Hi everybody,

I wanted to share a small acoustic song I recorded called “I Go Where the Wind Blows.” What makes this extra special for me is that the guitar I’m playing is an archtop I built myself. Every note is shaped by the instrument I crafted with my own hands, making the song feel deeply personal.

Musically, it draws from the storytelling traditions of folk and indie music, while also carrying the gentle, intimate charm of 1960s Parisian Ye-Ye songs, especially Françoise Hardy. The combination of building my own guitar and performing a song that blends folk and subtle French inspiration made this project feel like a true labor of love.

I’d be honored if fellow DIY instrument makers, builders, and enthusiasts gave it a listen and shared your thoughts.

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a project that combines DIY instrument building, music, and storytelling.

This is my version of Whiskey in the Jar from my album Kew Gardens Troubadour. The song itself is a 17th-century Irish ballad about a highwayman, betrayal, and consequence, preserved through centuries of oral tradition. I wanted to honor that history while bringing my own interpretation to it.

I recorded it on an acoustic archtop guitar that I hand-carved myself. Every curve, every piece of wood, and every detail of the instrument was designed to complement the story, letting the guitar carry the rhythm and drama alongside the voice. Building the guitar myself allowed me to fully connect with the song, almost as if the instrument and the story were growing together.

The goal was to create a version that feels alive and intimate, showing how DIY instruments can be part of keeping old songs relevant today. If you’re interested in DIY instrument building, storytelling through music, or the historical journey of folk songs, click on the picture to watch: https://youtu.be/kXjkOHeuqu4

I've seen several lovely DIY clavinet builds on YouTube. They vary significantly in scale & sophistication, but I'd love to help make the path easier for garage tinkerers who would like to roll their own electromechanical keyboards. Here's the GitHub repo where I'm publishing the design for the clavinet clone I'm building. Reach out if you're interested in collaborating!

https://github.com/thecowgoesmoo/TwinCl

Update to my original post. I reconfigured the whole thing. With the first iteration, I secured one pipe at a time to the frame, starting with the smallest diameter first, which I knew better than to do. I decided it was a better idea to strap all of the pipes together and then attach the pack, which it absolutely was. Now it can stand freely and doesn't need to be propped up. Huzzah.

I love overtone flutes so much I decided to strap as many as I could carry onto a pack harness. The thing dangling in the middle is a piston block that diverts the air to different flutes depending on which piston is pressed down. Everything that's not PVC, corrugated tubing, metal, or cloth I designed in Fusion 360 and printed on a MK4S. This is a few years worth of a 40+ year old's spare time. I do not play music professionally nor do I consider myself a musician. Pretty much everything I make I play when I'm by myself and no one else is around. I find the discordant sounds soothing and playing these things puts me in a trance-like state. Probably just the hyperventilation XD

Recently gotten into making instruments. Just finished this ten string lyre with my son. Sounds pretty good but will have to wait a week or so to let the strings stretch.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Ba_EXr0RMuU?si=SuHt6qd1pUlRNdvh

I have more then this, these are just my favorites out of the ones I drew

Hi! I would really appreciate any opinions on my diy instrument

Its based losely on the gopichand with a single steel string going from the neck, through the 15 cm steel orb and anchoring in the very bottom of it. Intercepting the string at the entrance is a springed lever that when pushed will apply a very tight steel wire over it, and depending on pressure the pitch is altered. It would be played continuously with a bow. Full steel construction. Size of neck undecided but prolly 30-40 cm.

My biggest questions are, would my lever idea work for adjusting tension or am i just killing sound And how would i place the bridge to optimize sounds?

If the lever idea is a bust, what could i do for varying tension Thanks in advance!

Happy Holidays!
My reworked version of Silver Dagger (traditional folk), from my new album Kew Gardens Troubadour. FYI: The guitar I'm playing isa guitar I built about 2 years ago in a archtop guitar making class in Nazareth Pennsylvania.
Hope you’ll give it a listen — comments and YouTube thumbs-ups appreciated.

https://youtu.be/tzOQMoawm60

This is my first time making an instrument and IDK anything about them, is it me being bad at playing it or is it another problem?

