This can’t end well.

You create a synthesizer-controlled Frankenstein robotic dog, and pretty soon you end up as dog food.

via SpillerNo:

How to controll a frankenstein robot dog with animatronics using a toy synthesizer. Fra programmet «Tekno» som går mandager 21:30 på NRK 2

The Haunted Spaceship – or – How an Arp Axxe sounds with my modular synth for Halloween sounds.

via nathanielscott:

Any analogue synth with a noise generator and a semi-decent filter is great for making spaceship noises. The AXXE is no exception.

My friend Stephen has had an idea about doing a short sci-fi film about ghosts in space (no not Space Ghost). If he an I ever get the film made I hope it has campy sounds like this.

Wiimote Hacked Instrument

via eyesuck17:

My first stab at making the Wiimote into an instrument.

Made using Glovepie, PureData, and FM8.Roll controls pitch within a C lydian scale, pitch controls a morph, and 2 simple sequences at 120 BPM are controlled Via the buttons.

It’s all Legend starting tom cruise up in here.

This is a video demo of Eric Archer’s Minimal Drum Machines – a DIY preset beatmaker that can communicate wirelessly with other minimal drum machines, sync and create more complex rhythms.

Details below.

via EA78751:

I’m testing the definition of “drum machine” with these fun little prototypes. They have only two chips, (TL06x opamp and CD4089). No microcontroller. One knob (tempo). One button (reset). Sixteen rhythm presets on a DIP switch. Light reactive circuits to bend the sound.

Even though the machines can play alone, they’d rather play in a group. Thats because each machine has an infrared transmitter and receiver. This lets them form a wireless network to play at the same tempo. The IR link is limited to about 12? and does not work under bright incandescent light. (the video was shot with compact fluorescent)

At the end of the video I show how interrupting the IR link affects the sound. In theory, many of these machines could be networked.

Both machines in the video share the same sequencer design. It is based on the CD4089 binary rate multiplier. Their sounds are different though. The unit in the foreground uses a pair of bridged-T oscillators to make clave / rimshot / bongo sounds. The unit in the back generates filtered noise bursts with a classic “swing VCA” mechanism.

Once finalized the designs are intended for use in a fun educational workshop setting.

Moldover has released a new album, titled Moldover, that’s not just a interesting collection of electronic music, but it comes in a CD case that’s a light theremin.

Explains moldover:

It completely redefines what it means to “play an album”… Moldover’s CD packaging itself IS a new musical instrument!

The CD is mounted on a custom designed circuit board, intricately patterned and powering a “light-Theremin”.

Yes! You play the artwork and it makes sound!

Only the musical supervillain genius of Moldover could develop something so stunningly innovative.

The album comes in several edition, including the Standard Edition (no light-theremin), the Pocket Edition (mini light-theremin) and the Awesome Edition (full circuit-board light-theremin CD insert).

You can preview the tracks from Moldover’s CD and purchase it at his site.

Leave a comment below with your thoughts on this bad boy!

Sunday Synth Jam: This video captures a keytar jam, featuring a DIY “cello-keytar”.

via Owam1986:

Me improvising with my homemade keytar, my first DIY project.There are some mistakes… don’t mind…

This video, via PlanetSynth, is an audio demo of the sound of the Music From Outer Space (MFOS) Sound Lab Mini-Synth.

The Spinner Synth is a prototype MIDI controller made with a piece of scrap wood, a webcam and some tape.

This is a circular controller for a synthesizer, using the openCV visualization library to analyze a series of points on a rotating wheel, and generate MIDI events.

Details here.

via Mahto:

Ready to control your synthesizer with a blowtorch?

This video documents a proof of concept test for the Thermatron, a vacuum tube synthesizer controlled by a flame, created and built by Lorin Edwin Parker at Electric Western.

The right mixture of gas, air pressure, high voltage, chemical ions and heat vary the flow of current through a flame. This current feeds into the grid and / or plate of vacuum tubes controlling an Electric Western Phantastron Synthesizer.

About The Thermatron:

The Thermatron is essentially a voltage controlled oscillator and wave shaper controlled by the action of a flame. This is possible because electricity can be conducted through a flame. This is not a new discovery, in fact the electrical properties of flame have been known for hundreds of years and well studied. For example, many hot water heaters have a sensor that detects flame by sensing the current inserted through the gas flame (if the gas flame goes out, the current does not reach the sensor and the heater knows that the flame is out).

It’s not as simple as lighting a fire and sticking it into the input of a synthesizer or a speaker, though. There are a number of things going on here and the impedance of the flame (how much electricity it conducts) depends upon air pressure, chemicals (gas and ionic environment), heat, applied voltage, surface area, etc. A propane flame alone is a poor conductor and does not react as well until more ions are introduced (you see that I add a chemical mixture which introduces ions to the flame like salt in water). The added ions allow the current to flow from point A to B much more easily.

