Image 1 of 1
What happens when we understand our tools from the inside out?
• 20. Oct. - 8. Dec., 2026, evenings 18-21h
• Tuesdays, one evening per week, 8-weeks, 3 hours/week
• In-Person at School of Machines in Berlin, Mitte
• Small class of participants
• Certificate of Completion
• No prior experience necessary
To book a call for more information and to have your questions answered, click here.
course
description
We live among electronic tools and machines and most of them reach us as closed boxes, finished commodities, but not always understood, opened, repaired, or changed. Sounds from Scratch offers a possible antidote to this distance. By taking electronic sound-making back to its simplest physical behaviours and components, the course invites participants to encounter the technology as something to mend, experiment with, take apart, and reinvent together.
This programme is a hands-on study of sounds and electronics. Over eight weeks, we will explore how electricity behaves inside a circuit, how this behaviour can become sound, and the combination of simple functions. It is not only about how to assemble a predetermined synthesizer, but an invitation to understand what is happening inside one: how frequencies are generated, how waveforms are shaped, how sound behaves over time, and how control signals allow different modules to interact.
Ultimately, Sounds from Scratch offers a way to understand synthesis from the inside out. Participants will end up having foundational electronics knowledge, direct experience constructing and combining sound modules, and a clearer sense of how to design sound-generating tools. Eventually cultivating creative and collective agency through deep technical understanding. Making understanding practical and over time intuitive.
In this program you’ll learn
Fundamentals and basic laws of nature with electricity, voltage, current, resistance, frequency, amplitude, and waveform
How sound is generated, shaped, controlled, and changed over time
Behaviours of basic electronic components as well as ordinary, repurposed, and conductive materials
What are resistors, capacitors, transistors, inductors
How to build sound-making machines such as oscillators, envelopes, sequencers, filters, and effects
How to recognise, construct, and modify simple circuits. And how individual modules can be connected and reorganised to create collective sound systems
How to use control signals to change pitch, rhythm, timbre, volume, and other sonic parameters
Pros and cons of digital and analog circuits and where does it make more sense to use each
How repetition, rhythm, noise, silence, resonance, and interference influence how we hear sound
Musical structure and direct psychoacoustics exploration through experiments, how perception of sound can differ from one person or body
Monitoring behaviours and use mistakes, malfunctions, and unexpected results creatively
Combining individual creations into collaborative instruments and collective sound systems
Programme Statement (Common Frequencies)
The programme is built around four interconnected principles: collaboration, reclaiming, access, and error. These are integrated into the course from design to application. Through the collective making of sound, we will explore more accessible and sustainable ways of living with technology and with each other.
Collaboration
An electronic module can function independently, but it becomes more expressive through connection. We will approach the class in the same way. Participants will create individual elements while sharing knowledge, exchanging ideas, and combining their work into larger collective sound systems.
We will keep these questions in mind
What can this component do on its own?
What becomes possible when it connects with other components?
What happens when we listen, build, and play together?
Reclaiming
Reclaiming technology (or technological-reappropriation) means moving from consumption towards participation. Technologies are presented to us as finished products: things to buy, consume, and use. In this course, we will take electronic sound-making apart and return to its fundamental elements. By learning what happens inside these machines, we enable each other to work “with” technology, adapt it to their own ideas, bodies, needs, and artistic practices.
Access
Access as both political commitment and creative method. This includes access to materials, tools, technical knowledge, and foundational ideas in acoustics, electronics, and sound synthesis. The programme keeps this question in mind: Who can access these materials?
Electronic sound-making is often associated with specialist equipment and synthesizers costing hundreds or thousands of euros. This can create the impression of exclusivity, that creative expression in this field is tied to financial resources. The course proposes another turn: working with inexpensive electronic components alongside ordinary, discarded, and repurposed materials found at home.
Error
Mistakes, malfunctions, noise, and unexpected behaviours are not interruptions to the learning process; they are very much part of it. We will pay attention to what errors reveal and to the creative directions they might open.
A circuit that behaves differently from what we expected may help us understand it more deeply. Or produce a sound we could not have planned. We will practice approaching uncertainty with curiosity.
structure per session
Each session will follow a recurring practical and exploratory structure
Imagine: Introduce a phenomenon, component(s), or creative question
Simulate: Observe and experiment with its behaviour
Build: Construct a small circuit, module, or a sound-shaping structure
Play: Connect modules, listen, improvise, reflect, what worked, and what could be altered
In every session, we will introduce a phenomena, move to a focused technical input, hands-on experimentation, then listening and playful group jam. Hacking, making errors, and drawing components are an essential part of the methodology to build and potentially discover new sounds. Sessions will conclude with reflections, journaling, documenting discoveries, errors, and new ideas.
