Jie Qi, from Media Lab’s High-Low Tech Group, took a synthesizer and distilled it into a compact, no-frills interface. About the size of an audio cassette, it has setting for multiple tones, looping ability, and five note polyphony. The sound has an 8 bit feel to it, but the real magic is in how it’s controlled They packed a ton of functionality into a small space, including the ability to share tracks with friends.
Joe Paradiso has installed his homebuilt mammoth analog modular synthesizer in the MIT Museum and has completed a fairly epic patch which you can listen to (24 hours a day)
A true classic for DIY synth makers and circuit benders, the Atari Punk Console can kick out some ear-catching square waves. It’s easy to build and a lot of fun to play around with. It may be challenging to make traditional music with an APC, but hey-, there’s enough of that around already, right?
Hey, you want to make some chunky 8-bit music? In a recipe box? With Atari paddles? Using a Dremel tool? We thought you might. The “Atari Punk Con- sole” is the name given to the wonderfully retro- sounding stepped tone generator, designed by hobby electronics pioneer Forrest M. Mims III. It is a 556-based timer circuit oscillator that generates a square wave. More importantly, it sounds like Atari 2600 music and is fun to build into a cool enclosure.
What do you do with that little plastic axe once you’ve had your fill of Guitar Hero? Turn it into a real instrument, of course. Arizona maker Justin Bread added just enough components to convert his.
The MidiVox shield turns a basic Arduino board into a standalone MIDI synthesizer with parameters tweakable via MIDI CC messages. Hook up a MIDI keyboard controller via the onboard 5-pin DIN (aka MIDI) jack, upload a sketch and play. You may be surprised what sweet sounds can be generated by a single channel of 12-bit […]
I like where Youtube user DanieleMattei is going with his video Filter control via light blob tracking in Processing. Using OpenCV and Processing (what else!), he rigged up a way to control the parameters of his synth by waving a flashlight around.
