Watch as a telephone is transformed into a DIY analog drum machine

Push-button telephone. Analog drum machine. Arduino Nano. DIY amplifier. Shashwath Sundar, aka simple_but_nerdy, makes the telephone-drum machine fusion seem like it was meant to be.

What’s new in the DIY world of Music Thing’s Workshop System

It’s a Very Workshop System Jamuary. Music Thing’s patchable music lab-in-a-lunchbox has proved that small-batch personal hardware can attract a select, dedicated community sharing great stuff with one another. Let’s catch up with what’s been happening in that magical village of synth wonder in the past year. Don’t forget, the ideas and code here are all open — meaning this could inspire more.

A free emulator of Roland JP-8000 and the love of supersaws and trance

Digital preservation is the new challenge for synths, just as it is in areas like games. And the Roland JP-8000 got a big leg up with a free and open source release from The Usual Suspects available this month, the JE8086. It’s one of several recent emulations, so let’s talk about why the 1998 synth […]

Peter Kirn - December 30, 2025

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