18.12.10
Workshop presentation
i was invited by Champ d'Action to collaborate on a workshop on analog synthesis, to be given to high school students. plan is to have them build their own simple synth (coupla gated NAND oscillators) and then try to have them perform a 'piece'.
always nicer to make noise than to have to listen to someone else talking about the history of it.
this is a small presentation of the workshop idea, trying to convince teachers and the like to invite us to their schools, basically.
we had a single 4093 on a breadboard, aka 4 oscillators, aka 2 pairs.
each pair has a 'main' and a 'modulator' osc, and together they're gated by a control voltage sent from an Arduino.
on the left is Champ's artistic director Serge Verstockt, layering on some pitch shifter and delay, on the right is The Wiz Roel Das, gating the oscillators and thus controlling the beats with Max/MSP + an Arduino, and i'm in the middle turning knobs controlling frequencies.
i particularly like how it looks like we're floating in mid air. (we're not. sorry.)
Woop woop.
9.12.10
hindsight II
a live rendition of 'King Of The Cabin', as found on the Tropisch Excuus compilation cd-r. Which was put together by Leonoor of Mitt Land Och Leo descent.
had a perfect soundcheck, took my stuff down when other acts had to check, and then switched my stereo out when i came on - plugged into the wrong DI's.
hence the immense volume on the Casio at 1'36". that's how loud the beats should've been.. please do your own audio maths.
and then, due to Lord Tyfus' absence, i was forced to sing the next tune -
on the cd it's his lovely squeal doing the honours.
yup, that wood bee a sour take on the immortal classic, the apex of the mans' oeuvre:
hmm. i guess you shoulda been there. or sumpin'.
hindsight
thought i'd link to some older stuff.
this one's from the LaBambaNightmare, aka the Ultra Eczema record presentation
where i was kindly assisted by mr. Tuff Fins himself, who was willing and able enough to go Old School Hardcore on the Babelfish mashup i made of the spanish lyrics.
5.12.10
Günther
part of the set at Günther, as filmed by Gee No.
prolly best to listen on headphones or a decent system - i certainly found his camera mic outdoes my laptop speakers in the bass response department.
that mutron clone does sound nice and nasty.
makes people want to go to the bathroom, apparently.
not too sure what to think of the rest of it, bit of a handicapped set, as i fucked up the wiring on a switch repair i did too hastily 5 minutes before i left for the show -
which left me with about a 60% synth.
should have taken the time to check thoroughly.. oh well.
lotsa love for mr. Higgs, outdoing himself in the story isle.
i thought i'd heard entertaining storytelling before.
i was wrong.
prolly best to listen on headphones or a decent system - i certainly found his camera mic outdoes my laptop speakers in the bass response department.
that mutron clone does sound nice and nasty.
makes people want to go to the bathroom, apparently.
not too sure what to think of the rest of it, bit of a handicapped set, as i fucked up the wiring on a switch repair i did too hastily 5 minutes before i left for the show -
which left me with about a 60% synth.
should have taken the time to check thoroughly.. oh well.
lotsa love for mr. Higgs, outdoing himself in the story isle.
i thought i'd heard entertaining storytelling before.
i was wrong.
1.12.10
Gerards Grote Ongeduld - installation view
 |
| pic © Michèle Matyn |
taken by Mitch Mitchell of Late Nite Fame, it shows the hare on the radio.
that's the one on the left.
on the right is another Heir of the Radio, mister Daniel de Botanicus aka Cassis Cornuta himself.
Remörk / Daniel Higgs / Guy Rombouts
coming up tomorrow at Günther (where?)
the coolest place in antwerp where all the hip kids go to hang out and act like they're bored
like hip kids will
we'll see what happens
especially thrilled to see his lordship Daniel Higgs!
the coolest place in antwerp where all the hip kids go to hang out and act like they're bored
like hip kids will
we'll see what happens
especially thrilled to see his lordship Daniel Higgs!
