Allow me, if you will, to nerd out for a minute.

I hunkered down this long weekend with "Handmade Electronic Music by Nicolas Collins" and HOOOOOLY MOOOOOOLEY did I have fun. Can't recommend this book enough for anyone who likes tinkering. I especially loved the section on 40106 chip oscillator circuits. It's insane to me how expressive such a simple circuit can be. Just got some cheapo solar panels yesterday, planning on making some audio automatons this weekend.

Here's my attempt at making a "digital fire" by making a bunch of lfo-rate oscillators, controlled by photosensitive resistors, and playing them through Piezo pickups taped to pieces of wood:

And here's a track I made last night using the circuit pictured and a couple FX:

I am absolutely blown away by this shit. This would have made my gig scoring a horror movie a few years back infinitely easier! And all for like $2 worth of materials (ignoring the effects, all of which could pretty easily be emulated using free VST plugins or a Pi running Pure Data). No programming, no automating effects in my DAW, just putting my hand in front of a flashlight for a few minutes and seeing what happens.

If anyone's interested in the specifics of that track: Two oscillator voices, both running into separate FX units on my Koma Field Kit FX. The first one is run into a frequency shifter which changes frequency every second or so, the other run into a resonant band pass filter. Both run together into a ping pong delay and harmonizer (set to a perfect fifth) on my Raspberry Pi. The circuit is powered by a 5V solar panel, which in turn is powered by the flashlight in that picture. When it receives full power, you hear a little rhythmic "ping" sound. When I cover it partially, the circuit is "starved" and starts making the whiny rumbling sounds.

goobster I definitely recommend checking out that book if you're ever looking to play around with your own custom synthesizers! It's very clearly explained, and assumes no prior understanding of electronics. It's all geared towards tinkering and exploration rather than mastery, and I've found it incredibly fun to work through.