I love brilliant ideas, especially when they work.

buddha1FM3 is a group of two Beijing-based musicians, Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian, who produce electronic ambient music. A few years ago, they hatched an idea that brought their creation to a worldwide audience, far from the walls of trendy art galleries: the Buddha Machine.

The Buddha Machine looks like a transistor radio. It sounds like one, too. Except that the sound from its speaker isn’t a radio signal, but instead one of nine FM3 ambient audio compositions. All the pieces are under a minute; some under ten seconds. Once selected, a composition repeats indefinitely.
The compositions are best described as quiet and contemplative. It’s ambient music. It’s more than white noise, and it frees you from urban distractions: the unwanted sounds of traffic and office machines. The compositions differ from whale songs or wave sounds; much as I love the seashore, recorded or synthetic sounds from nature strike me as out of place in the bustling city.
buddha2The Buddha Machine is a marketing masterpiece.
It’s a content-delivery system: it allows FM3 to monetize their compositions. I doubt that even ringtone enthusiasts would pay for the ambient compositions, but many will gladly pay $20 –even €20– for the Buddha Machine.
It’s also a self-selling system. You can’t help but notice a Buddha Machine or to ask, “What’s that?” And once you’ve become acquainted with the Buddha Machine, you want to get one for yourself and to tell others about this nifty device.
And it’s global in scope. The composition and boxes are made in China, but win over consumers everywhere.
Buddhamachine2.0 New incarnations of the Buddha Machine recently appeared.
FM3 came out with a version 2.0, with new compositions, softer colors, and pitch control (whatever that is: the Buddha Machine is emphatically lo-fi).
A Buddha Machine app for the iPhone diversified the product offering: you can have a Buddha Machine on your iPhone (if you have one).
And Zendesk came out with the FM3 Buddha Machine Wall. This is a web-based, virtual wall of 27 Buddha Machines. It won me over with its ability to play several compositions simultaneously. This is a great effect because the compositions vary by length, so there’s both repetition and novel combinations. (Apparently Buddha Machine users have been doing this for years with the physical Buddha Machines.)
Finally, FM3 made available downloads of its loops, for free: you can pick up the compositions, put them on a music player set to repeat, and enjoy the sounds of the Buddha Box anywhere.
From this happy customer, best wishes to FM3 and the Buddha Machine for continued success! (And praise too for FM3′s beautiful web site, in Chinese and in English.)