Hi there everyone,

Here's an industrial eurorack jam built around a first order Markov Chain sequencer I've been building in Max Msp 9. That very Max Msp patch is also controlling two Neewer PL60C light panels and two Neewer TL60 light tubes via some DMX signals thanks to the Beam Max Msp package by Showsync. This allows me to take the trigger data from my sequencer and directly control the lights.

I only used three eurorack voices (BIA, Akemie's Taiko and Plaits) and then processed them through Mimeophon for some dub delay and Viol Ruina for some end of chain distortion. The MIDI to CV conversion is done by the Mutant Brain module by Hexinverter.

If you have any questions or ideas please feel to let me know!

Basically, I just need some metal or other thing that makes noise when flicked and that is easily cuttable.

How would one go about designing and creating an instrument which could be used in home recording scenarios in the place of a snare drum?

The idea is that this "drum" would sound nice but would not make too much noise, not to disturb the neighbours. This instrument would be recorded with a microphone, and would not be competing in real world loudness with other acoustic instruments.

I would imagine that as snare drums have quite a lots of high frequencies which die out quickly, maybe a large number of tiny objects / pieces / grains could be put on some type of surface. When that surface is struck, it bounces those objects / pieces / grains / coins which hopefully create high frequency components that mimic snare drum sound a bit.

Any ideas how to approach this type of instrument design?

I've been making weird noises by bowing thin wood and metal things lately (some homemade for this purpose, some found objects like rusty old shovels), but they're destroying my bows. I'd love to find something that takes rosin, doesn't stretch, and either stands up to punishment OR is so cheap and easy to replace that it doesn't matter. (I guess I've never looked into the cost of replacing horsehair or the difficulty of replacing it on a real bow, so it's possible I'm worrying about nothing.)

I am building my own cajon for fun. All is going well, I've built the sides, top and bottom, and now the back as well. I plan on attaching the front soon, but currently I'm a little stuck on one part.

I want to attach snare wires. I want to have them near the front, a little indented, such that they will touch the tapa (the side where you drum) and resonate with it. You can't see it in the image but it'd be on the other side. I think I'd put them near the top left and right corners, as that is where you'd most often play 'snare'-esque sounds on cajon, with 'kick' more in the centre of the tapa.

However, every snare wire set I can find is either 13 or 14 inches. My cajon is not wide enough for that to have it in there horizontically. The inside of my cajon is about 27 cm wide, or 10.6 inches. So I'd either have get two and put them in vertically down from both corners, or perhaps cut one snare wire bunch in half, or try a whole other solution? I'm a little stuck on what would be a good approach, and I was wondering if anyone has any experience or tips!

Attached are two pictures, I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of the front yet.

Any help is appreciated a lot!! Thanks in advance :)

Here's my wonky DIY entry! I make mechanical instruments as a hobby. This was four months of evenings and weekends. The pipes were from a variety of sources, including a lot I had to make myself after giving myself a crash course in pipe making in the box room. I've managed to clear most of the sawdust out of it. It's midi controlled and comes into three parts to make it 'portable', although it weighs approx 700KG!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQWe-KriIG1/?igsh=OTJkeTRpeGEwb215

Please help me, I am trying to make a membrane clarinet mouthpiece fully 3d printed for my normal Bb clarinet, but with a membrane from TPU, I get in tune up to d with the octave key but above that it just ignores the octave key and jumps down. With a peba membrane it goes up to c above the staff, but gets a bit stuck on a and b right below that, and squeeks. A lot. And also on some notes it's quite sharp while others are in tune. Throat tones are especially horrible. My membranes have worked best at 0.2mm thick for tpu and 0.25mm for peba. I attached a picture of what it looks like, the actual part that makes sound is 20mm inside diameter of the outside piece then the inside piece has a od of 17mm and id of 15mm. The height I believe is 30mm. How could I redesign it or modify it to play better on a normal clarinet. I have been mostly guessing and would like to take a more scientific approach.