instrument

Live music – on a bike!

Paul Freedman of Rock the Bike fitted a utility bicycle with instrument rack + seat – thus creating a mobile music performance vehicle. This demo vid shows the maiden voyage his friend Janaysa on vocals/keyboard – would’ve been nice to hear them ride through my neighborhood. Just imagine all the other instruments this could carry, […]

Psst – whisper synth makes wearable sound

Psst – whisper synth makes wearable sound

Andrew from San Francisco constructed this sonically stylish piece – Whisper was conceived as a simple wearable audio device that would be lightweight, comfortable, and provide an engaging and simple interface that was capable of producing interesting noises. I had recently been working on AVR code for sound synthesis for my Whispering Islands installation, and […]

Guitar pedal prototyping kit

Guitar pedal prototyping kit

This looks like an excellent all-in-one solution for those wanting to get started in DIY guitar effects fast. The Beavis Board kit comes with pretty much every necessity for development – A true-bypass i/o breakout box that makes it easy to connect circuits to the real world, i.e. your guitar, amps and pedals A pair […]

Conveniently sized MIDI controllers

Conveniently sized MIDI controllers

Most commercial MIDI controllers are unnecessarily large and awkward – certainly not designed to be on ones lap while soldering/bending/wiring/coding. Hopefully Korg’s upcoming line of “nano” devices can fill that void. Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music runs through the slated features – nanoKEY: 25 keys, transmitting either as MIDI notes or (via a separate […]

Old multimeter case reborn for synthing

Old multimeter case reborn for synthing

From the MAKE Flickr photo pool Zeni666 repurposed an old multimeter case as a musical instrument enclosure – An SN76477 sound generator chip placed indide a Kenwood DL711 Multimeter. Settings of the SN76477 are done through three pots and the buttons of the multimeter front panel. There is a light sensor (photoresistor) that is placed […]