Music

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.

USB-Based Guitar shipping…

USB-Based Guitar shipping…

Iguitarusbjack-1Brian Moore has taken their excellent iGuitar line of digitally-equipped guitars, and added class-compliant USB, via the new iGuitar.USB model. Plug it into a USB jack, and you have instant access to your sound in recording and effects software, no drivers required. Fully bus-powered, so you don’t even need a power brick. Unlike Gibson’s so-called “digital guitar,” what’s great about the iGuitar.USB is that you can connect a single USB cable between your guitar and your computer for audio: no breakout boxes or multiple cabling required. [via] Link.

Super-simple DIY synth plans

Super-simple DIY synth plans

Synth-1
“From Ray Wilson, inventor of the Soundlab Mini Synth comes the Wacky Electronic Noise Maker Thingy. It’s a much simpler circuit, which produces surprisingly cool pulsing, bleeping type noises. You can hear sound clips here. It’s made with a handful of components, a few pots and switches and a 9v battery. There’s a very clear schematic, a PCB design and a stripboard layout.” Thanks Tom! Link.

Hamster Powered MIDI Device

Hamster Powered MIDI Device

Ham-1 Bob writes “Cornell student Levi Lorenzo wanted to do a project about MIDI music technology, so the project he came up with was to build a hamster controlled music generator. The hamster controller uses 6 hamsters to control 3 rythmic tones. One hamster controls the “rythmic qualities of the melodies”, and the other controls the note sequence. As the hamsters wander back and forth in their passages, the music created changes according to their position. The music is actually not bad!” [via] Link.

PEZ MP3 is on sale!

PEZ MP3 is on sale!

Pez-1 We’ve covered the PEZ MP3 story for many months, and today (iPod day it seems) comes news of Patrick’s PEZ MP3 player! This may be stating the obvious, but this player has one feature that no other MP3 player can claim. It looks like a PEZ dispenser. In fact, it looks a lot like a PEZ dispenser. But, look a little closer and you will see where the headphones plug in, you will see a small play button. Pull on the toes and you will open up a battery door. I wanted the PEZ MP3 player to be as true to the PEZ dispenser as possible and still be an easy to use, inexpensive MP3 player. Link.