disk rotates at a constant speed while a read/write head, manipulated by a motor, travels back and forth along its radius. Those movements are what cause this sound. Using some sort of specialized floppy drive controller, you can have it not read or write data at all, but instead, wait for data in the form of a MIDI note, determine that note’s frequency, and instruct the drive to move its read/write head back and forth at that frequency. Boom; you’ve got yourself the coolest instrument ever.
So now that we know what’s actually going on, lets move onto my top 5 personal favorite floppy drive tunes!
5. Gigawipf – Somebody That I Used to Know (Gotye cover)
Well, the original isn’t EDM, but I would feel comfortable calling this electronic music, wouldn’t you?
4. Gigawipf – James Bond 007 Theme (Monty Norman)
This one sounds particularly interesting because of those long notes. Who ever thought a floppy disk could pull off some vibrato madness?
3. MrSolidSnake745 – Sandstorm (Darude cover)
Love how this one turned out. I know some people will have issue with the added sounds/drums, but I personally feel they’re necessary to complete it. Either way, enjoy!
2. MrSolidSnake745 – One More Time (Daft Punk cover)
It would be ridiculous to talk about this topic without including a Daft Punk tune. After all, they’re pioneers in the EDM industry.
1. MrSolidSnake745 – What Is Love? (Haddaway cover)
And finally, an absolute EDM classic: “What Is Love?” by Haddaway (or Watt Is Love, I should say; ayyy).
