Build your own Stylophone, be slightly more like David Bowie

Sure, this little hack requires more than basic soldering skills and you'll need an actual synth for sound output, but we've always been intrigued by the Stylophone David Bowie used to write songs on, and now we can build one. The 29-note "keyboard" is really just an exposed circuit trace, and completing a circuit by touching the metal stylus to one of the keys sends voltage to your synth and lets you get glam in the comfort of your own home. Complete instructions at the read link, and a video of Bowie in action after the break (it's at the very end).

[Via MAKE]

[Stasguy @ Feb 4th 2008 1:57PM]

The school network is restricting me from watching!:(

[Blaktornado @ Feb 4th 2008 2:27PM]

Maybe it's because you should be learning ;)

[painty @ Feb 4th 2008 2:34PM]

learnin' is for chumps, like reeding and riteing.....

[CzarCruise @ Feb 4th 2008 2:34PM]

you could always go around the block...it isnt THAT hard.

[mattclarkie @ Feb 4th 2008 2:42PM]

Little fat man who sold his soul,
Little fat man who sold his dream...

He sold his soul for a sylophone...
...and this is what then came...

[makishima @ Feb 4th 2008 3:04PM]

I see what you did there! Best Extras reference ever.

[Ray @ Feb 4th 2008 2:54PM]

You don't NEED a synth. You could just make an ultra-simple squarewave oscillator and make the traces connect different capacitors for pitch control. You just need to know yer maths to git-r-accomplished.

[ZeroCorpse @ Feb 4th 2008 3:51PM]

Sigh.... Gail.


Oh, where was I?

Oh yeah... While seeing how to build this is cool, I would have to say that any musician that does this needs a pimp slap. Bowie's the innovator. It's his toy. If you pick it up, you're a poser and a copycat following a greater man.

Make your own damn instrument and be unique.

I suggest something you can play with your nipples. That might be cool.

[HOOPER @ Feb 17th 2008 6:06PM]

ZeroCorpse, please chill out.

[Zorque @ Feb 4th 2008 3:57PM]

If you listen to any band that uses guitar, bass, drums, vocals, or keyboards you shouldn't be talking.

[rlh82 @ Feb 5th 2008 9:03AM]

No, I agree with Zero here. I'm in the underground music scene, and while my band plays with the usual rigs, I am friends with a few souls who go out there and try to be innovative in the spirit of Bowie and those that came after him. For them, using HIS toy would be entirely unthinkable. They are busy building and designing and/or altering their own instruments. I mean, if you want to build something like Bowie's Stylophone just for fun, great, but I don't think anyone who's seriously trying to make music and be innovative in a DIY sense is going to gain anything from this.

[Tom @ Feb 5th 2008 10:01AM]

Holy crap.... You DO realize that David Bowie didn't make it, right? Brian Jarvis created it. David Bowie went out and bought the freakin' thing - guess that makes him a poser in your eyes, no? Bowie's innovation was in the music - maybe your band should be concentrating on that rather than being inspired by a misconception about good ol' Bowie over here.

[Tom @ Feb 5th 2008 10:05AM]

PS - Referring to your musician friends as "souls" does not give you innovative underground musician scene points. In the future, please refer to them as "cool cats" - that gives you at least 4 points.

[Ash @ Feb 5th 2008 11:40AM]

Hold on, it was Rolf Harris that used it first. Does that mean that he's the real innovator and Bowie is just a copycat?

[John Stracke @ Feb 5th 2008 1:16PM]

"If you pick it up, you're a poser" -- Or else you just like how it sounds. Not everything needs to be innovative; otherwise, we'd all be experimenting with, say, 71-tone scales. Maybe someone who wants to sound like Bowie, but say different things. Or maybe someone heard what Bowie did with it and realized they could get a completely different sound out of it.

[LordJohnWhorfin @ Feb 4th 2008 3:56PM]

I still have my old Dubreq Stylophone! That thing sounded like crap and ate 9V batteries for breakfast, but it was fun. They used to be quite popular in the UK back in the '70s.

[LordJohnWhorfin @ Feb 4th 2008 5:15PM]

Oh wow! I checked out the video, and Bowie uses the same Stylophone I have! Cool! Might be worth something on ebay :)

[matt byrne @ Feb 4th 2008 6:53PM]

I bought a Stylophone off eBay a couple of years ago. What load of old shit.

Gimme Hands!

[Peter de Vroomen @ Feb 5th 2008 7:09AM]

The Elektor magazine published a 'chorosynth', in the 80's. It's a souped up version of a stylophone.

I found a scan of the French magazine pages here: http://yusynth.net/archives/index.html . Search for 'chorosynth' on the page.