Awesome Synthesizers

veridiz vz•tv put together a full-length recreation of Pink Floyd’s classic album Dark Side of the Moon using 8-bit synthesizer sounds. After a very monotonous start with Speak to Me, things kick into gear by the time they hit On the Run and Money. veridiz has also made chiptune covers of Another Brick in the Wall, Echoes, and The Final Cut.

Every cat can be Keyboard Cat with this synthesizer cat scratcher from Suck UK. The Mog Sub Catty Feline Synthesizer features a large cardboard scratching surface in place of keys, along with a pitch/mod ball for kitty to bat at. Buy a bunch, and let your kitty pretend to be this guy.

CLMC Music takes us on a trip back to the 1990s with a medley of synthesizer riffs from hit tracks of the era. His performance packs in familiar bits of 18 tunes from bands like C+C Music Factory, Snap, Eiffel 65, Haddaway, Technotronic, and MC Hammer. If this doesn’t get you dancing at your desk, nothing will.

In 2015, Mixtela built a tiny synthesizer directly into a MIDI connector with a piezoelectric buzzer. 8 years later, technology has progressed. But the maker decided he’d to recreate the same buzzy instrument, only using a modern USB-C connector to reduce its size. It only produces a simple square wave, but with multiples and a hub, they can play polyphonic tunes.

Electronics and industrial design masters Teenage Engineering created the EP–133 K.O. II., a portable synth, sampler, and composer for electronic music. It offers instant sampling with 999 sample slots, six stereo voices, 12 mono voices, a high-res sequencer, real-time FX, looping, and more. Ports include stereo audio, sync, MIDI, and USB-C MIDI. In-depth demo here.

This pocket-sized musical instrument from MicroKits is an analog synthesizer shaped like a cassette tape. It has a touch-sensitive 13-key keypad, which you can connect to other objects (like bananas) to turn them into keys. It’s got a built-in 1-watt speaker, a headphone jack, and controls for pitch, volume, octave shift, and a vibrato effect.

Cristiana Felgueiras of Get Hands Dirty shows off an awesome piece of furniture she designed for efficiency in a tiny apartment she’s building out. The desk has a floating design and a built-in electronic piano that slides out from underneath its work surface. She also built a matching rolling cabinet with a secret drawer.

This unique musical instrument combines a synthesizer, a looper, and a MIDI controller. It has 12 capacitive sensing pads, a bridge for strumming and tapping notes, as well as an accelerometer and gyroscope for gesture-based input. It has drum, bass, chord, and lead modes, and a built-in speaker and 3.5mm audio jack lets you play without external equipment.

Electronic instrument maker Elias Jarzombek created this unique synthesizer that looks like an abacus. The otherworldly sounds it makes are controlled by sliding and spinning its triangular “beads” on metal bars, along with turning its side dials. Read more about the Abacusynth on Elias’ website.

This neat little gadget is a sampler and looper with a chromatic keyboard. The Chompi has 7-voice polyphony, records up to 6 hours, and has knobs for selecting start and end points, pitch, attack and decay, and effects like reverb, filters, and saturation. Its tape-style looping engine is truly magical.

GLASYS has perfected the art of performing music which also is a drawing. This time, he used his own likeness as the subject for a musical portrait. The tune sounds like the soundtrack from an underground level of an 8-bit platform game. His composition Spectro Dragon is also quite special.

Look Mum No Computer is known for building some crazy electronic music makers. He’s also a master of wiring and programming modular synthesizers. He put together this fantastic arrangement of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons that’s every bit as good as Wendy Carlos’ analog synth classic Switched-On Bach.

Musician David Bennett performs accurate recreations of classic songs. After impressing us with his version of A Day in the Life, he teamed up with vocalist Guy Bangham to produce a spot-on version of The Doors’ Riders on the Storm. The Rhodes V8 virtual keyboard helped recreate the sound of Ray Manzarek’s keyboard.

Learn about circuits, soldering, and writing code with this duo of CircuitMess electronic music makers. The Synthia is a digital beat maker and sampler, while the Jay-D is a miniature DJ mixer with audio effects, built-in speakers, and a sweet LED light show. Grab the bundle for a special price in The Awesomer Shop.

You might not remember the band Hot Butter, but you’ve probably heard their tune Popcorn at some point. The 1969 instrumental track was one of the earliest examples of synth-pop. Elias Niemelä and Suvi Buckman of Drumorg replaced the original’s Moog synthesizer with a church organ and upgraded the drum kit.

Known for its graphical and sound abilities, the Commodore 64 personal computer was home to some of the best games of the 8-bit era. Engineer Linus Åkesson took advantage of its audio capabilities to build this unique accordion which consists of two C64 computers connected by bellows made out of floppy disks and tape.

Spotify’s Basic Pitch is free-to-use, Open Source software that uses machine learning tech to convert tunes you hum, sing, or play on a single instrument into a MIDI file that can be used to control digital synthesizers. You can download and run the software locally, or try it out right now on their demo website.

The Halloween franchise is really, truly, finally coming to an end. To celebrate the end of the road for Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, maromaro1337 performed John Carpenter’s intense electronic theme on a Stylophone. The driving, repetitive melody seems perfectly suited to the monophonic analog synthesizer.

Musician Ichika Nito got his hands on a Casio DG-20, a 1980s gadget that used guitar strings and a fretboard a MIDI controller. He then proceeded to demonstrate why this thing might just be the coolest instrument ever. Enjoy some more Casio shredding action here.

Musician Luke Million has an awesome collection of vintage synthesizers – and he knows how to get the most out of them. In the first video clip, he performs a series of classic 1980s jams with spot-on sounds, then does the same for movies and TV shows in the second video. His recreation of Running Up That Hill is perfect too.

Stylophone expert maromaro1337 performed a medley of the heavy metal music hidden in plain sight in the corridors of the 1990s first-person shooter, DOOM. The game’s soundtrack swiped riffs from Metallica, Pantera, AC/DC, and Anthrax, among others. See how many you can identify without opening your eyes.

In the 1980s, musicians started to put synthesized sounds at center stage in their performances. This gem of classic footage brings us back to the 1985 Grammy Awards, during which Thomas Dolby, Howard Jones, Herbie Hancock, and Stevie Wonder joined forces for a synthesizer spectacular. The late John Denver kicks things off.

Love Hultén is back with another awesome custom build. The Doodlestation is an analog synthesizer with a playful aesthetic. It combines Sequential, Moog, and Hologram modules, a theremin, and a tape-loop echo. Complementing its easter egg colored keys and patch cables is a visualizer with a dude barfing a rainbow.