Musical Hacks

1547 Articles

3D Printed Piano Action Faithful To The Original

August 29, 2026 by 5 Comments

A piano’s internal mechanism for translating a key press into sound is surprisingly complicated. It has to do a lot of things simultaneously and quickly: provide precise control over velocity, ensure the hammer doesn’t press itself against the strings,  ensure the hammer rebounds without accidentally hitting the strings, allow for quick, continued strikes of the strings, and dampen the string after the key is released. Not only is that a mouthful to say, it’s a tall order for a mechanical device and took (arguably) around 150 years for the idea to be refined into what most of us would recognize as a piano. But could [dovetail] do it with a 3D printer in a few weeks?

[dovetail]’s design relies on compliant mechanisms, which are solid parts that flex in specific and controlled ways to provide movement. The action took many iterations to make sure that all of the feelings of all the parts of a real piano action were accounted for in this model. Pianos have more than one key, though, so [dovetail] also had to design a modular system to piece all the keys together. The modularity extends to the piano’s electronics as well, with a set of PCBs daisy-chained together, each of which supports a set of keys. This is a hybrid piano, a style with a real action but digital sound production. Using infrared sensors allows the instrument to behave as a MIDI keyboard, but one with the goal of feeling somewhere between a digital piano and a fully analog one.

The piano was first demonstrated at Open Sauce, where a number of musicians were able to try it out. As a prototype device it still has a few rough edges that [dovetail] plans to improve upon, like changing the sensors from IR to hall effect, improving the action and using a different filament. There are some other things he has planned as well which we look forward to seeing in future videos. And, although a completely different instrument, it has a number of similarities to this action built to strike a bass drum instead.

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Encoding MOD Files Optically On Paper, Because Amiga’s Legacy Will Outlast M-Disks

August 26, 2026 by 30 Comments

All but a few of our very youngest readers are surely familiar with music formats that rely on optical disks. When we say [RobSmithDev] made a MOD tracker that uses an optical disk, then, you might be forgiven for thinking he stuck a bunch of MOD files onto a CD– MOD files being a format of electronic music that was conceived of on the Commodore Amiga that is still used to this day. A dedicated MOD-CD player might be a fun project, but it’s not what [Rob] did; his project is far more impressive and impractical, as he’s come up with a way to encode the MOD files on paper for optical playback. This way the Amiga’s legacy can be preserved longer than the paltry thousand years promised by the optical M-disk format.

Zooming way, way in on the disk reveals that he’s actually printing the patterns of the MOD file row by row, just like you’d see playing it in a ‘tracker’ program. A MOD file, you see, does not encode music like a WAV or MP3. Rather, like with MIDI, it lists the notes the software reading the file — traditionally called a tracker — is to recreate. Unlike a MIDI file, though, you don’t have to store the same notes more than once: repeating sections are stored in patterns. So most of the disk is just a long list of hexadecimal numbers: several columns worth, one for each ‘voice’ or instrument playing in the song. Another difference with MIDI is that MOD files are self-contained in that they are supposed to contain the samples, which isn’t in evidence until you flip over the disk.

There’s no B-side to [Rob]’s album. Instead a QR-code like series of barcodes is used to encode the samples used in each track on the disk, as well as other information needed to recreate the MOD file, including metadata like title and artist, and the sequencing of the patterns on the front. Of course this means he needs two cameras on his physical mod player, one on each side, and steppers to slide them across the disk like a linear tracking turntable. The front is read via OCR of his modified Amiga “Topaz” font, while the rear holds the first 1084 bytes of the MOD file in a QR-inspired format [Rob] produced specifically for this project.

Unlike the last time we saw someone store music in QR codes, the more modest size requirements of modfiles — something that led to their use in keygens — means this player can store the music’s 8-bit sound samples without the OPUS compression [Rob] is using affecting fidelity. He’s working on another video to give the details of the player– as he works out the bugs, right now it can’t jump betwixt patterns on the disk as fast as some modfiles need–but we’re willing to hazard a guess he’s got a Raspberry Pi in there, and that it’s probably not running the Amiga-inspired AROS operating system.

