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.
AJTurley lives out many a Kraftwerk fan’s fantasy as he uses his scientific calculator as a MIDI controller by way of a Basic Stamp board – This is a demo of a project I built so that I could use my HP 48 to play a MIDI keyboard. The calculator is running a program that […]
Linsey Pollak drills out a carrot and turns it into a clarinet and plays it, live looping with a Boss RC20 to record 3 layers….from his solo show “Making Jam” Wow – I thought you coud only get tone like that from a gourd! [via Boing Boing] More: Handlebars as wind instrument
From the MAKE Flickr photo pool Arms22 shares this oddly stealthy example of DIY audio – converting a couple of empty grandes into computer speakers using a TDA1552Q amplifier chip. Nice reuse – looks natural too! The relevant page is in Japanese but you can still check out the schematic – Coffee cup speakers
The Auduino project turns Arduino into a PWM based sound synthesizer – Sound is generated by playing the same noise (‘grain’) repeatedly at very high speed. This merges into a tone that is an audible hybrid of the repetition rate and the original grain. The grain consists of two triangular waves of adjustable frequency, and […]
Plan-K-Troniks demos this unique mod for the Gakken SX-150 analog synthesizer – a green plasma disc, used to control sound via contact with the stylus. Great – now on to the Gakken Tesla coil! SX-150 Analog Synthesizer Kit
The by-no-means-subtle flash and racket of Zippy’s squarewave cylinder – …here’s my brand new homemade analog synth, inspired by the Thingamagoop, but designed from scratch by Zippy. It’s controlled by three mercury tilt-switches and of course, buttons-and-knobs. Fun to play! The sound changes as you rotate the thing. It’s brain is seven square-wave oscillators: three […]
Lorin Parker of Electric Western demonstrates his Phantastron vacuum-tube sound synthesizer under the control of electric guitar rendering “magic sub-octaves” matching sub-octaves in the process. I have witnessed firsthand what the Phantastron does to a guitar signal, it is both brutal and beautiful!
