I participated in a workshop ‘Electricity Matters’ at STEIM, Amsterdam during 29th Nov - 2th Dec, under the guidance of Nataliya Petkova. Basically, it was about making an analog synthesizer with the circuit, which consists of an oscillator, modulator, and distortion. I learned how to read the schematics, and how to make circuits with many chips and elements. It was the first time for me to get into the world of analog synth as well as hand made an electronic instrument. Although I didn’t know well about electronic and noise sound, I was fascinated by the process of making instrument by myself and fell in love the with bleep and bloop sounds of the analog synth during the workshop.
After the workshop, on Sunday, 3th Dec, all the participants had a chance to perform and play our instruments at Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, during Instruments Make Play festival.
This workshop really drove me to work with circuit making as I started to tinker with chips and schematics more since then. But still I’m not very used to dealing with all the electricity matters, I refer to a lot the book ‘Handmade Electronic Music’ written by Nicolas Collins. I’m not very good at physics and electricity, so this book really helped me out a lot!
I like the process of making even though I still struggle a lot whenever I make something with circuits. Quite often the outcome doesn’t work well or doesn’t look great. But during the process, I could understand more about how the circuit and electricity works, and I can expand my ideas what to make and how to play with from this understanding.
My first synth has only oscillator, but has 6 different frequencies so I can play 6 kinds of sounds. There are 3 photo-resisters put inside the paper cups which have a high pitch, and 3 potentiometers with a low tone.
I joined Christmas jam in my college with my first analog synth on 21st Dec 2017. Additionally, I used servos, Arduino, MaxMSP and OSC controller app together with my synth so that I could play an interactive sound system.
Photo taken by Inbal, my colleague in MADtech, FMI.