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.
Peter writes “Audacity, the excellent and free waveform editor for Mac, Windows, and Linux, is finally getting a major upgrade. The new beta does real multitracking, helps you transcribe music or interviews with pitch controls, adds better Mac support, and unveils many other improvements. Most promising for podcasters: an FTP upload option.” Link. This is great news for Podcasters!
Omegas writes in about the DIY Minimoog – “If you want to get started with analog synth building but Minimoog seems too complicated, see the instructions at Music From Outer Space on how to build your first synth. The Weird Sound Generator, as it’s called, familiarizes you with the basics of analog sound generation and creates wicked sounds too.” See previous.
Excellent project – “After playing on many different synths and copying several designs. I decided that I had to have a minimoog… Unfortunately the cost of a second hand minimoog is anything between 1000-2000 Euros depending on age and condition. So the only choice I have is to look at doing my own copy with the aim of keeping the circuits and design as original as possible. Having never played one, or seen one until a few months ago I have managed to amass a reasonable collection of circuits and pictures in order to help me in my quest.” [via] Link.
“What you see before you is an OPEN DSP system. People are currently using it to create some of the most ORIGINAL-SOUNDING EFFECTS and INSTRUMENTS in the world, since its architecture is open. Its users tweak, modify, CUSTOMIZE, improve and develop the software it comes with. It’s inexpensive and can be quite portable. It runs MIDI or connects to your Palm Pilot. Some programs don’t require either to make fun and useful effects.” [via] Link.
“Getting music to your Symbian phone is not as easy as it should be… If you are using a Nokia phone you may be able to use the Nokia Music Manager (which is part of PC Suite). This How-To shows you how Mass Storage Synchronizer can be used to copy music from iTunes to a memory card (which you can then put in your phone). This does not syncronize iTunes with the phone, it copies music from the PC (iTunes library) to a memory card in a USB memory card reader. ” Thanks Ewan! Link.
Chris writes “Considering how many people bought the HP Bluetooth stereo headphones and got disappointed when the headband snapped, I thought that it was time to do something useful with the ‘broken’ headphone. We’ll take you through all steps of dismantling the Bluetooth receiver and building it into a nice mouse housing with 12v in and line out. And as the device keeps its battery, you can also use this as a portable Bluetooth stereo receiver and plug in you high quality headphones or even connect it to your stereo at home.” Link.
“Godfather of DIY synths” John Simonton died today, a pioneer in synthesizer kits and founder of PAiA. His work continues to have a following today, including many wild instrumental creations. He’ll be sorely missed in the music/Maker community.” 