Reader Mitsushi Abe let us know about this fantastic DIY project – an Ondes Martenot MIDI Controller.
Abe, who describes himself as “an amateur geek living in Tokyo”, loves to make DIY instruments. He used an Arduino to control the Korg Legacy Collection Mono/Poly software synth.
At the end of this video, he plays Saint-Saens’ The Swan on the Ondes Martenot MIDI Controller.
Outstanding. The guy not only built the instrument, which is impressive enough, but he’s also invested the time required to play it well. That’s a two-fer. I prefer the sound of a Martenot to that of a Theremin. Its very subjective, but the former sounds more like the player is digging in, somehow. Three thumbs up for building it, playing it well and showing its easy integration with the modern world. I’m sure I’m not the only one who can envision a commercial version of this being well-embraced.
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Brilliant!…thanks for sharing…highly appreciate it
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Wonderful!! It sounds fantastic,and the build quality is superb.I love the way you made it
tidy,yet still allowed the guts to be visible.absolutely exquisite!! Well done,old boy!!
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wow, awesome work ! And very nice sounds !
I’d have really no idea about how to make this !
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Man, that is something! Outstanding build, and really outstanding playing. Just a beautiful sound.
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if i’m calculating it correctly, the 10bit ADC on the arduino when covering 4 octaves would mean that there is only 20 steps per semitone. that also assumes zero noise on the ADC, if there’s even 1 bit of noise, that goes down to 10 steps per semitone. that seems quite big, and I’m surprised that the pitch is so smooth in the video.. is there any smoothing going on here in software? maybe a very very slight amount of portamento/glide being dialed in on the softsynth?
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