Have you ever seen a synth as beautiful as this amazing steampunk modular synthesizer?

The level of detail and craftsmanship is just amazing!

Here are the details on this synth. They come via sequencer.de, so the info is in German:

Christian Günther, der für die Elektronik verantwortlich ist haben wir nach c.a. zwei jähriger Bauzeit die “Schaltzentale gebaut, mit der das Heckeshorn nun mit Hilfe eines Sequenzers, das noch über weitere Funktionen verfügt (Ringmodulator, Voltage Control, sowie eine recht komplexe Rythmuszentrale) fernsteuerbar ist. Klingt tierisch gut die Kiste. Die Grund Idee sowie das Gehäuse stammen von mir. Alle Teile wie die Knöpfe + Griffe wurden an der Drehbank von Hand gefertigt. Gleiches gilt für die Front Platte. Sie wurde von Hand beschriftet, verziert und geätzt. die Rückwand ziert eine Qualle die einer Opium Pfeife entschwebt. Die Verschalung habe ich aus einer sehr alten Birnbaum Bohle geschnitten + verleimt. Der Voltmeter, und die Klingel (08.01.1901) sind Antiquitäten. Es gibt auch Bilder, die man sich auf meiner my space Seite ansehen kann. Und wer Lust hat kann sie auch live gemeinsam mit dem Equipment von C.G. erleben. Wir treten am 29. + 30.07.2009 im Studio der Neubauten, www.anderebaustelle.de auf. Am 08.08.2009 dann im Haus Schwarzenberg / Escescloraque. Bespielt werden sollen mehrere Bühnen gleichzeitig, alles soll mit Studio +Video Technik miteinander verbunden sein, Man darf gespannt sein. Soeben erschienen auf dem Londoner Art Yard Lable “Berliner Ring” Orbital, siehe Spex Ausgabe Juli / August 2009. Ahoi… mo

If you can translate the German, leave a comment below. More images at Sequencer.de.

Amazing work, isn’t it?

Image: Ricardipus

The Harmonic Synthesizer is an the lobby of the McLennan physics building, University of Toronto.

Here’s the description from the accompanying card:

This marvelous machine was used to dress the output of the large fork and resonator with a controlled set of overtones. Each fork is mounted in front of the appropriate resonator and driven by coils connected in series using the electronome interrupter tuned to the fundamental. A small keyboard opens the resonators.

It appears that the componenets of this apparatus have been redeployed, as the present set-up does not agree with the illustration in the 1889 catalogue and several pieces have been mounted with screws through the maker’s ark – an unlikely occurrence in the original mounting. This was probably done to allow operation of the keyboard from the back.

No word on how this would sound. If you know anything more about this Harmonic Synthesizer, leave a comment!

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

Gijs Gieskes created this steampunk Image Scan Sequencer – a mechanical scanner that outputs MIDI:

It uses LDRs to measure the gray-scale of specific point of a image, and triggers midi notes from a selected threshold. When the threshold is reached the velocity will be set by the darkness at that point. the darker point the higher the velocity will be.

The sequencer plays the notes as a arpeggiator, i chose for this playback method because i dont have a midi device that can play 24 keys at the same time.. There are 2 different arpeggio modes. One rearranges the playback sequence to the active notes velocitys. And the second mode changes the arpeggio playback speed to the amount of notes that are active. If this mode is not selected the playback speed is set by a potentiometer. These modes can also be combined.

The image plays a modified version of Treatise by Cornelius Cardew. Details, more demo videos and code at Gieskes‘ site.

OT: This is a video demo of the Mikiphone Pocket Phonograph, a sort of steampunk precursor to the Walkman and iPod.

via bb

This steampunk noisemaker, the Beam Ready, is an homage to Reed Ghazala, the pioneer of circuit-bending:

Thanks to Reed Ghazala, who sent me some really killer cold war era military surplus lamps. The big one says BEAM READY, and the smaller one has the atomic symbol, hence the name. 

via SonofCastille

This bizarre little DIY synth is part steampunk, part spirograph.

The circle with the lines that you see on the top of the machine rotates and displays the note you are playing.

Details on the Acid Machine here.

A video demo of a strange electro-mechanical circuit-bent Casio SK-1.

