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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
Diego Stocco made this short composition Music From A Bonsai by tapping, rustling, and bowing various parts of a Bonsai tree.
Joe Saavedra hacked his Moog Etherwave Theremin kit with sound-sensitive RGBs and a custom acrylic top he designed and laser-cut. This DIY project basically has it all: Arduino, music, LEDs, and a laser cutter. What’s not to love? A few more pictures after the jump. See all the pictures at Joe’s Flickr set.
