Name: Handmade electronic music
ISBN: 9780415998734

Handmade electronic music

Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking provides a long-needed, practical, and engaging introduction for students of electronic music, installation and sound-art to the craft of making--as well as creatively cannibalizing--electronic circuits for artistic purposes. Designed for practioners and students of electronic art, it provides a guided tour through the world of electronics, encouraging artists to get to know the inner workings of basic electronic devices so they can creatively use them for their own ends.Handmade Electronic Music introduces the basic of practical circuitry while instructing the student in basic electronic principles, always from the practical point of view of an artist. It teaches a style of intuitive and sensual experimentation that has been lost in this day of prefabricated electronic musical instruments whose inner workings are not open to experimentation. It encourages artists to transcend their fear of electronic technology to launch themselves into the pleasure of working creatively with all kinds of analog circuitry.

What Hacker News says

thenthenthenSep 2025

Not specifically about guitar pedals, but cute sound hacks nevertheless: Nicolas Collins, Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking, https://www.amazon.com/Handmade-Electronic-Music-Hardware-Ha...

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georgeoliverSep 2023

The author of the linked post wrote the (open access) Handmade Electronic Music, https://www.nicolascollins.com/handmade.htm, a really fun book to make projects from for anyone interested.

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diydspNov 2013

Ah yes, i was wondering if that was the same Nick Collins who wrote the awesome books on Handmade Electronic Music :)

I wonder how the author of the article missed that, heh.

Anyway, obviously, this live-coding is not "The Future" any more than anything else is, nor is it 100% new; There have been experiments since the beginning of computer music trying to make live compositions---

NEVERTHELESS, I think this article is great because it documents and celebrates how much technology we've leveraged w/r/t to music. We can now analyze and compose with great effect and detail. I mean, there are over 160 APIs for music on the web alone now: http://www.programmableweb.com/apitag/music

Now that understanding of parsing and programming and algorithms is growing, we should expect to see our knowledge reflected in the field of music! Yay!

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burningionOct 2014

Reading:

Michaelangelo - A Life in Six Masterpieces

Proving Darwin - Making Biology Mathematical

Handmade Electronic Music - The Art of Hardware Hacking

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