The Parker Steam Synthesizer is a steampunk-style coal-fired steam synth. (video)

The steam synth runs on coal, Esbit Tablets (hexamine), Ethanol or Propane.

It requires a pretty constant, hot fire to keep the synth going continuously. The boiler can build up to 40-50psi before the safety valve opens.

The pressure delivered to the engine is controlled by a ball valve seen between the boiler and the engine. The dynamo is much like a brushless, permanent magnet motor which is spun by a belt attached to the flywheel. This creates an alternating magnetic field which is turned into electricity by an inductive pickup.

The steam synthesizer does not use any electricity — only steam power. In fact it generates electricity! It generates about 6 watts of AC at high pressure and speed.

The steam synthesizer runs for about 20 minutes on one tank of water.

via DeviantSynth

Here are a few of the coolest:

WSG

This is Ray Wilson’s Weird Sound Generator circuit off of musicfromouterspace.com, plus audio amp scavenged out of a Radio Shack amp. The case was an old telephone from the 70s.

Captain Nemo’s Beat Box

This is a circuit bent Realistic/Radio Shack drum machine from the 80s.

Radio Free Mars

Over at The Steampunk Workshop,  Jake von Slatt has a nice write up on a Jules Verne inspired analog synthesizer with etched brass control panels.

While we’ve seen hundreds of nice modular synths, you have to admit the etched brass panels on this are pretty sextacular.

Here’s what the synth’s creator has to say about it:

I don’t have any plans to add a keyboard to the setup anytime soon. Being an electronic instrument the control interface is somewhat arbitrary. I feel that the piano-keyboard paradigm forces you to approach the instrument with a mind set that is deeply rooted in western musical tradition and therefore has some baggage attached to it.

I’m more interested in creating an open ended music system that encourages exploration and discovery and not be limited by the twelve notes of the western scale. The idea being that this system is an experimental sound generating engine, with all parameters for shaping the sounds available as panel controls. I’m not so interested in sitting down and playing a melody on a keyboard. If that were the case I could have just bought a Casiotone and been done with it.

I’d love to see more panel experimentation like this.

Panels are typically the most expensive components in modular synthesizers, especially large-format ones. That’s unfortunate, since you can put the electronics behind a piece of cardboard and it will sound the same.

Not sure what to make of this – pask present has created a sort of steampunk electrochemical synthesizer:

Pressing a key causes salt solution to flow over a copper and aluminium connection, generating a low signal which is filtered by a capacitor and then amplified, creating a complex white noise, with amazing fluctuating oscillations.

The device demonstrates how complexity can be generated using simple “analogue” and wet components.

The inspiration for the synthesiser came from the website “Peculiar sounds from Aluminium ” by Nyle Steiner.

This is one of the stranger bent instruments I’ve seen – a sort of steampunk Furby sequencer by nervoussquirrel.

Here’s what nervoussquirrel has to say about the Furby sequencer:

Each furby has 4 controls: mute, crash, loop and reset. The handle turns 8 cams which operate corresponding microswitches to create interesting rhythmic patterns. Part of the ’setting up’ section at the beginning has been fast forwarded. Please commission me to make lots more of these machines!

Love that hand cranked sound!

Remember the steampunk music sequencer? Here’s something even more lo-fi.

The Bubblegum Sequencer is a physical step sequencer that lets you create drumloops by arranging colored balls on a tangible surface. It generates MIDI events and can be used as an input device to control audio hardware and software.

The Bubblegum Sequencer senses the position of the balls through a video camera mounted underneath the surface. The captured image is processed by a computer vision routine that computes the average color in each hole. The colors are quantized and mapped to notes. For each note, a MIDI event is generated and sent to the operating system’s MIDI bus.

Watch the video for tips on getting more cowbell out of the sequencer.

PhD student and cybernetics guru Peter Bennet has created a new tangible interface, Beat Bearing, which is a sort of steampunk-style music sequencer.

Creatively, Bennet uses ball bearings on washer as a way of completing a circuit to make a switch. Sequences are created by moving ball bearings from the tray to one of the rows of switches. Each row is a assigned a different sound.

Here’s the Beat Bearing in action: