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5. Coat hanger…

Just in case you run out of cardboard…

6. And, er… coconuts

If you think about it, you can make an amplifier from anything hollow. An (empty) beer keg, whiskey tube, or our favourite: a coconut shell. Nuts.

If you build it, they will come

7. Build your own guitar for under £100

Speaking of crafting homemade masterpieces, MusicRadar's forumites pit their guitar-building skills against one another every year for the £100 guitar challenge. The rules are simple: build, customise or modify an existing guitar using only £100 or less for materials. For the uninitiated, the results might surprise…

8. Or your own synth for $20

Could you be the next Bob Moog?

9. Or how about a stompbox?

Ok, so this Beavis Board DIY kit costs $249 – not exactly a credit crunch-destroying price - but if you've got a spare handful of resistors, capacitors and transistors, you're only a engineering degree away from homemade stompbox heaven.

Use free stuff. It is, after all, free

10. Download free music software

There are many reasons to use free music software (here are 10 of them) and many reasons against (thanks, IK Multimedia). But considering there's a recession on, we'll stick with the former, thank you very much: here's our guide to the best free music-making software on the net.

11. Turn on, plug-in, rock out

Oh, what's that? You want to sound like Jimi Hendrix but you can't afford it? Wrong: here's how to sound like Jimi using nothing but free plug-ins.

12. Something for the Mac users

There is a preconception that the best music-making freeware is PC only. Wrong. Again. To finish up, here's a handy list of 26 free Mac music-making tools.

Now, you've got no excuses...

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