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.

Musical Go boards

Musical Go boards

Some years ago, a conversation with my old friend Billy Baque turned to the subject of adapting board games for sightless play. When it came round to Go, Billy mentioned having read of an antique Korean board, hollow inside and strung with wires along the lines of the grid, the wires being tuned such that each intersection produced a unique musical interval when a stone was placed upon it. Whether this was simply an aesthetic embellishment or a means to make the game more accessible to sightless players, he did not know.

Drill-powered “fort” speakers

Drill-powered “fort” speakers

MAKE subscriber John Kelbley was doing some expansion/improvements on his kids’ “fort” and wanted to deliver music to the (unpowered) space. His solution was to use the rechargeable powerpack from an an old 12 volt Ryobi drill and use the drill body as a stand for two outdoor speakers he found on clearance. Amplification is […]

Making Football Hero

We never do the same thing twice, and the projects can be pretty stressful as we’re always taking a risk and sticking our necks out, often doing things that have never been done before. We also work with relatively small budgets. Luckily it’s almost always worth the hard work though.

The Maker scene and the general explosion in low cost high technology have been a huge inspiration to us. Many of the things we do would have been pretty much inconceivable ten years ago. It’s also important that we try to work with technologies that the world and his dog aren’t all trying to innovate with. So for example we’ve stayed away from augmented reality as pretty much everyone is trying to create something with those tools.