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.
Tim O’Keefe, Michael McIntyre, and Brock Roland of San Francisco State University’s School of Engineering created MARV, here. That’s “MIDI Actuated Robotic Vibraphone,” of course. Which is a nested acronym, really. Crank it all the way out and it’s “Musical Instrument Digital Interface Actuated Robotic Vibraphone,” or MIDIARV, which is not nearly so catchy. Each […]
Got a cool idea for a physical computing project (or actual music instrument) that uses MIDI, but don’t have a computer with an actual MIDI port?
Yoshi Akai’s Wireless Catcher analog synth derives control input from nearby wireless signals picked up by an onboard antennae. As if that weren’t interesting enough, the copper control panel sports some elegant decorative flourishes typical of his impressive body of work. Be sure to check out more amazing custom synth aesthetics on Yoshi’s site. [Thanks, […]
I am getting ready for my first NYC runway show, the Fairytale Fashion Show, on Feb. 24th at Eyebeam. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be writing about some of the preparations, on CRAFT and here at Make: Online. This show will be of the technology fashion collection developed at FairytaleFashion.org, where technology […]
Back in MAKE Volume 04 (2005), we ran a project for making an electric cigar box guitar. In the newest issue of MAKE, Volume 21, our editor in chief Mark Frauenfelder offers a DIY on making a classic cigar box guitar, and we’ve had a few people commenting on the article page and sharing gorgeous […]
Reader Craig Smith sent me an email about this recent little fix he discovered for time-worn cassettes: I was in my basement shop when I found a box of cassette tapes that were the soundtrack to my youth. Since the seldom-used tape deck was removed from the upstairs entertainment center, I set it up in […]
Mike Una points out the action-packed tape deck manipulations of French musician/bender Alexis Malbert, better known as Tapetronic. Very cool to see the focus of hacking turn a bit more toward the cassette itself, rather than just the playback mechanism. More over at GetLoFi.
