synth

142 Articles

Using An Unmodded GBA As A Music Synth

October 23, 2026 by 5 Comments

The style and sound of older video games is unique enough that they’re still copied in relatively modern games like Undertale, Celeste, or Shovel Knight. There’s also a vibrant chiptune community making music on the older hardware directly. Often this involves hardware modding or otherwise finding chips from older gaming systems to replicate that unique retro gaming sound authentically. But disassembling older systems is not always necessary. Take a look at this Game Boy Advance synthesizer which uses the GBA hardware with no modifications at all.

The key to making this work is the GBA’s multiboot feature, which allowed these systems to send executable code over a link cable to other consoles which didn’t have cartridges. This meant that friends could play multiplayer games without each one needing their own cartridge, but it also means that nowadays people can send their own custom software directly to the console’s RAM without much extra effort. To run the synthesizer software, the GBA is connected to a computer, the software is started, and then when the GBA is powered on the snythesizer is automatically loaded into its RAM. The audio output is played over the headphone jack, and various controls are available on the computer and on the console.

In the video linked below, [Andy] is using the GBA with some other musical hardware and the sounds he’s getting from the unmodified console are impressive. It could certainly be a go-to for anyone interested in getting started in this style of music or who doesn’t want to do something like take apart an original Sega Genesis for the audio circuitry.

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Bite Into Strange Sounds With NOISFERATU

June 30, 2026 by 20 Comments

The NOISFERATU is an open source generative textural sound synthesizer, or as creator [Robert Heel] puts it, “a sound designer’s dream and audiophile’s worst nightmare”.

NOISFERATU offers 45 different sound algorithms grouped into five banks to produce a dazzling range of evolving soundscapes and patterns that resist repetition or settling, each influenced and shaped — the word controlled does not quite apply — by a volume slider and a few hardware knobs.

So what does it actually sound like? Check out the video embedded below to give it a listen, it’s pretty trippy.

Hardware-wise NOISFERATU is centered around the Seeed Studio XIAO SAMD21 microcontroller board, takes power over USB-C, and has a headphone jack for sound output. We love the artwork on the dual-sided front panel, too.

DIY synthesizers based on logic chips have a long and proud history, and seeing the different directions people can go by incorporating microcontrollers is always a delight.

If NOISFERATU’s experimental sound and noise sounds up your alley, the design files and code on GitHub have everything one should need to build one. Kits are for sale direct from the designer, as well.

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This Handy Synth Packs An ESP32

May 2, 2026 by 12 Comments

Since the first electronic hobbyist wired up a multivibrator to a keyboard many decades ago, electonic synthesisers have been a staple of home-made projects. Now with the proliferation of significantly powerful microcontrollers it’s possible to make a synth that surpasses many of the high-end models from days gone by.

Among those we’ve seen of late perhaps none does this better than [Povle] with their Spark portable keyboard. It’s a tiny thing that reminds us of those little Casio synths of the 1980s, but in its 3D printed case it packs a load of features.

Hardware wise it’s an ESP32 with a 3D printed keyboard using keyswitches. There are a load of pots for sound adjustment, and buttons for functions. A small OLED display shows what’s going on. Software wise it relies upon the AMY synth library, and there are repositories for both its hardware and software.

There’s a demo video we’ve placed below, and in it you hear the keyboard at work. And here maybe we’ve saved the best until last, because alongside being a fully featured synth, it’s also a sampler and a Bluetooth MIDI keyboard. Is there nothing this thing can’t do!

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Disposable Vape Becomes Breath-Activated Synth

March 24, 2026 by 12 Comments

Makers and hardware hackers have been collecting disposable vapes for some time now, usually to salvage their batteries or the unique displays many models now come with. But you can also repurpose them for other ends, such as playing music. [Becky Stern]’s vape synth is a perfect example of this.

The build started with an ElfBars BC5000 vape. [Becky] notes there may be similar models under different names out there that would work just as well. The vape is effectively gutted for parts, with the LiPo cell, USB charging board, and the low-pressure sensor the main things that remain. These parts are combined with a drop-in 555 synthesizer circuit complete with speaker, which has its pitch controlled by a series of six photoresistors. When the low pressure sensor is triggered by inhalation, the 555 circuit is triggered, and operates at a pitch depending on the resistance of the photoresistor stack.

