If half your work day is spent thinking up ways to troll and annoy your co-workers, today’s going to be an easy one. Neil Thapen’s Pink Trombone is a browser-based speech synthesizer that lets you manipulate a simulated mouth, throat, tongue, and nasal cavity to create a remarkably realistic—and equally annoying—human…
For electronic musicians who still like being able to perform with dials and buttons, Teenage Engineering’s Pocket Operators are miniature synths that manage to pack a tremendous amount of functionality into a tiny package. And that now includes the ability to import and export sounds and patterns with the new PO-32…
UK design shop Dorothy has a new cutaway schematic print that reveals the inner working of the Minimoog analog synthesizer that’s been a distinctive part of electronic music for decades. But you won’t find transistors or electronic components inside—just 28 electronic music pioneers hidden like a Where’s Waldo book.
Originally released way back in 1970, the unique sound of the Minimoog analog synthesizer means the hardware is still in demand today. But since Moog stopped producing the synths back in 1981, they’re incredibly rare and expensive now—unless you’re happy to add this sofa equivalent to your studio.
Moog’s first iPad app, called the Animoog, did an incredible job smashing together iPad tech and old analog instruments, back when tablets were very much a new thing. It’s nearly five years later, and Moog has launched an all-new app, digitally memorializing its classic $10,000 Moog Model 15 Synthesizer. Luckily, the…
With software these days you can recreate almost any sound you want. The hulking equipment that used to produce electronic music is long gone. And yet, people have a desire to touch buttons and turn knobs. The Roland Boutique Series is a middle-ground between the digital age of music making and the classic synths of…
You know the sound. Listen to Devo’s “Whip It” or Parliament’s “Flash Light.” Like countless modern pop songs, they’re full of sounds that aren’t made by acoustic instruments; the sound is pure synthetic. You’re listening to electricity manipulated by a machine.
Critter & Guitari’s Brooklyn-based workshop is the source of beautiful, if borderline esoteric electronic instruments. Its latest box, based on the colorful metal-and-wood design the company is known for, is fully programmable, so that those lovely lacquered keys can make any sound you want.
Roland has a trio of new synthesizers called the Boutique Series. They are affordable miniaturized versions of three classic analog synths from the early 80’s. Say hello to the sweet electronic sounds of the good old days.
Launched in late 2013, the littleBits Synth Kit lets you snap together the different components of a synthesizer into an extremely minimal modular instrument. Today, littleBits is adding three new modulates to its lineup, allowing its toy synth to connect with other musical tools like, uh, your computer.
Last year, Korg set out to recreate the Arp Odyssey, a legendary synth that went out of production back in 1981. How does the result sound? Pretty darn good!
Earlier this month, Moog announced that it would be reissuing an extremely limited number of rebooted instruments from the company's extinct line of crazy modulars from the 1970s. You'll probably never actually get to play one, but at the very least you can revel in the magnificent demo in the video above.
Moog's newly announced modular synthesizers aren't really new at all. They're recreated versions of giant hardware the company originally released in 1973. This is big news—like literally, the synths are huge.
There are few things I love in life more than Steve McQueen movies. And there's nothing else out there that sounds like analog synthesizer music. So when my Giz coworker Andrew Liszewski turned me on to this TRS-80 music video combining the two, I couldn't take my eyes or ears off it.
Usually, if you're building your own synthesizer, you have aspirations of composing the next great techno track. But this kit—available from the Maker SHED for just $20—lets you build a wonderful toy ray gun that generates electronic "pewpew" sound effects. And, instead of just cycling through various sounds like you…
London-based duo Dentaku have made digital instruments out of beer bottles, text messages, and color-sensing robots. But, for their latest trick, Yuri Suzuki and Mark McKeague want to let you make music. Meet Ototo, a tiny synthesizer that lets you make almost anything—from oranges to origami—into an instrument.
It’s been almost three centuries since Bach wrote The Well-Tempered Clavier, a simple set of compositions that became definitive in music theory. J.S. probably would’ve been surprised—but delighted—by the work of Luisa Pereira, who has translated some of his rules into the most modern form imaginable: The sequencer.
Building a synthesizer is a lot of work. It seems pretty safe to assume, but if you had any doubts, just watch this one come together from scratch like the behemoth of circuit boards it is.
Nine Inch Nails frontman and music genius Trent Reznor gave a fantastic interview to the Fader, and it sums up just about everything about the state of electronic music and how we listen to it.
Remember Paul Vo? He's the genius who invented a little black box that makes acoustic guitars sound otherworldly by changing the physics of how strings vibrate? Well his Kickstarter succeeded, and 100 units of the Vo-96 Acoustic Synthesizer are on sale now.
