Cavan Fyans sent me a pair of PCBs for his latest Atari Noise Board.
I housed one in a "Little Miss Trouble"
tin that I found in a charity shop. After connecting potentiometers I
put sockets into the solder pads marked for touch connectors, then
plugged in a few connection wires (usually used for breadboard prototyping) which I jabbed into a mandarin and a banana. The results sound like this:
My second Atari Noise Board isn't housed yet, but I added four copper touch pads to the LM380 which adds some Crackle Box like action to the sound palette. There's always something playful to be made from bench scrap!
I also built a pair of WSG resonant filters. These are the smoothest sounding of all the filters I have made so far. I've enjoyed adding a force sensor/FSR (thank you Ian McCurdy) to squeeze open the vowel sounds.
A while back I was given the book Handmade Music Factory by Mike Orr. It's full of interesting pictures and info relating to DIY instruments. Trying to build some of the projects has been on my 'to do' list for a while.
After playing with the Diddley Bows made by Andrew Cooke I decided to have a go at making something quick and dirty.
A three-legged table fell apart in my yard recently: I discarded the rotten wood and salvaged a few pieces. The legs seemed in fairly good condition, one was used for this build. Other parts, such as the pick-up and tuning peg were from an old bass guitar. The jack socket was new, but fitted to the plate from an old strat-copy. The nut is weathered glass from Helen's Bay beach. The bridge; an found off-cut of conduit pipe. The tail-piece is an old bracket from some furniture.
Here's a demo video of the first notes played through one of my recently built "Smokey" amps:
The amp uses two recycled VHS boxes for the enclosure. The speaker is from an old keyboard, the capacitors and jacks were from an old mixer. More upcycling to follow.
Ceramic artist Andrew Cooke has invited ARC (Allen, Rayson, Cullen) to perform on his musical instruments at his latest exhibition in The Loft Gallery, Portaferry on Saturday 4 May 2013.
Andrew makes instruments from ceramic and found materials: gourds, diddley bows, harp etc. ARC will perform a number of short improvisations
04 May - 26 May: 'Musical Mud' an exhibition by ceramicist Andrew Cooke.
‘Since mankind discovered the metamorphosis of soft clay into a hard
ceramic material, we have been making instruments from clay. I would
love to be able to play music; I have tried but failed. I thus make
ceramic instruments; it is my response to the frustrated musician inside
Andrew Cooke.’ Call out to all musicians - this Exhibition will
encourage interaction between the maker of objects and the maker of
music. If you are a musician feel free to come and jam on the
instruments! If you are willing then make a video of yourself and send
it through to Andrew Cooke to be made into a video collage of musical
mayhem by local film maker Rik Peel.
The
Belfast Sound Map is an open resource that aims at engaging local
communities in capturing everyday sound and hence characterise the
soundscape of the city. We encourage not only the submission of sound
recordings, but also other forms of experiencing and registering sound,
such as text or image. The overall design of this platform facilitates
this multiplicity of approaches, while also allowing participants to
create their own projects. These are presented as separate, individual
layers of recordings within the map.
The
user/listener is also invited to explore the map in various ways,
including an autoplay mode which creates a sequence composed of
different recordings.
The
map serves as a platform for a series of local workshops, in which we
will share with the participants the concepts behind this work,
exploring the rich relationship between sound, place and everyday life.
Place NI hosted a workshop about the project. Participants were given recording equipment and taken on a walk around the centre of Belfast to listen and collect recordings. Afterwards everyone talked about the experience and wrote some extracts which were uploaded to the map.
