Synthinetic is a kinetically powered synthesizer that produces crazy sounds of destruction and beauty.
It’s a project that explores using energy creatively to produce and manipulate sound.
Video demo here.

This video shows several different users trying out the first iteration of the SynthMonster, which is sort of a circuit bent Tribble.

Paul Rubenstein (aka Ubertar) is a composer, musician, musical instrument inventor and recording engineer.
He may also be the coolest teacher ever.
He teaches a class called Building Music at Franklin K. Lane and Wingate High Schools in Brooklyn. Students learn to build their own electric guitars, from winding their own electric pickups to designing the guitar […]

 

 Building Music [3:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Deviant Synth has a nice review of the C-Thru Music Axis 64 Control Keyboard, a new MIDI keyboard based on the Harmonic Table:
There are 192 keys on the keyboard in three identical 64-key sections laid next to one another, each section exactly one half key width lower than the one to its left. These […]

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Alicia Gibb’s expression, while doing strange things with electricity, is one of the highlights of this awesome Flickr set about wireless sound objects.

i3L (pronounced “i thrill”) is a freeware music controller app,  developed using Max/MSP from Cycling74 and is a support application for akaRemote by Masayuki Akamatsu.
And guess what? You can use it to control Ableton Live!
i3L receives pre-defined UDP messages from akaRemote.app running on the iPhone, scales the values to MIDI, and allows you to configure […]

The League Of Electronic Musical Urban Robots‘ Eric Singer demonstrates the Slime-o-Tron - a controller that works by moving conductive slime around copper nails.
What do you think? Is this the most disgusting way to create music ever invented?

Collin Cunningham made a short video showing just a few of the many musical interfaces on hand at Bay Area Maker Faire.
“There were so many awesome instruments,” says Cunningham, “and so little time to play them all!”
If you’ve got any info on these bizarre creations, let me know in the comments!

Playing the Building, a 9,000-square-foot, interactive, site-specific installation by David Byrne, will transform the interior of the Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan into a massive sound sculpture that all visitors are invited to sit and “play.”
Byrne’s project will consist of a retrofitted antique organ placed in the center of the building’s cavernous second-floor gallery […]

xelent’s Tape Delay Machine uses two Walkman type tape players, a Realistic Stereo Mate and a Memorex XB, to create a tape delay. It’s Frippertronics on the cheap!
A single tape loop runs through two modified cassettes (each which have had one of their left or right sides removed). The players themselves have had there walls […]

Interesting synth DIY project, via noystoise, the Mouse Trap features quad frequency modulating oscillators built with 556 timers.
The oscillator frequencies are controlled by a quadruple pot joystick. two of the four have switches to add a slow decay. The mouseball changes the pitch of the oscillators randomly. The thumb wheel pot sets the minimum frequency […]

This may actually go back farther than the “steampunk” headline suggests. Is there such a thing as “cavepunk”?
If you can’t get your hands on an 808 or 909, that’s no excuse. This bizarre DIY project uses matches to create a primitive drum machine.

Hamster Sammy enjoys improvising on an Opal Sonome:
She gives herself a little wash and clean while holding down a minor 9th chord! The plastic sphere is her means of transport while chasing humans across the kitchen floor, her equivalent to a skateboard or bike.
The Opal Sonome looks substantially similar to the C-Thru Axis that we […]

Sometimes it seems that there’s no end to the types of MIDI controllers that people come up with.
Want proof? Here’s are some of the strangest MIDI controllers we’ve seen:
Using Pennies As A Drum Controller

That’s just of start of it. Read on for MIDI Hamsters, MIDI Drivers’ Licenses and more!

Q. What’s the difference between a bagpipe and an onion?
A. No one cries when you chop up an bagpipe.
Glamorous MIDI controllers like the Tenori-On get all the press, but MIDI bagpipes are where the real action is.
There’s a significant amount of work being done in the area of bagpipe-style MIDI controllers. And it’s no surprise […]