OK, I was just so infatuated with the washing machine drums video, that it would be criminal not to remix those drums into a song.
So we’re going to have a remix contest! Ableton has …
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The odd, the weird, and anything that makes you wonder what planet it came from
Dabbler & experimenter Paul Bower was browsing eBay looking at vintage steam engines one day, and decided to do something fun with it: he built a DIY steam-powered sequencer.
Using an old 1920′s steam engine to turn a dynamo and generate electricity, he powered a host of MOTM and CGS modules.
He says:
“You’ll recognize the MOTM 120 sequence with a little variation courtesy of some CGS modules. The dynamo is just regulating the tempo of a MOTM320 LFO via it’s V/Oct input. I did spend most of the bank holiday monday building a steam powered pulse generator (add a rotating disc and a pair of commutators) but the steam engine wasn’t powerful enough to power my clunky transmission (bits of old tape machines, the shaft from a coffee percolator, bits of hard disk and a hairdryer)”
Here it is running:
I imagine that you could combine this with the steam oscillator, and a few other modules and have a full steam powered modular synth! Now that’s real steampunk!
While he’s not trying to figure out how to power his synths when the hydro goes out, Paul’s day job is putting out music on iTunes and other services.
The video below is Edison, playing the track “Tonka Truck” from his album “All the Information at Hand”.
What is completely remarkable about this track is not just that it’s played entirely on a Monome, but …
Synthesizer enthusiast Rory Daniels stars in some hilarious shorts called “Synthesizer Club” that only a synth geek would enjoy. He says:
I’m no Alain de Bottom, but I think it’s here because we all need …
In 1979, a book written by P.K. Sood called “Electronic Musical Projects” was published that contained plans and instructions for building all sorts of DIY electronic musical devices. It’s got plans for projects …
Trombone players often get a bad rap, so trombone player/DIYer Jonathan Crawford decided to really step up to the plate and do something about it.
Jonathan took a barbecue ignition system, a propane tank and …
The company “And Vinyly” will take your charred remains and press them into your own death vinyl. You can use a personalized message, your own music, or any recording that is 24 …
Rob Wright has followed the idea of Kyle MacDonald’s one red paper clip trade idea, applying the idea to synthesizers.
Rob is looking to gradually trade a single red patch cable up to something that he …
The legendary Vince Clarke has put together a great series of mini synth demos called “Analogue Monologues”. The demos take place in his mouth-watering Maine Studio, and will feature a different synth each episode.
The …
Michel van Osenbruggen is a musician and synth collector from The Netherlands, and he produces music under the name Synth.nl. He had a friend over to take some pictures of his drool-inducing studio, and …
This is a great example of someone integrating a musical instrument into something that is typically non-musical – the xylophone fence.
At Good Hope Beach in Shanklin, Isle of Wight, a beach fence has been made …
The Korg MS-20 is one of the more coveted vintage synths these days, and as such they fetch some pretty high prices. People like them not only because of their patchability and knob-laden instant-gratification …
This is a vintage ad from National Geographic, April 1973. It features a Sony TC-377 reel-to-reel tape deck, with the phrase:
“Whatever weird instrument your great-grandson will be playing, the Sony TC-377 will capture it.”
Click …
“Shoes in the dryer” is one of the best ways to describe a beat that is going off-kilter, or the sound of a DJ who just can’t seem to get two songs beatmatched. That …
Peter Forrest’s book ‘The a-z of Analog Synths’ contains graphs over time of the average selling price for pretty much every analogue synthesizer ever made.
The graphs are all extremely interesting, but what sticks out like …
