Los Aparatos, a handmade-electronics collective based in Tucumán, Argentina and led by artist and inventor Mateo Carabajal, makes the kind of synths that look like they were built by someone having fun rather than someone shipping a product line — and that’s very much the point. CDM’s new profile of the group covers both halves of what they do: sensor-driven instruments with genuine sonic character, and a Spanish-language electronics-education practice built specifically for a region where importing gear “can be punishing.”
The Auduina MK2, now shipping internationally
The instrument at the center of the piece is the Auduina MK2, described as “an adorable little desktop synth packed with sensors” — an optical sensor, touch input via cable, and CV input, producing what CDM characterizes as lo-fi granular synthesis that “almost sounds like virtual analog synthesis once it’s going.” The newsworthy detail: the Auduina MK2 is now available for international shipping, opening up a synth that’s been a regional curiosity to anyone outside Argentina for the first time. The collective’s instruments extend past that single model too — Los Aparatos also builds a take on the classic Drawdio pen and other optical- and touch-sensing inputs housed in deliberately whimsical enclosures.
Education as the other half of the practice
Los Aparatos isn’t only a hardware maker — it runs an extensive Spanish-language academy with tutorials covering projects like the Atari Punk Console and other entry-level DIY circuits, and built a free, browser-based companion tool: a light sequencer (secuenciador de luz) where users program steps and the web app flashes the screen for use with the collective’s optical-sensing instruments, no extra hardware required to start experimenting. For a maker community where importing components and finished gear carries real cost and friction, a combination of genuinely inexpensive builds and free, local-language teaching material does more for accessibility than another synth review ever could.
Why this is worth covering now
DIY synth coverage skews heavily toward North America and Western Europe by default, simply because that’s where the loudest English-language demo videos come from. Los Aparatos is a reminder that some of the most inventive, resource-conscious instrument design is happening elsewhere — and the Auduina MK2 shipping internationally is the first real chance for people outside Argentina to find that out hands-on rather than by reading about it.