Homebrew Musical Instruments?

Josh Booth asks: "Has anyone ever built a musical instrument? I recently built two, a SSPACaRTD (Single String Plucked Air Compression and Rarifaction Tunable Device), and a full size string bass for the NJ State Science Olympiad. I played the bass and, since we did the required duet, my friend played an End Struck Plosive Aerophone, or a set rather, like what the Blue Man Group plays. We placed fifth out of 20+ schools. My bass is similar to those that Dennis Havlena made and used weedwhacker line for strings. I was wondering whether anyone else tried to build an instrument. How did you do it, what did it sound like, and how weird was it?"

Comments

I make instruments for a living.

[torpor]

But it depends on what you call an 'instrument'.

In my book, an instrument is any object designed specifically and only for the purpose of making music. (This is why softsynths aren't "instruments" in my opinion; though they are 'virtualized software instruments' they're not quite complete ... since you have to use a general-purpose computer to run them ... in the same way that pro-tools using edit gimps aren't "musicians" {they're producers}, neither are soft-synths 'instrument's ... heh heh ... flame on ...)

So, anyway, I make synthesizers and work for a fairly well-known synthesizer company.

There are tons of DIY Synthesizer builders out there in 'net land, in fact its quite an active and avid community... synth construction is a very fun geek activity, and you'll be surprised by some of the amazing systems that have been built, quite openly, by instrument-making enthusiasts.

Check out synth.net, of course ... this site is all about DIY instrument makers, and if you really want to go on a wacky and wild journey, browse the Synth DIY Who's Who and see where it takes you ...

And if you want an example of the DIY/GNU spirit combined, you can't do much better than Gene Stopp's ASM1 Design (Open Modular Synthesizer Hardware Project) ... I've built a couple ASM1's now. Its like Open Source, only for Hardware... instead of compile, you solder.