Also, the hotter the flame and electrodes get, the better the conductor. This is because there is simply more energy in the system, more ions whizzing around faster, and more plasma. Within the flame there is some plasma (which is highly energized gas which gives off its electrons and conducts quite well), but only a small amount compared to the plasma generated in an argon gas tube, for example. The addition of voltage, or electrical potential through the electrodes also facilitates the creation of a more energetic flame-conductor and donates electrons to the mix.

So, as the flame heats everything up, including the added ions and metal electrodes, the whole space becomes more energetic and conductive. This space, like the space within a vacuum tube, can conduct electricity, so the 200+ volts applied to the top electrode are attracted toward the bottom electrode. Only a small number of electrons actually make it through this flame environment,though, because it has a high electrical impedance. The current which does conduct is on the order of micro-amperes, but the voltage potential is still strong…

See the Electric Western site for more details!

via sheepslinky

via jzylkin:

This is the synaesthesia-sizer I invented for my girlfriend Kelsey.

We’ll be giving a class on DIY pencil synthesizers at The Hacktory in Philadelphia on June 27th, 2009. Please come! Admission is $10.

If Kelsey goes for this sort of thing, jzylkin’s found himself a keeper, don’t you think?

This video documents the Laser Synthitar, a DIY laser guitar synth built on a 555-based synthesizer, triggered by laser pointers.

The contruction of the Laser Synthitar is documented at Instructables. 

analoq.trackr

via analoq:

A screencast demonstrating a tracker-style sequencer with simple built-in synths. It’s probably not particularly interesting to most, but within my goal to make my own music software it’s a milestone; it provides the bare minimum of features to make music.

Sunday Synth Jam: touch.listen.synth is a demo of a gorgeous touch-contact synth/noise machine.

Check out Alex Inglizian’s cliplead blog for detailed pictures.

via cretin4321

Mike Walters demos the Mystery Circuits Breadbox Synth,

via tarabusch

Filmed in spring, 2006, Mike introduces us to some sweet tweeks from the Mystery Circuits Breadbox Synth.

Ray Wilson’s Music From Outer Space has introduced the Sound Lab Ultimate, an advanced three-vco monosynth.

Description:

If you’ve always wanted to build your own analog electronic music synthesizer, the MFOS Sound Lab Ultimate may well be exactly what you’ve been waiting for. The MFOS Sound Lab Ultimate is a completely new single board mono-synth from MFOS with the sickest set of features you’ll find on one PC board:

• Three Musically Accurate VCOs (sawtooth and variable width rectangular wave forms, pulse width modulation, hard-sync, log and linear CV inputs)
• VCOs provide plenty of tracking range. Listen to the samples below.
• White Noise Generator
• Active Mixer (for VCOs, noise and external input)
• Voltage Controlled LP Filter (12db/Oct doubles as a sine wave oscillator)
• Voltage Controlled Amplifier (log response)
• Attack Release Envelope Generator
• Two Low Frequency Oscillators (square, ramp, tri and sawtooth waveforms)
• Repeat Gate Generator (doubles as another square wave LFO)
• Sample & Hold (with variable sample rate and glide)
• Attenuator Bank (for an infinite variety of modulation patches)
• Patch Panel Design (provides infinitely variable combinations of sounds)
• Professionally machined panels and PC Boards available from MFOS
• Sound Lab ULTIMATE “Expander” already on the drawing board.

You can preview the sound of the Sound Lab Ultimate below. More details and demos are available at the MFOS stie.

Testing the Gakken SX-150 Analog Synthesizer, a $54.95 DIY synth kit distributed in the US by Maker Shed.

via hampush

The Quintrigger, by Mr.Ugly, is an interesting suitcase style, steampunk-esque noise machine:

It’s a quintoscillator feeding into a Hex-Schmitt Trigger that I fed back into itself. The first of many projects where I design something from scratch then circuit bend the shit out of it. The quintoscillator triggers the Schmitt Trigger, then the Schmitt Trigger feeds back into itself via all of those lovely switches! Each switch has 3 positions of modulation, so the number of drone combinations is amazing! And there’s 4 separate outputs. I think that if each output was run through effects into a mixer, you could create some pretty intense walls of symphatic drone. And it all runs off a 9V adapter.

Have fun getting this through TSA inspections!

via doctorultra

This is a demo of the TF50 Modular Synthesizer, a DIY project based on designs of Thomas Henry and MFOS.

via MRBLITZER

This synth porn video captures the mind-exploding room full of synthesizers & modulars at AHNE’09.

Better than the gear porn, though, may be the random eavesdropping on conversations.

via hamsterdunce:

Annual gathering of ANHE (Analog Heaven Northeast) in Bolton, MA.

Best turnout yet with a wide variety of electronic music industry cornerstone products (both new and vintage) on display.

This video documents modding a Yamaha CS01 with a Highly Liquid Midi mod.

via nathanielscott:

The kit was shipped quickly and was easy to put together. For those of you that have a CS01 and are handy with a solder iron I highly recommend the conversion.