Is anyone building their own music equipment?

Question

I found these Do-It-Yourself Ribbon microphone plans online, and they're awesome:
http://www.rickshawrecords.com/ribbonmic/
A really good, studio-quality microphone for about $100!

Answer 1

I haven't built a microphone but I built my own mixer and a couple of amplifiers that I use for monitoring. In addition to building those electronic items, I also built an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar.

The acoustic guitar kit that I had was sold by Martin and it was all the parts for a D18. I took a class to build it, as it was complex and tricky. The guitar that resulted plays decently and sounds excellent. The electric guitar was a kit from Carvin called "The Bolt" and it was easy to build. I like the guitar too, although not everyone likes the sound of the pickup.

So yeah, I built some of my own music equipment.

Answer 2

building any of your own electronic equipment can be a real pain if you have no experience and don't have the right tools...

microphones are pretty basic, but everything else you need are much more complicated than that...

Answer 3

Gideon Fruedmann used to build his own cellos, I think. That's more instrument than equipment, but he built in these pick-ups to turn acoustic boxes into pseudo-electric cellos. Talented & funny guy.