Musical Hacks

1382 Articles

Phoniebox: A Family-Friendly Simple Music Box

October 5, 2024 by 5 Comments

Ever hear of the Phoniebox project? If not – tune in, that’s a hacker’s project your entire family will appreciate. Phoniebox is a software suite and tutorial for building a jukebox controlled through RFID cards, and it can play audio from a wide variety of sources – music and playlists stored locally, online streams like internet radio stations, Spotify, podcasts of your choice, and so on. It’s super easy to build – get a Raspberry Pi board, connect an NFC reader to it, wire up a pair of speakers, and you’re set. You can assemble a PhonieBox together with your kids over the weekend – and many do.

Want some inspiration, or looking to see what makes Phoniebox so popular? Visit the Phoniebox gallery – it’s endearing to see just how many different versions have been built over the six years of project’s existence. Everyone’s Phoniebox build is different in its own special way – you bring the hardware, Phoniebox brings well-tested software and heaps of inspiration.

You already have a case to house a  Phoniebox setup – if you think you don’t, check the gallery, you’ll find that you do. Experiencing a problem? There’s a wealth of troubleshooting advice and tutorials, and a helpful community. Phoniebox is a mature project and its scale is genuinely impressive – build one for your living room, or your hacker’s lair, or your hackerspace. RFID-controlled jukeboxes are a mainstay on Hackaday, so it’s cool to see a project that gives you all the tools to build one.

Digital Audio Workstation In A Box

September 23, 2024 by 4 Comments

Although it’s still possible to grab a couple of friends, guitars, and a set of drums and start making analog music like it’s 1992 and there are vacant garages everywhere yearning for the sounds of power chords, the music scene almost demands the use of a computer now. There are a lot of benefits, largely that it dramatically lowers the barrier to entry since it greatly reduces the need for expensive analog instruments. It’s possible to get by with an impressively small computer and only a handful of other components too, as [BAussems] demonstrates with this tiny digital audio workstation (DAW).

The DAW is housed inside a small wooden box and is centered around a Behringer JT-4000 which does most of the heavy lifting in this project. It’s a synthesizer designed to be as small as possible, but [BAussems] has a few other things to add to this build to round out its musical capabilities. A digital reverb effects pedal was disassembled to reduce size and added to the DAW beneath the synthesizer. At its most basic level this DAW can be used with nothing but these components and a pair of headphones, but it’s also possible to add a smartphone to act as a sequencer and a stereo as well.

For a portable on-the-go rig, this digital audio workstation checks a lot of the boxes needed including MIDI and integration with a computer. It’s excellent inspiration for anyone else who needs a setup like this but doesn’t have access, space, or funds for a more traditional laptop- or desktop-centered version. For some other small on-the-go musical instruments we recently saw a MIDI-enabled keyboard not much larger than a credit card.

Player Ukulele Pulls Your Strings

September 13, 2024 by 6 Comments

Automated musical instruments aren’t a new idea. From water chimes to player pianos, they’ve been around for a while. But we can’t remember the last time we saw a player ukulele. [Zeroshot] shows us one, though, and it uses an Arduino. You can see and hear it in the video below.

Honestly, with all the stepper motors, linear rails, and belts, we thought it looked like a 3D printer, at least up at the business end. [Zeroshot] thought it would be easier to build a robot than to actually learn to play the instrument. We aren’t sure we agree.

Continue reading “Player Ukulele Pulls Your Strings” →

Doing MIDI With Discrete Logic Is Neat, If Not Particularly Useful

September 13, 2024 by 4 Comments

MIDI is normally baked into the chipset of a synthesizer, or something you use a microcontroller to handle. But that’s not the only way to speak the language! [Kevin] decided to have some fun doing MIDI with discrete logic instead, with some pretty neat results.

[Kevin] had previously built a control voltage step sequencer called the Baby8, which relied on 4017 counter ICs. He later realized he could repurpose three of his old Baby8 PCBs to create something that could generate MIDI using nothing more than discrete logic. The stack of three boards generate a simple MIDI message—in this case, a two-byte Program Change command. At 8 bits per byte, plus a start and stop bit, that comes out to 20 bits in total. The bits to be sent are configured via the switches on the PCBs, and clocked out through the counter ICs via a clock running at the MIDI baud rate of 31,250 Hz.

Obviously, it’s not very practical to code your MIDI commands manually via DIP switches and then clock them out in this fashion. But—it does work, and you can do it! If you wanted to build an old-school logic circuit that just spits out simple short MIDI commands, this is one way to go about it.

We’ve seen [Kevin]’s work before, too, like this neat musical rotary phone build.

Continue reading “Doing MIDI With Discrete Logic Is Neat, If Not Particularly Useful” →

Digital Bumper Sticker Tells Everyone What You’re Listening To

September 12, 2024 by 23 Comments

Bumper stickers are usually political, crude, or otherwise inflammatory. Rather a more fun example is this digital creation from [Guy Dupont], who made a bumper sticker that broadcasts what he’s listening to on the stereo.

[Guy] found a nice wide 11-inch bar LCD that was the right aspect ratio to suit the “bumper sticker” aesthetic. It had an HDMI interface, so he decided to drive it with a Raspbery Pi Zero 2W. Power for the system was derived from 12-volt lines going to his vehicle’s rear view camera. For an enclosure, he simply stuck the Pi and a buck converter on the back of the display and heat shrinked the whole thing. He also threw some magnets in there to stick it to the car.

How does the screen know what song to display? Well, [Guy] already has his Spotify listens scrobbling to Last.fm. Thus, he just made a script that scrapes his Last.fm page, which runs on a Particle Boron microcontroller, which has a cellular connection of its own. The Boron gets the song data, and spits it over to the Pi via Bluetooth. Then the Pi generates an image for the display.

Oh, and there’s also a neat Easter Egg. In honor of brat summer, the background changes to #8ACE00 green if the system detects you’re listening to Charli XCX. Neat.

It’s a neat build with a lot of moving parts. We’re surprised we haven’t seen anything like this before though, it’s really rather fun. Also, how’s about that taste of the old Internet—when was the last time you heard somebody mention scrobbling? Gosh, we’re getting old.

We’ve featured some of [Guy’s] works before, too, like the amusing Mailblocks project. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Digital Bumper Sticker Tells Everyone What You’re Listening To” →

Building A Subwoofer Box Out Of Decking Material

September 12, 2024 by 8 Comments

When you go to build a subwoofer box, wood is the most common choice. When it came to his project, though, [Startup Chuck] decided to go a different route entirely. Rather than the usual plywood or MDF, he decided to try Trex decking instead. Why? He had some lying around, and he suspected it might just sound good.

If you’re unfamiliar with it, Trex decking is a composite material made of recycled materials like reclaimed wood and plastic film. The best part, though? Trex decking is twice as dense as MDF. That makes it good for speaker box use because it flexes less and thus absorbs less energy from the subwoofer. [Chuck] walks us through cutting out the parts for the box and the subsequent assembly. Ultimately, it’s not dissimilar from building a speaker box out of wood; the material is simply not that different—just denser.

[Chuck] also puts his new sub through some quick little tests, demonstrating that minimal vibration is passed through to the enclosure itself. He reports that the final build has a “nice, deep sound.” Meanwhile, if you don’t like working with your hands, you could always 3D-print your speaker enclosures instead.

Continue reading “Building A Subwoofer Box Out Of Decking Material” →

The Commodordion Gets A Big Usability Upgrade

August 28, 2024 by 14 Comments

The chiptune scene is dominated by Game Boys and other Nintendo hardware, but one should never forget the gorgeous, beautiful tones that come from the hallowed Commodore 64. [Linus Åkesson] knows this well, and it’s at the heart of his work on the Commodordion. Now, he’s built an even better version.

The original idea he had was to build an accordion-like control surface for the SID chip in a Commodore 64. The device is capable of creating beautiful accordion-like music with a simple 8-bit flair. He has since dubbed the original Commodordion the “bass Commodordion,” while the new version is classified as a tenor instrument.

The prime upgrades are ergonomic. The previous instrument was too heavy, with the left hand having to carry an entire Commodore 64 on its own. It was also hard to reach the keys. The new version is much lighter, with one of the two C64s of the original having been removed. The supporting electronics have been redesigned to more neatly fit into a space behind the bellows.

The result is a machine that’s far easier to play, and one that won’t injure the user in extended play sessions. “It’s now a pleasure, not a pain,” says [Linus]. The payoff in usability is obvious, and the tunes themselves are hauntingly beautiful.

We first covered the Commordordion back in 2022, but it wasn’t the first time we saw one of [Linus]’s impressive creations.

Continue reading “The Commodordion Gets A Big Usability Upgrade” →