The whole do-it-yourself (DIY), open source maker electronics scene that’s really gained in popularity over the past few years has led to a lot of really interesting devices and kits appearing on the market. The great thing, of course, is that it isn’t just limited to computing and robotics enthusiasts: musicians have benefitted from this open source DIY movement too.
We’ve started seeing a lot of synths with open access to both the hardware schematics and the software or firmware (if any) at the heart of the synth.
DIY synths aren’t a new thing, but until a few years ago they used to be either super simple square wave toy synths or complex analog synths, with very little i n between. These days, there’s a lot more to choose from, especially with the advent of microcontrollers running easily hackable firmware.
Here are 5 great open source and DIY friendly synths that you can play, build, modify or even use as jumping-off blocks for your own synth creations, listed in rough chronological order.
Recommended Reading: 10 Virtual Instruments You Can Play In Your Web Browser
1. Mutable Instruments – Shruthi
Mutable Instruments’ Shruthi is a hybrid digital and analog monophonic synth that uses an 8-bit microcontroller to generate two oscillators plus a sub frequency oscillator. The Shruthi-1′s oscillators are quite capable, though, and aren’t just limited to the square waves that you normally expect from DIY synth kits. Since they’ re digital, the osci [...]
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