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.
Here’s an iTunes add-on for Mobile Phones. This free software allows PalmOne Treo 650 & 600 smartphones, Sony-Ericsson’s Walkman phones, Nokia’s XpressMusic and Samsung MP3 phones (with hard keys to control playback) to be synchronized with iTunes. It enables them to be a virtual iTunes phones like the Motorola ROKR, but without the 100 song limit. Link.
“From Ray Wilson, inventor of the Soundlab Mini Synth comes the Wacky Electronic Noise Maker Thingy. It’s a much simpler circuit, which produces surprisingly cool pulsing, bleeping type noises. You can hear sound clips here. It’s made with a handful of components, a few pots and switches and a 9v battery. There’s a very clear schematic, a PCB design and a stripboard layout.” Thanks Tom! Link.
Peter writes “It’s toasters as musical instruments: people are stuffing guitar amps and effects and synths into vintage toasters, with tricked-out options like chrome paint, rubber tires, and flame throwers. And yes, they still make toast.” Link. Also worth mentioning, Peter has 3 great DIY music articles in MAKE 04.
Rob writes “The Phongraph makers’ pages – A meeting place for makers of modern phonographs, i.e. cylinder players that give an electric output.” …when browsing through the entries, no two phonographs are alike, in fact they are very different, an expression of the creativity of their respective makers. Link.
Fantastic timeline with instrument, inventor, country, date and information page – This site charts the development of electronic musical instruments from 1870 to 1990. For the purposes of this project electronic musical instruments are defined as instruments that synthesise sounds from an electronic source. The main focus of the site is on instruments developed from the beginning of the century until the 1960’s. Link.
Bob writes “Cornell student Levi Lorenzo wanted to do a project about MIDI music technology, so the project he came up with was to build a hamster controlled music generator. The hamster controller uses 6 hamsters to control 3 rythmic tones. One hamster controls the “rythmic qualities of the melodies”, and the other controls the note sequence. As the hamsters wander back and forth in their passages, the music created changes according to their position. The music is actually not bad!” [via] Link.
We’ve covered the PEZ MP3 story for many months, and today (iPod day it seems) comes news of Patrick’s PEZ MP3 player! This may be stating the obvious, but this player has one feature that no other MP3 player can claim. It looks like a PEZ dispenser. In fact, it looks a lot like a PEZ dispenser. But, look a little closer and you will see where the headphones plug in, you will see a small play button. Pull on the toes and you will open up a battery door. I wanted the PEZ MP3 player to be as true to the PEZ dispenser as possible and still be an easy to use, inexpensive MP3 player. Link.
