The automat offers laptop or smartphone tunesmiths the opportunity to create something distinctly analog. A control box acts as the go-between for MIDI software and a bunch of bashers and beaters that can be placed near such things as plastic boxes, metal balls or glass jars to sound the melody.
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For the last few years, Skot Wiedmann has been teaching electronics and music to students using a build-it-yourself mini touch synth called the Hyve. Now he's taken the 60 voice analog polysynth to Kickstarter to get it into the hands of more music makers.
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The UK's JustBoom believes that a Raspberry Pi 3 with an audio add-on attached can essentially do the same job as high-end power amps, media streamers and DACs, but at a much lower price point. Intrigued, we agreed to take a power amp and a DAC board for a test drive.
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The pisound board from Blokas Labs is described as an ultra-low latency soundcard and MIDI interface for the Raspberry Pi. It features hi-res stereo input and output jacks, MIDI ports and a multi-purpose button that means peripherals don't need to be connected for the system to work.
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The Stereo Field contains mirrored stereo synth circuits that are manipulated through touch. When a player's skin touches plates on the upper surface, points on the circuits are connected and new signal paths or patches created, resulting in strange sounds and bizarre effects.
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Dreadbox turned a few e-music heads when the paraphonic Erebus was released in 2015, with a diverse feature set and ear-pleasing tones that also managed to charm many industry pundits. The company is hoping to repeat that success with its first polyphonic synthesizer, the Abyss.
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The Macchiato Mini Synth has a similar aesthetic to the recently-revamped Stylophone, but offers audio nerds and sound geeks the chance to get their hands dirty and build their own for under US$40, or buy it fully assembled and ready to play.
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Though manufacturers like Roland have been selling digitally-driven accordions for a number of years, they're not exactly wallet-friendly. Brendan Vavra opted to take the DIY route, transforming a relatively cheap, non-working acoustic instrument he bought on eBay into a capable MIDI music maker.
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Tangled cables are the curse of mobile music enjoyment. No matter how carefully you stow away your buds, by the time you break them out, the cables are a jumbled mess. Such trials have inspired Dmitry Morozov to create the volnovod, a machine that turns twisted cables into eerie sounds.
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About 10 years ago, Percussa launched AudioCubes, an e-music system made up of smart cubes that could communicate wirelessly with each other and a computer. A software synth and a Remote controller followed, and now a hardware synth called the Engine has been added to form the Synthor System 8.
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