How to design a vacuum tube amplifier
Ever wonder what goes into the design of a vacuum tube audio amplifier?
Music
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.
Use simple components to make a pitch sequencer
Australian chiptunes wizard Sebastian Tomczak built this DIY 8-Step Waveform Editor using just a few integrated circuits (ICs) and slider potentiometers. Each slider represents the amplitude of a waveform at one step of its cycle, and since there are eight sliders, there are eight positions in the waveform. So, how does it work? The waveform […]
Algorithmic synth uses swappable chips
Niklas Roy’s “Vektron modular” is a unigue approach to experimental synth hardware. The main device is essentially a control interface + display, capable of accepting a variety of digital chips as its core – The device plays compositions which are stored on microcontroller modules. The modules in this presentation are based on the Atmega family […]
Fist-pumping controller for music performance
Haeyoung Kim, aka Bubblyfish, wanted to make an animating LED display controlled by her chiptune rock-out move, the fist pump. Her and some classmates put together this little space invader LED dude who animates when the wrist-mounted accelerometer is moved in one of a few recognized motions. They also made an instructable documenting the procedure […]
Sweet sounds of the 8-bit Shruti-1
Mobile music software developer Olivier Gillet recently turned his focus to hardware, founding the new Mutable Instruments brand. Mutable’s first device, the Shruti-1 uses an ATMega328p (of Arduino fame) and implements a number of features found in pro-level synths, including – arpeggiator, patch memory, assignable modulation, a step sequencer, & MIDI in/out. This all results […]
DIYPad: Controlling Ableton Live via iPad
Ryan Noise shares his method for controlling the Live audio app with a few pieces of helper software, namely: OSCulator, Touchosc and Python script. As CDM points out, this process could likely be simplified by omitting OSCulator and using LiveOSC. I’ve have similar plans myself for the new tablet – unfortunately, all these handy new […]
In the Maker Shed: Gramophone Kit
Create an actual working gramophone recorder/player. Record onto many different types of materials, like old unwanted CDs (yes, I’m talking about your Wham collection) or any hard, smooth surface material you can cut a groove in. Check out the English PDF instructions in the How-To tab on this page (book and kit are in Japanese but beautifully done) but the detailed illustrations are more than enough to easily put this kit together. MAKE is proud to be the exclusive distributor in North America for these brilliant kits from Gakken.
