Archive for the ‘Musical Instruments’ Category

Magical Toolbox and Transmission Electron Microscope

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

Magical Toolbox and Transmission Electron Microscope

Arman Bohn sent me a couple of links to his projects - and I took forever to put them online. Sorry about that, been busy.

The first one, the Magical Toolbox, is a multi-effect generator built into a tool box. It has a stereo phase-cancelling reverb, fuzz box and ring modulator - All in stereo. It sounds really nice too.

Arman also built a Transmission Electron Microscope. It doesn’t quite work as intended, but it still looks cool, and the sountrack to the demo clip is pretty nice as well.

“The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed.”
- Lloyd Jones

Magical Toolbox [link]

Transmission Electron Microscope [link]

Tupperware Synthesizers

Monday, March 17th, 2008

Tupperware Synthesizers

“ADACHI’s self-made instruments are consists of simple electronic circuit, almost case built in tupperware. They never can make precise pitch, but have good sound and noise, easy to operate and carry and worked by battery. Of course the funny and pretty looks are important aspects.”

Tupperware Synthesizers [link][via][via]

DIY general MIDI synth from an old Soundblaster

Friday, March 7th, 2008

DIY general MIDI synth from an old Soundblaster

Here’s a good idea: use an old SoundBlaster card and turn it into a cheesy-sounding General-MIDI box. If I were a porno film producer, I’d definitely need a couple of these for the soundtracks.

DIY general MIDI synth from an old Soundblaster [link & link][via]

Altoids Tin Amplified Mini Speaker

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Altoids Tin Amplified Mini Speaker

I swear, I didn’t see this until I posted yesterday’s post: it’s basically the same thing, but mono (so much for stereo separation anyways), and amplified! I’ll definitely build myself one of these. They’d also make great gifts for guitar playing friends. Refer to yesterday’s project for installing felt in the tin, as it probably helps with the overall sound quality.

Altoids Tin Amplified Mini Speaker [link]

Altoids Tin Mini Speakers

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Altoids Tin Mini Speakers

I love just about every project that’s built around the Altoids tins. This one is no exception: mini speakers made of recycled headphones. You could also use those cheap mini-speakers that they sell at your local electronic parts store.

Altoids Tin Mini Speakers [link]

Cheap Acoustic Guitar Pickup

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

Cheap Acoustic Guitar Pickup

I love this: it’s cheap, effective and pretty simple to do. Basically, you take a 2$ Radio Shack piezoelectric transducer and use it as pickup. One thing bothers me a bit though: you need to drill a hole in the guitar to fit the jack. I’m quite sure there’s a way to go around this. And who cares, I don’t have a guitar ;)

I might build an acoustic bass out of scrap wood I have at home, and that sort of pickup would be perfect for it.

Cheap Acoustic Guitar Pickup [link][via]

Make an Altoids Guitar

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

Make an Altoids Guitar

How to make a small guitar from an Altoids tin. It may not be a Stratocaster, but it [almost] fits in your pockets. If I’d make one, I’d add some frets.

Make an Altoids Guitar [link]

Another Instructable shows you how to make a guitar pickup. Now maybe, if you put the two together, that is , if you can make a miniature version of the pickup, you can end up with a mini electric guitar. If you ask me, it’s worth trying.

Make a Guitar Pickup [link]

DIY Arduino MIDI Drum Kit

Wednesday, December 19th, 2007

This isn’t exactly a set of instructions, but anyone familiar with the Arduino should be able to make up something similar to this. With nice pads (think recycled mousepads) and some nice packaging, this could make up a great electronic drum set.

I’ll be exploring this in the next year as I’d really like to have a drum set at home, but lack the space and don’t want to spend much money on this. Plus, the ability to control a drum machine by playing “real” drums is more interesting (to me) than playing a “real” drum. I can’t get enough of that TR-808 bass drum.

DIY Arduino MIDI Drum Kit [link]

Build Your First Synthesizer

Monday, December 10th, 2007

 WSG-1

Check out these instructions on how to build your first synthesizer.

Granted, it’s not a Jupiter-8, but it’s fun to build, fun to play with, and cheap to build too. You can also bend it if you want to get even crazier sounds out of it. I built one myself last year, so I know what I’m talking about. I used the strip board layout and it worked out great. See it in the picture.

Build Your First Synthesizer [link]