Gerards Grote Ongeduld - the Flowchart
it was an accident waiting to happen.
but it's here for clarification purposes only.
obviously.
oh, and here's a video of the thing in action on the bench - hopefully i get to document the full installation soon..
you might notice the little manual step switch needs debouncing.
yes it does. but no, i won't. lazy bum
but it's here for clarification purposes only.
obviously.
oh, and here's a video of the thing in action on the bench - hopefully i get to document the full installation soon..
you might notice the little manual step switch needs debouncing.
yes it does. but no, i won't. lazy bum
Gerards Grote Ongeduld
Got an interesting question a couple of days ago. Gerard Herman, the soon-to-be-eternally-famous young belgian artist, Shell Done Seagull member and all around good chum, came around with his grandfathers portable radio. The idea: to have it switching stations automatically, for it to be used in a Hare-y installation (that's not a typo.) yup: Beuysian Taxidermy, room 101.
nice idea. interesting. let's.
the first problem was opening the damn thing up.
nope, never thought i'd say that.
managed to take the top lid off, but was afraid of destroying the plastic casing due to the lack of proper tools (and the resulting Brute Force to be applied) in an attempt to open it up further.
as time was an issue, i decided to go with what was accessible: the 5 preset switches at the top. turned out they had 1 common connection, switching to 5 different wires going to the 5 preset thumbwheels in the back of the radio. dingdingdingding: good news!
hooked all that up to a 4051 IC (8 to 1 analog mux), to control the presets without using the physical switches.
with only 5 presets and 8 possible connections, i repeated the middle 3 presets.
had them hooked up like a pendulum at first:
5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 (repeat) but that was too obvious, the goal being a 'human' feel to the switching.
a small channel swap yielded better results:
5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 4 - 3 - 2 etc.
i know it's as much of as a system as the other, but it seemed slightly less transparent and mechanical.
i actually tried using three separate clocks for the 4051 binary controls, but results were less random than i had hoped. in the end, decided to do the obvious and just control the 4051 with a 4024 binary counter from the recycled parts bin, so it loops 1 through 8 sequentially.
because that's what counters do, innit.
good enough, fast enough, works, cool.
next step: in an attempt to make the switching more Nature and less Rhythm, i felt a possible way to go was to randomize the clocking of that 4024 in some way, aiming for variable step length. The sequence still stays the same, but the 'note length' would change, so to speak.
nothing too extreme was needed - the idea is to change stations continually, so i just had to take the mechanical edge off. working with what i had lying around the bench, i tried two 4093 oscillators, one gating the other. using the output of this gated oscillator as a clock for the 4024 and thus the channel switching was too much of a system still - some rapid switching, some stasis, some rapid switching, some stasis.. nah.
however.
i ran this setup as a clock for a 4017 decade counter instead. ten off/ons - 0/1 - low/highs are required from the gated oscillator to complete a cycle on the 4017, and with both oscillators tuned well they seemed to produce a nice window of step length. it basically means every tenth transition might have a slightly different timing, enough so to feel semi-random.
then used a single output pin of the 4017 as a clock for the 4024. works ok.
it's pretty much an elaborate workaround, but good enough in my book.
(does anyone else feel a flowchart coming up?)
as an extra, i wanted to temporarily break into the sequential pattern as well, for added random feel to the fact that we're only using the 5 presets.
so i hooked up the wires for presets 4 and 5 to a second 4051, that is controlled by a third independent oscillator on the 4093. the two preset wires get connected to eachother using the 4051 as a switch.
connecting the wires for these presets changes their frequency to a common 'interstation', which is hardly controllable. could be noise, could be Radio Minerva, who knows.
the nice thing is that now, in the timing, it is possible to not just get
555555 44444 333333 2222 11111 4444 3333333 22222
but
55xxxx xx444 333333 2222 11111 xxxx 3333333 22222
with the connection as a sixth option (x).
depending on the speed of this connection, it either occurs or not at all. the possible overlap in the transition between stations 5 and 4 in the beginning of the loop is particularly interesting to seemingly shift the timing even more, so that's an added bonus.