The final two sessions will provide more open space for the development of individual or collective sound projects. The course will conclude with a presentation focused on the process.
course details
Weekly Outline
Week 0: Pre-start welcome (optional)
We’d love to see the humans taking this program connect with each other! We are offering a weekend opportunity to connect before the course begins starting on the Friday (6-9pm) before course begins and running through Saturday (11-4pm).
The first four weeks, we will focus foundation and basic components.
Week 1
Technical concept: Passive components — resistors, capacitors, inductors
What is an audio-passive filter and how to implement it?
Activity
Make and implement an audio-passive filter.
Journal
We recommend to journal and document the creative process from day one. Write, record, take a picture, draw...
Week 2
Technical concept: Semiconductor components — transistors:
MOSFET “metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor”
BJT “Bipolar junction transistor”
JFET “Junction field effect transistor”
Diodes
Conceptually and application: What is an oscillator and how to play it
Activity
Build and play an oscillator
Week 3
Technical concept: Operational amplifiers (OP AMPS) and gain a deeper understanding of circuitry.
What are the active filters and how to implement them?
Activity
Make and implement active filters
Week 4
What makes a synthesizer?
What is the difference between a synthesizer and an oscillator?
In this session, we will also do a recap for the previous weeks.
Activity
Make a tiny synth (simulating the workshop on Berlin New Media Week but with deeper understanding).
Preparing three papers synths with different parameters:
Wave shaper
Step Sequencer
Pitch Amplitude Modulation (Envelope)
From the second month, we will start with a deeper level of application of the basics and foundations.
Week 5
Technical concept: Classic ICs “integrated Circuits” - 555 timer - 7400 family.
What do you want to implement according to your own interests so far.
Activity
Make or re-make and improve your synth or start your own unique tiny sound machine
Week 6
Technical concepts: Introduction to Micro-controllers
Pros and cons of digital and analog circuits and where does it make more sense to use each
Activity
Individual/Collaborative Project Development
Participants will start their own prototype, brainstorming for the final project and choose any of the previous weeks to wrap-up or get deeper understanding according to your interest.
Week 7
This session will be dedicated to individual/collaborative project development. Participants will continue their own prototype for the final project and clarify doubts.
Documentation
Take your notes and begin to extract what is important and significant for your idea
Week 8
Continuing Project Development and work in progress - presentation
*** From week 5, we will implement the group and individual interests within the classes.
Invitation to participate in a show as part of transmediale Vorspiel annual festival
Participants are invited to take part in an exhibition during transmediale Vorspiel in January 2027 to showcase their projects. Visitors will be able to hear individual pieces, explore the systems created, and interact and play with some of the circuits.
who is this
class for?
The course is open to people from different backgrounds, including creatives such as musicians, sound and mixed media artists, and anyone curious about working with electronics and sounds. No previous electronics or musical experience is necessary. Participants with existing musical or technical experience will also be able to use the course to approach familiar tools from different perspectives and enrich their practice.
about this IRL program
Classes are 'in-person' meaning that they will be taking place at School of Machines in Berlin, Mitte.
If you would like to book a short 15 minute interview to have some questions answered before signing up, email us your availability here.
about fees
We strive to make all of our offerings accessible to as many people as possible and to counterbalance economic injustice, we have several payment tiers. While we feel this is important and necessary, it may lead to confusion, so hopefully this helps:
If you are making art full-time or are a full-time student then sign-up as an artist/student!
If you are paying VAT, for your own insurance, and working to find gigs to survive, then sign-up as a freelancer.
If you have a full-time job, have your insurance paid for by an employer, or have no financial struggle to make ends meet, then sign-up as professional.
We also offer a limited number of need-based scholarships and work study opportunities for this course. You can read more here.
For specific questions, please email us and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
fees
Fees per Individual Course
Full-Time Artist / Student
€690
Freelancer
€740
Professional
€820
Generous Supporter
€870
Optional Add-on
Use of space outside course hours
€125
Payments accepted via credit card, Paypal, and direct bank transfer. For alternative payment inquiries, get in touch.
Installment payments are available for the course fee (but not the optional add-ons due to Squarespace limitations).
About additional add-ons
We realize we are living in precarious times. We feel it too. Therefore, we are offering an optional purchase with your fee rather than baking it into the full cost of the program.
About use of space outside course hours
We are offering a two-month membership for use our work spaces and tools for the duration of the full eight week program (Monday-Friday, 10am-6pm)
See membership page for more info.
meet the profs
Bertha Elena Artero Ponce
Musician-composer, seeker, curious bug.
Przemislaw Drewnowski Scientist, your friendly next-door nerd.
Bertha and Przemek collaborated to experiment across their disciplines and offer the needed tools to stir participants into creating their electronic musical tool, machine, or instrument. We also would like to create space for an empathic and playful way to approach collective sound-making.
With program design support from Elena Hayek.