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An Electronic Explanation Of 1960s Fuzz Boxes

August 24, 2026 by 10 Comments

It’s likely that even those of us who have never picked up a guitar in our lives will recognize the sound of an electric guitar with a fuzz box effects pedal. The raspy distorted sound has been at the heart of so many very well known recordings. Behind it is a distortion circuit, or as [Bill Jehle’s Mad Scientist Guitar Lab] is here to tell us, eight different circuit topologies.

The result is a fascinating trip through the evolution of rock music through the 1960s, as he examines circuits from simple diode clippers through to frequency doublers and phase shifters. He’s provided a playlist as an accompaniment so you can even have an immediate listen to each sound. It’ll mess up our YouTube recommendations, but worth it for the informative journey.

It’s also a window into a lost period in electronics where all they practically had was the transistor, so each device had to put in the maximum work for a living. Designing circuits like these called for intimate knowledge of the device characteristics, and just how they could be safely exceeded. The video is below the break, and well worth a watch.

If clever transistor music circuits interest you, you’ll love the flawed devices that gave the Roland 808 its sound.

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Building A Hammond Organ To Understand How They Work

August 21, 2026 by 27 Comments

The Hammond organ is an early form of electronic– or perhaps electromechanical– musical instrument. It solved the very real problem of organs normally being the sort of thing you built into a cathedral, allowing a similar sound to fit into a piano-like form factor. Their workings are a so simple that it’s hard to wrap your head around it actually working– which is why [Uri Tuchman] built one on YouTube. Also for a gift exchange, but we’re not Santa, here– we’re here to learn, and [Uri] does not disappoint.

[Uri]’s organ is a bit smaller than what the Hammond corporation was putting out back in the day, just one hand-cranked octave– and it lacks the distinct spinning speaker in favour of plugging into any old guitar amp. It’s enough to get the idea across. Each of the twelve keys acts as a simple switch, wired to a pickup made from a coil of wire around a steel rod– much like a magnetic pickup on an electric guitar. The pickup faces the tone wheel, which is the part that feels like magic: the tonewheel spinning past the pickup acts exactly like the steel string vibrating in an electric guitar, its ferroelectric motions inducing a tiny current. The tonewheels smooth teeth are spaced to create sine waves at the frequencies corresponding to each key, so it has to be exact. That’s why while the rest of the brass-and-wood build is [Uri]’s beautiful craftsmanship, the iron tonewheels are CNC’d.

Aside from the amp it is plugged into, there are no electronics here. There’s nothing to double or otherwise alter the frequencies: one key means one tonewheel– twelve for this build– and if the RPMs are off everything is out of tune. Good thing [Uri] made it hand-cranked! Well, it is for a gift exchange. Maybe it’s a white elephant sort of thing, because we can only imagine that making it much harder to play. On the other hand, [Uri] demonstrates some neat effects by varying the RPM at the end of the video, so perhaps that’s a feature.

As nice as [Uri]’s work is, Hammond Organ Company filmed the construction themselves, back in the day if you want to see the true quill. Alternatively, you can get more of [Uri]’s craftsmanship with this square guitar.

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Store Tunes On Paper And Stream Them Over LoRA

August 18, 2026 by 37 Comments

Some projects seem too good to be true until you dig into it and find the secret magic that makes it all work. Take Paper Tunes by [Makestreame], a project which purports to store a song on a single sheet of paper via QR code and transmit the data over LoRA. If it was a MIDI sequence, maybe. But the promise of Paper Tunes is to take any MP3 and give it this treatment, and that just seems like an impossible level of compression at first glance.

The music is heavily compressed, make no doubt about that. There’s samples in the Instructables link above and in the video below, but it sounds far better than it has any right to. The secret is Meta’s EnCodec neural codec, which like you’d guess uses neural nets to squeeze the absolute minimum information needed to reconstruct a sample. With it [Makestreame] is able to get a 2.9 MB MP3 file down to just 21.44 kB.

