Whistle Synth Pi

July 8th, 2021
music, tech, whistling
I made my whistle-controlled synthesizer into a stand-alone device:

Melody example:

Bass example:

Playing bass by singing falsetto:

It consists of:

  • Raspberry Pi 3 computer ($35)
  • Case ($7)
  • USB sound card ($8)
  • Keypad ($10)
  • 3.5mm to 1/4" cable ($4)
  • XLR to 3.5mm cable ($7)

It also needs a micro SD card, power (2A, USB), and a microphone. I'm using ones I already had, but it doesn't need anything fancy. If you wanted to make a special-purpose device, I think you could get the materials down below $20; there is nothing especially expensive here, and I'm not using most of the features of the Pi.

The code is open source: github.

Referenced in:

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Tuberculosis Considered As Dating Strategy

Against some evopsych

via Thing of Things July 8, 2025

Retrospective on life tracking and effectiveness systems

I’ve been doing life tracking for around 10 years, and this post is looking back at some things I learned from the data (since my previous retrospective in 2017). Highlights include what I get out of the Oura ring, correlations between sleep and deep work…

via Victoria Krakovna July 4, 2025

Elixir's Last Dance

On May 18th, the contra dance band Elixir had their last gig ever. The dance was packed: there were three hundred people. It was the only dance BIDA has ever done where they sold tickets. People flew from across the country just to hear Elixir play one la…

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts June 5, 2025

more     (via openring)