Collaborate Disseminate
[Manuel Caldeira] has built a nice electronics work area that would be the envy of many, complete with an under-shelf rail of custom-built instruments that are specific to the needs …read more Continue reading DIY Capacitor Leakage Tester With a Professional Finish
It’s no secret that we have a soft spot for musical instruments here at Hackaday, especially for the weird and unusual ones. An instrument that definitely fits the unusual category is the four-string tenor guitar, which — as legend has it — originated back in the 1920s by frankensteining a …read more
Continue reading Some Strings Attached: Electric Tenor Guitar Built From Scratch
Singing in the shower is such a common phenomenon, rarely anyone ever bats an eye about it. Singing in the toilet on the other hand is probably going to raise an eyebrow or two, and it’s not for nothing that the Germans euphemistically call it “stilles Örtchen”, i.e. the little …read more
One of the greatest joys of being a child was figuring out that rubber bands make awesome sounds when they are plucked, and that the sound is easily changed by stretching the band to different lengths. For those of us who need firsthand experience to truly understand how the world …read more
Many everyday objects make some noise as a side effect of their day job, so some of us hack would them into music instruments that can play a song or two. It’s fun, but it’s been done. YouTube channel [Device Orchestra] goes far beyond a device buzzing out a tune …read more
Continue reading When Toothbrushes, Typewriters, and Credit Card Machines Form A Band
We’ve covered construction of novel music instruments on these pages, and we’ve covered many people tearing down scientific instruments. But today we’ve got something that managed to cross over from one world of “instrument” into another: a music instrument modified to measure a liquid’s density by listening to changes in its pitch.
This exploration started with a mbira, a mechanically simple music instrument. Its row of rigid metal tines was replaced with a single small diameter hollow metal tube. Filling the tube with different liquids would result in different sounds. Those sounds are captured by a cell phone and processed …read more
Continue reading Sounding A Sour Note Can Save People From A Sour Stomach (Or Worse)