The workshop OSC^n – Open Source Collaborative noise: how to easily build your own analogue synth without soldering takes place during NEXT Festival 2023.

In this workshop participants will learn how to build a simple yet versatile polyphonic analogue synthesiser on “breadboard” – without any soldering. The synth itself is capable of housing up to six oscillators that can either be mixed together or can modulate each other. They can be controlled manually through potentiometers or with use of any other resistor such as light resistor (theremin style) electricity conducting objects, eg. plants or human skin (bio-feedback), using electric paint and more.

Through the process of assembling the synthesiser, relevant principles of electronics and sound synthesis will be explained, demonstrated and practically tested. This experience will provide a solid starting base for further exploration into vast field of DIY synthesisers and electronics in general. Needless to say, participants will gain confidence in constructing “OSC^n synthesiser” multiplying it and modifying it to fit one’s needs.

When the building part of the workshop is over, workshop leader invites all the participants to perform in a Temporary Noise Orchestra at the festival site utilising their newly built synthesisers. Performance should not only encourage participants to master and confidently use their new synthesiser but also demonstrate musicality and relevancy of seemingly noise-y instrument.

Synth design is based on the common knowledge of basic electronics and schematics available freely online, however Phil Collins’ DIY Music Hacking should be credit for inspiration. OSC^n was first executed as an interactive sonic installation at AV DEPOT 2016 in London.

Michal Mitro is an artist and a researcher working across the field of disciplines and media. Trained in Psychology and Sociology, he focuses on the nuances of everyday life as well as hyperobjects of planetary scale. In his artistic practice he translates his sociological imagination into crafted sculptural environments with elements of sound, light or electricity. Themes that he gravitates towards explore relationships between human and more-than-human worlds and the supposed friction between natural and artificial. Mitro proposes narratives both affirming and disturbing in order to shape viable futures one may like to inhabit.