Daniel Franke & Cedric Kiefer created this incredibly fascinating video titled “unnamed soundsculpture” set to Machinenfabriek’s Kreukeltape. Three Kinect cameras recording the interpretive dance of a real woman and the application of some serious technical mojo sets this video apart.
unnamed soundsculpture from Daniel Franke on Vimeo.
There are very few dedicated DIY electronic music/synth cookbooks/reference books available out there so when ever I come across some I try to snatch them up. you can get all six of these spiral bound books from Thomas Henry for under $90 which cover some very specific topics for DIY synthesis and electronic music.
Synthesizer design books by Thomas Henry – Magic Smoke Electronics.
Vinnui has a concise site detailing the build of his modular. He has put together some sharp looking modules and although he comments his wiring is a mess I think it looks exactly the way it should… made by hand, at home, with a soldering iron and a lot of patience.
It looks like it mostly consists of YuSynth modules though he also has a pretty cool idea for his own variation on the Moog Voyager’s modulation bus. His expansion on the idea of a modulation bus is comprehensive and has about as many patching options as you could fit before it gets confusing or inconvenient compared to more traditional patch cables. I could see something like this being very useful when you need to quickly dial something up without a handful of patch cables.
The layout consists of two buses, each sporting 12 possible sources, 12 destinations, and 12 shapers. That’s a total of 1,728 patching combinations, per bus, with only the quick turn of three dials. Purists may not like the rotary switch patching of modulators but I think its a brilliantly simple way to manage a large number of patching capabilities in an easy to remember/recall format.
David Ingebretsen has a popular blog that I’m sure many in the synth community and the folks at Electro-Music have heard of, Analog Realities. However, what i prefer is the synth build photos from his personal web pages. Specifically his amazing work on the [Nyle] ‘Steiner Synthasystem’. Absolutely amazing and humbling work. David’s also got some great details of other builds he’s worked on such as Jurgen Haible modules, YuSynth builds, and others. Especially nice are the high resolution photos he provides. A few of my favorites are below. Click through to go to the originals on David’s site.
This is a great shot of the synthasystem. All of the details can be found on David’s site.
JH Tau Phaser
JH Frequency Shifter
Cavan Fyans at the time of writing this is a PhD student at the Sonic Arts Research Centre. His personal site along with detailing his extensive academic work also outlines a number of his DIY electronic instruments. My favorite is the “Tape Box 2” which as the name suggests is an updated version of “Tape Box 1″. It’s perfectly simple, does what it should, and doesn’t distract with excessive controls, knobs, and gimmickry. I also have to give him a thumbs-up on his use of high quality pictures documenting his work online. Nothing makes me more disappointed than a thumbnail that leads to a picture of… a thumbnail.
Generally speaking I’m not a fan of Steampunk. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate it or anything, it just isn’t my thing. But there are always exceptions to the rule and this beautiful DIY amplifier kicks ass in all of its steam-punk glory.
Here’s the completed project found on coppersteam.com
The builder [Ævil Mike] has a thorough post about the amp which is constructed around a k-12g kit from tube depot but is housed in a copper enclosure of his own design. His notes and write up are here
The LoudestWarning Blog is another nice DIY audio and synth blogspot blog with some great photos of custom home-grown synthesis and audio projects. No need to re-hash all the great stuff on the site but I will say that the picture of blue knobs is right up my alley. It’s organized, repetitive, colorful, and who doesn’t enjoy a substantial collection of knobs?
The DIY Audio forum’s photo gallery is rich with hundreds of amazing projects the DIY audio community has built over the years. I could repost and talk about every single one of them but I really try to avoid it. While browsing I came across the following build and for some reason it stood out from the crowd. The wooden enclosure is a nice departure from the typical aluminum and stainless steel boxes that you typically see.
You can read about DIY-Audio forum member Vortchun’s build here
The Bergfotron is the masterpiece of Jörgen Bergfors, an exceptionally gifted member of the Swedish Analogue Sympathists mailing list (SAS). Jörgen has been creating modules, enclosures, PCBs, and all things synth DIY for over thirty years and believe me it shows. I don’t think any description fits his skill set better than ‘Master’. He is simply one of the best.
The Bergfotron site has tons of pictures detailing every coceivable aspect of his process. He hand makes the actual panels with mounting studs and graphics… The attention to detail is truly above and beyond.
He covers theory and actual practice, has schematics, circuit board layouts, procedural details and covers just about every aspect of the process in his writings. One thing he doesn’t have though is a well laid out web-site so navigating and finding everything isn’t always that clear. But really, who cares.
Here are a couple examples of his work… they speak for themselves. I definitely encourage you to take a look at his site. I’m of the opinion that regardless of what you’re doing DIY related you can get some tips from him on how to master your craft. If his pictures of his work don’t convince you then what are you doing reading this?
Carsten Toensmann is the man behind the “Analog Monster“. For the past decade or so Carsten has been slowly building analog modules himself with a help from the book “Formant-Pro MSS2000″. This book, which is out of print and only available directly from the author in electronic form. I have no more details on the book but if the results of Carsten’s work are any indication of its content then it must be awesome.
I can really only say one thing… Carsten is amazing. Here are a couple pictures of the complete project in its current form and two of the modules. Two out of 25!
The completed build…fantastic work.
The Quad ADSR Front Panel…
…And the Quad ADSR Board. I wish there was a hi res of this so we could really see his attention to detail. These boards are all hand/home made… no using Gerbers and bulk manufacturers in China like PCB Express and others. The thought of drilling all those holes makes me squirm. However, Carsten apparently prefers to drill all the holes instead of dealing with things like this
The Octave Divider front Panel…
And the hand made board…
