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.
I like where Youtube user DanieleMattei is going with his video Filter control via light blob tracking in Processing. Using OpenCV and Processing (what else!), he rigged up a way to control the parameters of his synth by waving a flashlight around.
Sebastian built an experimental record/looper circuit, resulting in some interesting sample contortionism – This circuit currently has a few ways to manipulate audio. These are: A record button allows the user to sample incoming audio to a RAM buffer A potentiometer sets the input level A potentiometer sets the sample rate / pitch for playback. […]
Far beyond simply open-sourcing the schematic, Eric Archer posted a full step-by-step for recreating his Mini Space Rockers drum-synth kit on protoboard. Hmm … I get the feeling he really wants us to build these =] – very awesome. Included with the project is a list of 25 variations for achieving a wide range of […]
Thiago Teixeira made this Coin Sequencer, which allows you to lay down tracks using spare change. It’s an older project (from before 2005?), but is new to me.
This installment of EHX’s Effectology series outlines a variety of methods for using their stompboxes to create some rather convincing spookiness. Clever work, but the real highlight is the simple schematic for light control seen @ the 3:45 mark. A photocell soldered between the ground and tip/sleeve terminals of a 1/4″ plug is then connected […]
901 documents the dismantling of the offices of famous U.S. designers Charles and Ray Eames following Ray’s death in 19XX. The Eames office was a kind of maker fantasy-land, with finished and unfinished projects scattered about, meticulously organized tools and supplies, and wonderful little gewgaws in every nook and cranny.
The first few minutes of the film feature a delightful bubbling xylophone soundtrack that is eventually revealed to be coming from these prototype toys designed by the Eameses themselves, and installed in their office for their own amusement.
The towers are wooden boxes six inches square and about 15′ tall, fronted with acrylic, and having sides slotted to accept metal xylophone keys which fit loosely enough to allow free vibration and easy rearrangement. The slots for the keys are angled toward one another, slightly, so that the surfaces of the keys present a series of alternately-sloped platforms for a small hard plastic ball which, when dropped from the top of the tower, will plunk its way slowly down to the bottom, playing a little tune as it goes. The balls are injected using a manual pneumatic piston which shoots them up a pipe to the top of the tower.
We’ve covered all sorts of Guitar Hero mods, but none as minimal as this. By using a standard electromyograph attached to the forearm, researchers at Microsoft’s Muscle-Computer Interface group were able to determine the position and pressure of all five fingers. Sure, this might be useful for hands-free interfaces of the future… but wouldn’t it […]