Of course, that’s still not going to fit in a 3.3 kB QR code. But by simply making eight of them, [Makestreame] is able to fit the song onto the front and back of a piece of paper. Yes, each song has an “A” and a “B” side — and you thought flipping a record halfway through got old fast. Having to scan eight codes to get one song may strike some as a bit silly, but we do enjoy some silly things here.

The same EnCodec compression that gets the song so tiny as to fit in a brace of QR codes is obviously also what enables its transmission over LoRA. While it’s got far lower bandwidth than something like WiFi, 21 kB is well within its limits. It’s often said that LoRA isn’t suitable for audio, but this project is another example that one person’s “unsuitable” is another person’s “challenge accepted”.

We’ve seen other LoRA audio projects before. Speaking of things not suitable for audio, we once featured an entire album crammed onto a floppy disk. Continue reading “Store Tunes On Paper And Stream Them Over LoRA” →

A small, 3D-printed banjo frame that uses a party balloon for the resonating chamber.

May This Balloon Banjo Resonate With You

August 17, 2026 by 8 Comments

Most instruments, with maybe the exception of pianos, have consumable parts. Guitars need string changes, bows need rosin, saxophones need reeds. [Co:Creation Lab]’s balloon banjo requires both fishing line and a party balloon, lest it be semi-silent.

If you want to change the resonance, just increase or decrease the amount of air inside the balloon. Neither the balloon nor the strings need tools to adjust, but we might argue that tuning pegs are tools.

The balloon banjo was the result of a design constraint: a parent should be able to build it with their child. To that end, there are no metal screws, no recurring snap-fits in the assembly, and a single, internal, one-time-use snap fit for the adult’s tactile satisfaction. Instead, the balloon banjo uses 3D-printed screws. A six-year-old can turn them with their fingers, and it’s difficult to over-tighten them and strip the plastic threads.

Be sure to check it out in action after the break. If you would rather use extant plastic to make music, the Bottlephone 2.0 is calling.

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ESP32 Music Sequencer Is Clearly Nailing The Y2K Aesthetic

August 15, 2026 by 2 Comments

Do you remember back when electronics came in clear cases? Back around the turn of the millennium, when translucency was chic. [3DSage] sure does, which is why he went to great lengths to make a clear case for his Clear Retro Music Sequencer.

The sequencer itself is based around an ESP32-S3 module with a built-in display, and a rotary encoder that handles most of the input. Most, because there’s a second button and a stylophone-like array of brass rods on one edge of the custom PCB he made with his fiber laser that can also handle note input. Other notable features include a phono jack with built-in switching so the tunes come out automatically from headphones or the internal speaker, and a AAA battery-lookalike. It’s a small detail, but that 666 mWh 3.7 V lithium cell is the demon’s meow for this project, seeing as it gives the convenience of a modern battery without compromising that Y2K look — remember you can see the battery through the translucent case.

About that translucent case: it’s 3D printed out of PETG, with settings similar to those we’ve reported on before: hot, slow, and don’t cross the streams! Which is to say every layer must line up with the one above. Oh, use filament fresh out of the drier of you live somewhere as humid as [3DSage]. The result is not totally see-through, but an application of clear enamel fills in the surface well enough to read through, giving the vintage look [3DSage] was after. To complete that Y2K feel, he turns the device into a slap bracelet, because why not? For those of you who missed due to the aforementioned federal prison arc, slap-on wristbands were all the rage amongst the kids back in those days.

The wristband is a length of measuring tape at its core, the springy steel having been cold-worked to hold the radius of [3DSage]’s wrist in its relaxed state, encapsulated in clear gorilla tape for comfort. We probably don’t have to tell you that getting slapped with a raw tape measure isn’t the nicest. For the actual operation of the sequencer, check out the video embedded below — the first 9 minutes cover the build, while the rest shows off the product.

Of course you don’t need an ESP32 for this kind of music maker– you can do it with a C64, or even discrete parts and rope-core memory. 

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