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.
Inspired by the CGI video series Animusic, Stefan “g000ze” of Lets Make Robots and his sons built this Marblephone. Using a bunch of marbles, some solenoids, and bars from a xylophone, he built an electromechanical instrument to play out tunes by dropping marbles onto the xylophone bars.
First up is Dan Hemingson’s “ambisonic” (Wikipedia) recording work. Shown above is the tetrahedral microphone array Dan uses to record his soundscapes, three of which he played back on the ACTlab’s surround-sound system. The tetrahedral microphone arrangement makes it possible to mathematically derive any number or spatial arrangement of surround-sound channels from the raw audio. Professional ambisonic microphones cost thousands of dollars; Dan put his together for nine bucks. He played amazing recordings of a babbling river, a clowder of feeding cats, and a pipe organ recital at UT’s Bass Concert Hall, while the audience milled about the room to experience the spatial simulation of sound. The realism was absolutely uncanny.
Sebastian Thielke’s PongThatBeat! sequencer was created using Max/MSP and Processing – and it looks like fun!
MAKE contributor Larry Cotton outfitted his Player Marimba (as seen in MAKE Volume 4, page 20) with MIDI control via two MD24 decoders from Highly Liquid. Nice – wouldn’t mind hearing a bit of the instrument play solo. [via Highly Liquid]
A special Blip Festival edition of NYC’s Handmade Music this Wednesday – Babycastles teams up with Handmade Music Night for the inaugural opening of a permanent indie games arcade in Brooklyn. 915 Wyckoff Street, L to Halsey or M to Myrtle / Wyckoff. (map below) This opening celebrates Adam Atomic’s Canabalt (NYC), Ivan Safrin’s Owl […]
If you haven’t heard about They Might Be Giants’ new album “Here Comes Science,” here’s your chance. They’ll play a benefit concert at the New York Hall of Science this Sunday: Queens, N.Y. — After months of traveling the country on a national tour, 2009 Grammy Winners They Might Be Giants will play two benefit […]
Konservendose built this sweet little square wave synth using a cardboard enclosure and chewing gum wrapper touch contacts – The LEDs are synched with the beat. the harder you press on the touchpads, the less resistance your fingers have. this way you can control the beat (left side) or make queer noises (right side). [via […]
