synthesizer

This here is one o' them fancy japanese analog synthesizers. It will synthesize fighting robots, dancing robots, sad robots, and tentacle rape. This is a kit, so the electronics and knobs come in a box and you have to put it together yourself, instead of having some azn kid do it. I think that's neat because I'd like to use my own custom knobs and maybe electrocute myself a couple times while putting it together.

This is Omer Yosha's AirPiano. The device plays notes based on the proximity of your hands to a bunch of infrared light sensors. It really is a beautiful mix of a theremin and a normal piano. Yosha says:

I’m an Interface Design student from the FH Potsdam (near Berlin), i have a musical background, and the idea to create an AirPiano developed as i was playing around with the Arduino board, Processing and some IR sensors in my free time. It was fun controlling MIDI through moving my hands in the air, so i eventually found a way to set it all up in a way that makes sense and that is easy to control.
The concept behind the AirPiano is having a matrix in the air, with virtual keys & faders. The location of each key must be very clear for the user and easily learnt. The AirPiano is therefore only one example of an application that could adopt this concept. Since it is only the first prototype i built, it features at the moment a matrix with 3 layers, 8 keys for each layer. As long as a key is triggered, a note plays and an LED underneath the virtual key turns on (unfortunately it is hard to see it on the videos). The LEDs give the user additional feedback. The device is connected through USB and communicates with the AirPiano Software, which allows the user to assign each key/fader with a Note/Controller number, Channel and Velocity as well as transpose and save/load presets. The AirPiano Software can communicate with any MIDI instrument/sequencer. It is of course a polyphonic controller.
The AirPiano is not only fun to play, it also invites to experiment, to explore endless arrangements and develop new playing techniques. It might be useful for DJ performance, as a music therapy instrument or as a toy.
I’m at the moment trying to look for investors and people that could help me take this idea further. I presented the prototype two months ago in the Hannover Messe and received very good feedback. The concept is protected as a Provisional U.S. Patent Application.

Neat!

This b16 mini patch synthesizer is made only by Benjamin Fisher of Chimera Synthesis. It allows you to interconnect 15 different potentiometers to create infinitely unique sounds and loops in an easy manner. It also allows you to send MIDI signals out into other musical instruments, or even your microwave.

The bC16 miniature patch synthesizer packs a fully featured VCO, LFO, envelope generator, analog VCA, VCF, noise sources & ring modulator all in a CD sized case CNC machined from 10mm high-grade acrylic plastic.

Fifteen color coded potentiometers control key functions, connections between synthesizer sections are done using twenty-five 2mm mini-banana sockets.

Powered by either six AAA batteries or by an external (not supplied) 9 to 12v source, the bC16 can be used free standing (internal headphone amplifier), linked to an external keyboard/sequencer or MIDI-CV converters, combined with other bC16's, etc...

Internal MIDI interface allows control (monophonic) of the VCO frequency, pitchbend, modulation, portamento and portamento rate.
 

Found Electronics has, over the years, produced a wide variety of circuit bent instruments: devices whose original function has been mangled and transformed into weird and wonderful creators of noise. Some of the instruments - from modified children’s toys to keychain voice recorders - are shown here, and can be heard on albums and remixes by the band FOUND.

This is a pretty neat instrument. It looks like it has a music box on the outside, with microphone and electronic components for recording and looping on the inside. This could probably keep an eight year old busy for hours.

The Abyssal is a photo-noise synth and oscillating filter. It uses one square and saw waveform VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) with a huge pitch range, from subsonic to ultrasonic sound controlled by a big photocell (pitch control) allowing to play it like a photo Theremin, one square and triangle waveform LFO (low frequency oscillator), that can modulate the VCO for the vibrato effect creating arcade Atari-like sounds; and also can modulate the filter creating a resonant tremolo effect, and one white noise generator that modulates the frequency of the VCO. However it works, one thing is clear: this thing produces some seriously creepy UFO music. Enjoy.