here you can see the whole thing mounted inside the battery compartiment.
the switch and tactile button are there to disengage the clocking on the 4051, and skip through presets manually using the cute little button so you can easily set the stations with the thumbwheels above.
small disclaimer: there's probably easier ways to do this - or better ways, less crude and pile-on-as-you-go. please, feel free to enlighten me - i had to make do with limited time, resources and even more limited knowledge.. as usual.. poor me.
nice idea. interesting. let's.
the first problem was opening the damn thing up.
nope, never thought i'd say that.
managed to take the top lid off, but was afraid of destroying the plastic casing due to the lack of proper tools (and the resulting Brute Force to be applied) in an attempt to open it up further.
as time was an issue, i decided to go with what was accessible: the 5 preset switches at the top. turned out they had 1 common connection, switching to 5 different wires going to the 5 preset thumbwheels in the back of the radio. dingdingdingding: good news!
hooked all that up to a 4051 IC (8 to 1 analog mux), to control the presets without using the physical switches.
with only 5 presets and 8 possible connections, i repeated the middle 3 presets.
had them hooked up like a pendulum at first:
5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 (repeat) but that was too obvious, the goal being a 'human' feel to the switching.
a small channel swap yielded better results:
5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 4 - 3 - 2 etc.
i know it's as much of as a system as the other, but it seemed slightly less transparent and mechanical.
i actually tried using three separate clocks for the 4051 binary controls, but results were less random than i had hoped. in the end, decided to do the obvious and just control the 4051 with a 4024 binary counter from the recycled parts bin, so it loops 1 through 8 sequentially.
because that's what counters do, innit.
good enough, fast enough, works, cool.
next step: in an attempt to make the switching more Nature and less Rhythm, i felt a possible way to go was to randomize the clocking of that 4024 in some way, aiming for variable step length. The sequence still stays the same, but the 'note length' would change, so to speak.
nothing too extreme was needed - the idea is to change stations continually, so i just had to take the mechanical edge off. working with what i had lying around the bench, i tried two 4093 oscillators, one gating the other. using the output of this gated oscillator as a clock for the 4024 and thus the channel switching was too much of a system still - some rapid switching, some stasis, some rapid switching, some stasis.. nah.
however.
i ran this setup as a clock for a 4017 decade counter instead. ten off/ons - 0/1 - low/highs are required from the gated oscillator to complete a cycle on the 4017, and with both oscillators tuned well they seemed to produce a nice window of step length. it basically means every tenth transition might have a slightly different timing, enough so to feel semi-random.
then used a single output pin of the 4017 as a clock for the 4024. works ok.
it's pretty much an elaborate workaround, but good enough in my book.
(does anyone else feel a flowchart coming up?)
as an extra, i wanted to temporarily break into the sequential pattern as well, for added random feel to the fact that we're only using the 5 presets.
so i hooked up the wires for presets 4 and 5 to a second 4051, that is controlled by a third independent oscillator on the 4093. the two preset wires get connected to eachother using the 4051 as a switch.
connecting the wires for these presets changes their frequency to a common 'interstation', which is hardly controllable. could be noise, could be Radio Minerva, who knows.
the nice thing is that now, in the timing, it is possible to not just get
555555 44444 333333 2222 11111 4444 3333333 22222
but
55xxxx xx444 333333 2222 11111 xxxx 3333333 22222
with the connection as a sixth option (x).
depending on the speed of this connection, it either occurs or not at all. the possible overlap in the transition between stations 5 and 4 in the beginning of the loop is particularly interesting to seemingly shift the timing even more, so that's an added bonus.
here you can see the whole thing mounted inside the battery compartiment.
the switch and tactile button are there to disengage the clocking on the 4051, and skip through presets manually using the cute little button so you can easily set the stations with the thumbwheels above.
small disclaimer: there's probably easier ways to do this - or better ways, less crude and pile-on-as-you-go. please, feel free to enlighten me - i had to make do with limited time, resources and even more limited knowledge.. as usual.. poor me.
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