Home Made Instruments?

i know a dude who makes these, pretty crazy shit.

Built this frankenstein when I was bored one night out of spare parts and stuff I had laying around:

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii317/RabitesAngelatin/IMG_0519.jpg

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii317/RabitesAngelatin/IMG_0520.jpg

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii317/RabitesAngelatin/IMG_0522.jpg

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii317/RabitesAngelatin/IMG_0523.jpg

Parts include:

> Strat neck whose frets were very badly dinged and eventually removed, pickup from same guitar
> Particle board from an old entertainment center my old roommate left when he moved
> A pie tin.
> Tailpiece / tremolo from an old Teisco
> Tupperware lid from the time I stole a bunch of peach cobbler from work
> Photograph of Tom Jones cut from a record that didn't play

Don't remember where the bridge, knob, or pot came from...

Also built the Jazzmaster I posted in the WDYGLL thread...

Well, "built"... meaning assembled, did the finish, wired up, etc...

Nice work! How does it sound?

Surprisingly not bad! A little trebley because of the strat pickup + 1M pot, but I'll probably switch it for like a 100-250k one or something in the future. Slide work sounds especially good and "fretted" notes (I don't know how else to say it) are sorta soft and plucky and ... I dunno, I'm too brane-ded to be effectively descriptive.
The fretlessness is sort of freeing in a way, I can do a lot of stuff I can't on my other guitars, though the action is sort of menacing; I'll modify the bridge or something in the future.

"or something in the future"

Don't modify the future yet, wait until then

My half completed lagerphone disappeared somehow :(

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/227/491420461_372fec78b2.jpg

I've made about 80% of the instruments/gear I regularly play out with. Here's some photos of a new synth module I finished last week. It's a DIN sync to analog clock converter plus 2 CV distributors and a simple CV+Gate A/B switch.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3230/2758531444_a1c408cf09.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3164/2758531446_2a91113b1e.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3078/2758531450_c214d39d22.jpg

Oh right only 3 images at a time.. This is where it resides now:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3177/2758547118_4600e348c0.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3208/2758547142_bbb3861dde.jpg

from the back

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3089/2757700367_37116edb1f.jpg

Yeah!!

My friend built a synth once inside of an old NES. I wanted him to build me one inside a taxidermied woodchuck but that obviously never happened.

That's cool. For me, the hardest part of building these things is putting together the enclosure. It's a combination of my mediocre woodwork / metalwork skills and some difficulty thinking in 3 dimensions. Taxidermy synths have never crossed my mind haha.

thats awesome petey, you should post some sound clips

^^^

I'm hesitant to post tracks because I like my anonymity. I haven't recorded any demonstration clips, but it sounds like I should.

post it through yousendit? then you can still be anon

Last thing I soldered up was this:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3059/2618961254_587e2db61a.jpg

It's an analog 8-step 4 row sequencer that I built from one of ken stone's "cat girl synth" kits. It's pretty great though if I were doing it again, I'd design a bigger panel for it, the step knobs are a bit too close together. Front panel I designed in Schaeffer apparetbau's "front panel designer" app.

That panel looks really nice. Did you do the painting / silkscreening?

I set my step knobs too close on my MFOS sequencer layout. It wouldn't be that big a deal if I could find some smaller diameter knobs, but I haven't had any luck as of yet. Also all the knobs are backwards, but I'm used to it at this point.

No, I'm useless at anything like that. I think the US equivalent of Schaeffer apparetbau is front panel express? You download a little freeware panel designing application from their site, design your panels using it, and it connects to the interweb and orders it fro you when you're ready. Here's my previous (and only other) efforts:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2080/2415364131_5168d35ee2.jpg

A pair of Oakley VCOs (these are excellent) and an Oakley "Little Lag".

It's a real thrill when the package arrives from Schaeffer and you get to see your panels in real fife for the first time!

Do you ever look in on electro-music.com forum? They have a synth DIY sub-forum where people sell PCBs of designs they've done. It's really great, some nice & inventive people there.

The other home-made stuff there is all the Blacet kits. They're great, if you haven't built any of them. The "Klang Werk" ring modulator is outstanding.

Ah I see. I've lucked out because I have a family member that works at a this CNC water 'laser' place and he'll cut aluminum panels for me for free.

I've looked at that forum once or twice. They do have some really intelligent people posting on there.

more from the guy who i posted about at the top of the thread, looks pretty awesome: http://www.snyderphonics.com/products.htm

http://nicksworldofsynthesizers.com/springs.php