Take your creations beyond the workshop and onto the stage with diy music instruments! Let us show you how these creations range from simple, basic setups that produce beautiful sounds to more complex projects that require a greater level of engineering knowledge. With these tutorials and examples, we’ll guide you on this journey to make your own musical instrument for experimental, artistic or everyday use – so whether you’re starting out new or a seasoned sound creator, come explore the wonderful world of making your own music.
This project by Aleks Kolkowski creates records by using a vintage record cutter to carve grooves into old CDs and DVDs. In his recent showing of the project at the Futuresonic Festival in the UK, visitors came by with sound files which he would carve into the discs and then give copies back as a […]
Here’s a vid showing just a few of the many musical interfaces on hand at Bay Area Maker Faire. There were so many cool instruments, yet so little time to play them all. It was truly awesome to see such a great turnout on the sonic front – big thanks to all who made it […]
In this “Dipping Duck Orchestra”, music is randomly generated by 8 dipping ducks or drinking birds where the circuit is completed when the duck’s bill hits the water. The project resembles a keyboard of sorts, where each duck plays a different note when triggered. Check out the video above for the full effect. Dipping Duck […]
Core77 writes: Tim Dubitsky has just prototyped “hood.e“, a super-cozy solution to bringing music to your ears without blocking everything else out. The product has a great genesis: Tim originally created the design as a present for his nephew–who walks a dangerous route to school crossing busy thoroughfares–and wanted to make it safer for him […]
This project uses a chip that was common in video games of the 1980’s. I really like the sounds it produces. Unfortunately there isn’t any how-to, or schematics, for this project. This video shows a hardware (“real”) SP0256 IC sequencer from Ableton Live via internal MIDI routing and a serial connection over USB. Learn more […]
This musical robot analyzes the incoming audio and tries to mimic it using a series of servos and solenoids attached to different objects. In this example it is trying to reproduce a clip from Citizen Kane. Simple automatic instruments are constructed from local materials and objects on site. The system learns the sounds it can […]
This home built guitar pedal called “Fuzz Face” uses two 3AX31C germanium transistors while its onboard knobs control volume, bass, contour, fuzz, and include an internal trim pot to adjust the fuzz type. Pretty cool design and enclosure for this rockin’ device.