The output of the vape synth is kind of shrill, and frankly a little bit annoying — which is somehow rather fitting for what it is. If you want to make a better-sounding synth at home, we’ve featured such projects, you’re just unlikely to fit them entirely within the housing of a disposable vape.

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Analog Siren For Psychedelic Soundscapes

March 21, 2026 by 4 Comments

For better or worse, there are a few instruments that have been pigeonholed into specific genres of popular music. For example, banjos are often heard in bluegrass or folk, harmonicas in blues, and a sick horn section will take many of us immediately to third wave ska. Similarly, there are certain styles of synthesizers tied to various genres and if you’re a fan a certain sub-genre of reggae you’ll be familiar with the dub siren. This unique analog synth has a few tricks up its sleeve and [Jakub] shows us how he built his.

He’s calling this build the Sirenotron, and its based on the venerable 555 timer It also features an LFO built on an LM358, with triangle and square wave modes, plus an additional “acid mode” for the square wave which adds a single capacitor to the circuit but makes a big difference in the sound. Like any siren synth, there are potentiometers to control pitch and the pulse rate of the siren as well and another switch controls whether it is outputting sound or not. He’s also included the ability to control it with a foot pedal so he can use it while playing the bass guitar during live shows.

[Jakub] has gone through several prototypes before getting to this stage, and not only uses it when playing dub but also creates psychedelic soundscapes in a side project of his where it also fits right in. He’s also made the schematics available for anyone who wants to reproduce it or build on his design.

We’re always interested in a unique synthesizer build around here, and some of our favorites include this synth built from Sega Genesis parts and this one controlled more like a woodwind instrument.

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Upgrading The E-mu Audity 20 Years After Factory Support Ended

February 8, 2026 by 18 Comments

If you purchased an E-mu Audity 2000 ROMpler back in 1998, you almost certainly got a rig with the 1.00 firmware. It was fine, if a little limited, particularly where upgradability was concerned. E-mu would later offer firmware upgrades over MIDI with the 2.00 firmware, but to get the 2.00 firmware, you needed to ship the box back to E-mu. Or you did… until now.

Realizing that E-mu is long gone and they weren’t going to handle any further firmware upgrades, [Ray Bellis] set about finding another way to help aggrieved operators with gear stuck on v1.00. [Ray] had managed to lay hands on a Audity 2000 service manual as well as the official 2.00 upgrade kit in an estate sale, and set about reverse engineering it to help the community. It turned out that upgrading from 1.00 to 2.00 required the use of a special boot ROM and a flash device containing the upgraded firmware image. Booting from the special ROM required the use of a jumper, and when engaged, the ROM would copy the updated image to the device itself.

[Ray] didn’t want to duplicate the standard upgrade device, as that seemed a little difficult what with parts availability in 2026. Instead, he crafted his own ROM that, with compression, contained the necessary firmware upgrade image and could all be stuffed inside a single 512 KB chip. All you need to do is flash the custom upgrade ROM to an AM29F040B PLCC32 NOR flash chip, pop it in the empty PLCC32 socket on the mainboard, and away you go. This will get you a machine upgraded to the final v2.01 firmware delivered by E-mu before its demise.

It’s a finicky bit of work, but it’s a great way to get new functionality out of an old Audity 2000. We’ve featured similar work before regarding aging Yamaha synths, too. If you’ve got your own backdoor methods for giving older music hardware a new lease on life, don’t hesitate to notify the tipsline.

Building A Simple Ribbon Synth

November 29, 2025 by 1 Comment

The usual input device for playing a synthesizer is the good old piano keyboard. However, you don’t have to stick to such pedestrian interfaces when making music. [Daisy] has a fun build that shows us how to put together a ribbon synth that makes wonderful little noises.

Naturally, the heart of the build is a ribbon potentiometer (also known as soft pots). It’s essentially a touch sensitive strip that changes in resistance depending on where you touch it. You can slide your finger up and down to vary the output continuously; in musical contexts, they can behave rather like a fretless instrument. [Daisy] employs one of these potentiometers in such a role by hooking it up to a Daisy Seed microcontroller board, which reads it with an analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The resistance values are used to vary the pitch of a dual-saw synthesizer programmed in the plugdata framework.

We’ve featured some other great ribbon synths over the years, too, like this tribute to the Eowave Persephone. They’re not the ideal choice for those that prefer their notes on pitch, but they’re beautifully fun to play with when you’re getting a little more experimental.

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