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, weโll 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.
Amit Zoran’s Chameleon guitar uses replaceable soundboards built from various types of wood and other materials to take on different sonic characteristics – The five electronic pickups on the soundboard provide detailed information about the wood’s acoustic response to the vibration of the strings. This information is then processed by the computer to simulate different […]
I love the Buddha Machine, the ambient sound generator with a Buddha inside every byte. Modulator Mike bent his box to add a pitch control and a light-dependent resistor theremin control. I’d love to hear what this sounds like. BTW: I discovered that there’s a Buddha Machine iPhone app. It’s $4, tho. Too much for […]
MySpacer GoodVillain has taken Casio SK-1 modding to its limits with the “Sample Smasher”. Stripped of its original enclosure and controls he rehoused the popular sampling keyboard’s electronics in a gig-worthy metal case. and added a slew of new controls and abilities – The user can record or overlap samples and then change and glitch […]
Maker Faire mainstays ArcAttack explain some of the hardware behind their powerfully musical singing Tesla coils. They go on to describe plans for a European tour and chat a bit about controlling their rig with shiny new tech from OpenLabs. Perhaps you thought transporting a hefty combo amp was tough? Moving this kind of gear […]
This enjoyably quirky documentary tells the tale of Thaddeus Cahill’s Telharmonium, the monstrous forerunner of the analog synthesizer, making music before even the age of popular radio – The Telharmonium was a 200-ton behemoth that created numerous musical timbres and could flood many rooms with sound. Beginning with the first instrument, constructed in the 1890’s, […]
Skot Wiedmann of Motus Mavis explores unknown soundscapes via his mysteriously beautiful star-synth. The dual-wheel touchpad controls steal the show in this one. Around those free-spinning silver dials are what appears to be pressure sensitive pads – perhaps similar to the neoprene interface of the Continuum Fingerboard. Whatever the tech may be, the design is […]
From the MAKE Flickr pool Solipsistnation posted detailed info for the excellent MeggySeq project (we recently covered) – MeggySeq has 8 patterns of 16 steps each. You can set each of those steps to play one of 8 WAV files on the waveshield. You can play the pattern back, stop it playing, and change the […]
