love hultén's 'bivalvia' is a small toy synthesizer in a handmade wooden box

swedish designer love hultén’s ‘bivalvia’ is a small toy synthesizer named after shell mollusks for its shape. hidden in a handmade wooden box, the device unfolds like a clamshell to reveal six dial/fader controllers combined with 15 high-quality cherry MX keys — 12 MIDI notes in a chromatic scale, octave up/down and pitch shifting. 

based on axoloti core, the open source hardware synth, the synthesizer has a stereo output on the back and a built-in full-range 15W speaker. combined with axoloti patcher software, a user-friendly and very graphic modular environment, bivalvia creates effects and sounds using oscillators (from subtractive to FM), filters, modulation, and much more. simply connect hultén’s creation to your computer via USB and start making sounds: build your own personal pitch bank and store it on the built-in SD card.

video by love hultén

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: maria erman | designboom