Creating electronic music devices is a fun and rewarding process which has been demonstrated incredibly well by Edward Perks. For a final year project at university he created a fantastic MIDI controller that uses infra-red distance sensors that allow for a more fluid and natural control of the resulting sounds. The hardware is based around an Arduino Mega running firmata, which allows for control via USB and Edward's Max/MSP code on the PC. It is a stunning project and we're glad to hear Edward won the "Best Final Year Project" award for it. Check out the demonstration in the following video:
Certainly a top-end example of what can be done with an Arduino - so for more information and inspiration visit Edward's website. And for more. we're on twitter and Google+ - so follow us for news and product updates as well.
If you're looking for an Arduino-compatible board with plenty of I/O to drive many buttons, LEDs, keypads and more - consider the Freetronics EtherMega:
Quite simply the EtherMega is the fully-loaded Arduino-compatible board on the market today. Apart from being completely Arduino Mega2560-compatible, it includes full Ethernet interface, a microSD card socket, full USB interface, optional Power-over-Ethernet support and still has a circuit prototyping area with extra I2C interface pins. So if your project is breaking the limits, upgrade to the EtherMega today.