AF Sydney August recipient, Aras Vaichas, is creating something teeny, that packs a whole bunch of awesome…the world’s smallest, and cheapest, patch synthesiser.

Sounds fandangled and fine, but what exactly is a ‘patch synthesiser’?

Aras explains,

“it’s one of those audio synths where you can plug in lots of cables between different parts and there are loads of knobs that make crazy sounds!”

For the visually inclined, here’s a picture of a regular patch synthesiser…

Behold the beautiful but hefty beast!

Not so easy to lug around to gigs and galleries is it?

Now imagine all of that functionality distilled into something roughly the size of two business cards. With $1000 as extra incentive, Aras is not only making this a reality, he’s also releasing the designs under an open source license.

Here’s the work in progress…

We love the idea, as well as the spirit of tinkering and sharing, and will be vying for a front row seat at the demo once this little baby learns to sing!