If you’ve ever watched old-timey Dr. Who, you probably wondered how they made the music for that series. It’s simple, really:

In 1963 Delia Derbyshire working for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop created one of the most significant and innovative pieces of electronic music, even before the availability of commercial synthesizers.
Starting with a score written by composer Ron Grainer, Delia created every note by cutting, splicing, speeding up and slowing down segments of analog tape recordings of plucked strings, white noise, and the simple harmonic waveforms of test-tone oscillators which were used for calibrating equipment and rooms, not creating music.
Below are pictures of Delia Derbyshire and the studios of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

The MOS Technology sound interface device (SID) has been a favorite of electronic musicians for decades. Originally released within the Commodore CBM-II, 64, and 128 series of computers, this little chip could create 4 different waveforms on 3 analog channels. The guys over at HyperSynth have some custom SID synthesizers for sale, along with a software plug-in to talk to your favorite recording software.

The HyperSID is MIDI driven device, containing a microprocessor and a real SID chip. No emulation here kids. This is the real deal. All three versions of the chip are supported (8580, 6582, and 6581). MIDI signal goes in, and the audio comes out of a balance 1/4″ output. The brightness on the front panel is also controlled by the incoming MIDI signal. ‘Cause if you can’t see your music, you’re not making music, right? Right.

The unit itself comes in the below seen half-rack or rack mountable versions.

The VST controller is a very powerful plug-in giving you real-time control over the synthesizer. LFOs, envelope filters, pitch bending, this thing’s got it all.

There are other SID units and emulators on the market, but the HyperSID looks like the most plug-and-play, fully contained system available. These units will run you between $300 and $450 fully assembled, or if you want to put it together yourself, as low as $50.

via [Retro Thing]

If we applied Moore’s law to the art of DJing, we would probably get something like Amidio’s Touch DJ app. Gone are the software DJ’s who replaced the original vinyl DJ’s. Now you can spin beats on your iPhone or iPod touch without listening to them. Wait, what?

Touch DJ utilizes a innovative new method of mixing that they call visual mixing. Essentially, the app displays the waveforms of the two tracks side by side, and separates the bass pulses from the rest of the track. This way, you can see where the beat lands and sync your songs without having to hear them beforehand.

You get everything else you would want from DJ software, live sampling, looping, pitch bending, tempo control, etc. It has a separate MP3 / M4A library from iTunes, meaning you have to import your tracks into the app before you can use them. But Touch DJ equally sets the volume level across each of them based on RMS power. It’s available now from the iTunes store.

This slightly complex Instructable shows you how to make a wee little potentiometer and circuit board to make something called a Tic Tac Tunes. When you move a stylus up and down the potentiometer you play one or more of the notes in a pre-defined set of musical tones. In this way you can play the song at different tempos. You then stuff the whole thing in a Tic Tac box and play away, ensuring you’ll be the life of the party.

I’ve no formal musical training and this is a compressed version of what knowledge I’ve picked up over the years. If anyone finds errors, or has further ideas, please leave a comment.

The PicAxe can produce musical tones across three octaves, which in a full chromatic scale (with the sharps and flats) is 36 notes. Because of the way the waveforms interact and the way the brain interprets this, some notes will sound ‘wrong’ when played next to each other.

Other scales have developed around the world which use a selection of these notes, and some of these don’t allow the disharmonies of the full scale. The pentatonic (5 note) scales are like this. I’ve chosen a minor pentatonic of A C D E G.

The chromatic scale is what you would use to play ‘proper’ tunes from written music, but the lack of definite note positions on TicTacTunes makes hitting the right note difficult. The positions could be marked, but it will take a better musician than me to play a recognisable tune. Improvisation with one of the harmonious scales is the way to go with this gadget.

He basically picks a scale and plays that rather than offering the standard chromatic scale.