D.I.Y. Resources
These resources might be applicable to artists, makers, experimenters, dreamers…
(There are many topic-specific links on my syllabus pages too.)
Alex Rice designed a phantom-powered preamplifier for piezo contact mics and hydrophones. It sounds great but his site is offline. I posted his files and made some changes of my own.
A cleaned-up, straightened, and re-colorized scan of the instruction manual for the Canon Scoopic 16M camera, plus other info.
Use the coil of wire from an old relay to listen to the electromagnetic world of modern machines.
A modern “class T” amplifier tucked into a simple vintage housing.
How to make wonderful low-noise binaural mics from Primo EM172 capsules for under $20/pair.
An underwater microphone using a common mic capsule and silicone sealant. It has relatively flat frequency response without the resonant “honk” of the piezo disc used in most DIY hydrophones.
“Natural Radio” is the low frequency residue of lightning strikes and space weather. After building a simple preamplifier circuit, you can tune it via the mic input of any recorder.
Listen to the hidden vibrations of objects using easy-to-find Radio Shack parts.
An opinionated, annotated list of portable audio recorders, updated occasionally
A hard-to-find manual for a hard-to-find 16mm motion picture camera
Print this and hang it on the wall next to your pile of unsorted resistors!
A simple “break-beam” light detector circuit that virtually taps a button whenever an object interrupts a light beam.
This popular Marantz audio recorder has a particularly fragile headphone jack. Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to fix it.