Intermediate Circuits & Electronics // DIY Synthesizers

This 5-session intensive course is appropriate for those who’ve take Intro to Circuits & Electronics. It is designed to be friendly to those who are just getting started in electronics and have a curiosity in making their own electronic musical instruments. Over the course, students will review the basics of electricity, identify components, learn how to read and write schematics, design and build their own custom digital modular synthesizers from the 4000 series of CMOS logic integrated circuits.

The course features modules with hands-on activities that will immediately apply concepts to practical projects. Each successive activity will grow in complexity and become increasingly open-ended and self-guided. Students will be given simple example circuits and encouraged to develop their own modifications or extensions based on the concepts and information learned in the related lesson.

With the completion of the intensive, students will have a solid foundation of knowledge in basic electronics concepts, and the ability to create their own electronic musical instruments from scratch using a hand-full of components. The types of applications we will focus on as examples will include: simple oscillators, drone synthesizers, simple gating, 2 methods of sequencing, frequency division, and a 1-bit synthesizer that incorporates several of the concepts covered through the modules.

If you have not taken Intro to Circuits & Electronics and wish to take this course, please email learn@3rdward.com with a detailed description of your previous electronics experience.

Instructor
Phillip Stearns (AKA Pixel Form) is a practitioner of sonic and visual arts; music composer and performer; electronics sculptor and installation artist. He views technology as a medium for exploring the global society-environment system and how changes in the relationship between society and environment manifest in our technology—particularly as solutions to a cascading set of problems created by contemporary culture. Through the medium of networked systems, his work explores the horizons of information, politics, noise, control, proximity, subversion, corruption, interconnectedness and interrelatedness. Central to his practice as a visual artist and a performer are the use of custom electronics, hand-craft, hardware hacking, media technologies and iterative processes marked by a judicial use of materials, restraint, simplicity, a careful balance between conceptual depth and playfulness. He has presented, performed, lectured, exhibited, led workshops and screened works at various festivals, conferences, residencies, museums and institutions around the US, Latin America and Northern Europe.

ALL SECTIONS OF THIS CLASS ARE FULL
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Member Price: $299 + $75 Materials Fee Nonmember Price: $379 + $75 Materials Fee Our Members Save $$$! Add a 12 Month Basic Membership to your enrollment. Receive class discounts, members only access, & more! Choose: Become a Member & Enroll

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