Korg dives deep into music production with the Nautilus workstation

Korg has today unleashed the Nautilus performance synthesizer and workstation, which harnesses the power of its flagship Kronos system, but is presented in a more streamlined packaged designed for musicians, songwriters and producers.Continue ReadingCa… Continue reading Korg dives deep into music production with the Nautilus workstation

Moog invites tinkerers to build and play its most affordable synthesizer

Mere days after launching a 100-year anniversary tribute to the almost magical hands-off wonder created by Leon Theremin, Moog Music is back with a limited re-issue of an all-analog synthesizer you put together yourself.Continue ReadingCategory: Music,… Continue reading Moog invites tinkerers to build and play its most affordable synthesizer

Adding MIDI to a Mini Synth is Easy As Pi

There are a handful of relatively dirt cheap synths out there like the KORG Monotron, but many of them use ribbon controllers that aren’t very precise.  Ribbon controllers basically slide pots that you operate with your finger or a stylus.  They’re painted to look like piano keys in order to …read more

Continue reading Adding MIDI to a Mini Synth is Easy As Pi

Mini Marble-Powered Synth Pays Homage to Its Bigger Cousins

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what then are we to make of something that shares only a few of the original’s design elements, operates in a completely different way, and has been scaled down to a fifth its size? Still seems like flattery to us.

Despite the …read more

Continue reading Mini Marble-Powered Synth Pays Homage to Its Bigger Cousins

All-in-one HapsBox puts portable music creation at your fingertips

The HapsBox portable music system has the look of a toy spaceship, but it’s a powerful mobile music-making machine that’s newbie-friendly while also being attractive to pros. It features its own carry handles, has built-in Bluetooth speakers, runs on b… Continue reading All-in-one HapsBox puts portable music creation at your fingertips

GridSound – An Audio Workstation In Your Browser

If you’re into creating music, you’ll have a surprisingly large variety of open source options at your disposal, ranging from Audacity as rather simple audio editor to Ardour as a full-blown, studio-worthy DAW — and LMMS, Rosegarden, MusE etc. for anything in between. With [Thomas Tortorini]’s GridSound project, you’ll have …read more

Continue reading GridSound – An Audio Workstation In Your Browser

Unique Instrument Plucks Out Notes on a Ruler

How does one describe the notes that come from a ruler that is anchored on one end and then plucked? The best word we can come up with is “wubulation”. So would that make this ruler-plucking synthesizer a “wubulator”? Or perhaps a “wubatron”?

Whatever we decide to call it, [ …read more

Continue reading Unique Instrument Plucks Out Notes on a Ruler

Blipblox After Dark synth invites kids over to the dark side

A couple of years ago, Playtime Engineering launched a colorful portable synthesizer on Indiegogo that allowed players young and old “to have fun without fully understanding how it all works.” Now the startup has reworked the hardware and software, and… Continue reading Blipblox After Dark synth invites kids over to the dark side

Spoofing an Analog Rotary Knob with an ATtiny, and Vampiric Power

[Mitxela]’s repair of a Roland JV-1080 (a rack-mounted 90s-era synthesizer) sounds simple: replace a broken rotary encoder on the front panel. It turned out to be anything but simple, since the part in question is not today’s idea of a standard rotary encoder at all. The JV-1080 uses some kind …read more

Continue reading Spoofing an Analog Rotary Knob with an ATtiny, and Vampiric Power

Synthesizer Gets an External Touch Screen

Like other owners of the high-end Yamaha MODX, [sn00zerman] wasn’t happy with the synthesizer’s integrated touch screen. It’s a bit small, and not at a very good angle for viewing. So he made it his mission to find some way of adding a larger external touch screen without making any …read more

Continue reading Synthesizer Gets an External Touch Screen