Have you ever wanted to make your own musical synthesizer? Are you curious how a breadboard works? We've got you covered! Learn how to make a super simple DIY synth in this hands-on workshop. With just a few materials, you will learn how to hack together your own sawtooth synthesizer.
In this workshop, each attendee will create a simple oscillator circuit that makes sound using transistors and basic electronics components. We will provide all materials, just come prepared to learn! We hope that everyone can get something out of this workshop. Beginners can learn how a breadboard works and make their first circuit, and advanced electronics hackers can learn more about how transistors work as we explore the reverse avalanche breakdown effect. Participants will create a synthesizer with frequency control, a filter, and volume control with a headphone jack and optional speaker amplifier.
The design of the synth has been used in DIY modular synth setups and was made popular from Look Mum No Computer’s 1000 oscillator megadrone project. Participants can take their breadboarded circuit home and use it in their own musical practice, or build more with the knowledge from the workshop!
Watch the Demo
- Build your own synth oscillator
- Breadboarding basics
- Circuitry fundamentals
- Synthesis waveforms
- Musical experimentation
- 1 half-size breadboard
- 1 jumper wire kit
- 1 470 Ω resistor
- 2 4.7 kΩ resistor
- 1 3.3uF capacitor
- 1 22uF capacitor
- 1 100k potentiometer
- 2 10k potentiometers
- 2 2N2222 transistors
- 1 Red LED
- 1 set of DC Plug barrel screw power connectors
- 1 headphone jack
- 1 9v battery or 12v Power Supply
- 1 printed circuit schematic and breadboard drawing
https://www.lookmumnocomputer.com/simplest-oscillator
DigiKey's Resistor Color Code Calculator
https://www.digikey.com/en/resources/conversion-calculators/conversion-calculator-resistor-color-code
DigiKey's Scheme-It, a schematic design tool
https://www.digikey.com/en/schemeit/project
Fritzing, an open-source virtual breadboard and EDA software
https://fritzing.org/tags/breadboard
Mouser Materials List
https://www.mouser.com/Tools/Project/Share?AccessID=8274863a0f