16 Step Up/Down Sequencer

This is by Dr. Offset

"At some point in every DIY Synth enthusiast's journey they realize that they need some sort of structured way to control all the madness they've created. You want to build a sequencer. Often the first type of sequencer you build is something like the Baby 10, a ten step machine based off the 4017 decade counter chip. That's fine, and a lot of people do great music with it."



More info on this really cool sequencer can be found here

Spoon Organ

This is from:  C i b o M a h t o . c o m


"Spoon Organ is an instrument that I created to show at the Make Tokyo Meeting 06 this past weekend. The user can play musical tunes simply by touching a row of spoons sitting on a table, with a fork added in for good measure. A microcontroller is used to detect changes in capacitance caused by a finger pressing against the metal, which are then sent to a computer using the MIDI protocol."

Mini Lunetta Patched Close up

CMOS-based instrument designs have earned a strong following among the synth-diy crowd - and for good reason. The circuits can be relatively simple and the resulting sounds quite interesting. The Lunetta is built primarily from 4000 series CMOS integrated circuits with inputs and outputs taken to front panel jacks to be patched to other sections.  Lunettas uses counters, shift registers, XOR gates and 40106 schmidt trigger clocks and oscillators.


Check out the Electro-music forums for more project info and users' builds.


This one is built bysndbyte's

Electronic Music Studios

This excellent doco covering the origins and life of Electronic Music Studios. A company formed by avant-garde musicians & engineers who all shared a passion for electronic sound. Their collaborative efforts brought about the first digital electronic music sequencer, utilizing a relatively massive amount of computing power for the 1950s.

 

More info 

Coppersynth, October 2010
Originally uploaded by parasitk

This is just as Dave Jones says "this is sex on a stick"

Coppersynth, October 2010

"I’m still wiring up the panels, but it’s almost completed. I need to order the fancy dials for the 10-turn pots on the Living VCOs, but they’re really expensive, so that may not happen soon. I’m also missing a couple small components that I’m ordering tonight.

Overall though, I’m really happy with the way it’s turning out."