Introduction: Synthesizer Awesome
So, I made a cool sounding synthesizer on my laptop. I'll put a sample video up about it soon. For now, here's an audio recording. In order, it goes Fur Elise, Moonlight Sonata, Pachelbel's Canon, and the Doctor Who Theme. You control the note it's playing in real time by pressing different keys on your keyboard. It's pretty neat, and this is how you get it.
Step 1: Download Python 2.7, A.k.a PURE AWESOME!
Python is an amazing, popular, and incredibly simple programming language. It's used in plenty of things online, plus games like Minecraft and Civilization IV. And, it looks like English. Words like for, if, while, else, import, and range are commonly used. There are plenty of tutorials, so I won't get in depth on it here. Basically,click hereto download it from python.org. Execute the file you've just downloaded and follow the instructions to enable the awesome. If you already have Python, make sure it's 2.7, because Python 3 is not quite supported. However, if you don't want it to work, feel free to use Python 3. By the way, this Python logo and even the name Python are here for your enjoyment thanks to Python Software Foundation. They're pretty cool.
Step 2: Download PYO (which Is Also Really Cool)
Step 3: Download the Program
So, this is the actual program. I wrote it. It's about 100 lines of code, which really isn't much. It's pretty well commented, so you could change things up if you know some Python. If you don't know some Python, you should really have a go at it. You can get some neat sounds out of it. For those of you who know Python, here's the documentation for PYO, so you can mess with it easier.
Attachments
Step 4: Run the Code (Finally!)
So, now you have everything you need. Find the Python icon on your desktop, if it's there. Otherwise, use the searching method on your computer to find IDLE (Python GUI). Run it. Look in the top left corner and click on File, then Open. Once there, find where you saved my code. Well, it's your code now. Do with it as you please. Just don't sell it. Anyway, double click it to open it up. It should look like the above picture. Then, hit the F5 key to run it.
Step 5: Make Beautiful Music, If You Like That Sort of Thing.
So, if you've completed the above steps correctly, you should have a black box up, the numbers 0 through 35 on another window, and maybe a popping noise. That's very good. Now, press any letter. Woah. Music. The note comes up on the black screen so you know what you're playing. The middle octave goes from A to Enter and is lowercase on the screen. The highest octave goes from Q to ] and is capitalized. The lowest octave goes from Z to /, then skips down to the left and right arrows, and has a -1 out front. The space bar stops it. The octaves span from A to G#. You can just play around on it now. If you want an example, hit iuiuieyrq. That's Fur Elise, by Beethoven. If you aren't getting any sound, be sure to turn Caps Lock off. if you still aren't getting sound, check your volume. If you still aren't, let me know. If you are getting sound, be sure to vote for this.This is my first Instructable, so let me know if it's good.