Principium 2.0: live preview

it's not quite the finished set of 12 yet, but as you can see we did get 4 copies ready.

did a small preview/concert with at De Player for ART Rotterdam.
already lots of fun - can't wait to try this with TWELVE of these things!

as mentioned before, each record contains a single droney note, varying in octave/timbre in time.
i played around with the pitch of the record players to try and make different chords. quite the challenge.

(pic is a still from a shakey movie by DePlayer's #1 busy bee, Koos.)

Principium 2.0

in the process of putting together Principium 2.0 - the Turntable Edition!

based on the work of Vaast Colson, Principium 1.0 was a hacked one-octave Casio keyboard, to be played by placing magnets on a coloured playing field.
on friday we're presenting the second version at The Player, Rotterdam. stoked!

the kind people of De Player asked me if i wanted to do a record of the Principium 1.0.
needless to say, it turned into a different beast. based on the same grid of colours, we ended up with a single set of 12 records - one for each note of an octave.

the sound of these records is, like in the first Casio version, to be turned on and off by magnets again. only this time the rotation of the turntable provides the sequencing - magnets are to be placed around each 10" record, their presence picked up by a sensor, activating or blocking the sound.

speaking of which, the sound on the first record is a 10 minute composition centered around a C note, varying in timbre and octave, recorded on organ an the trusty MS-20.
this recording then got pitched up a semitone for each subsequent record, making each next record just that little bit shorter.

see you on friday.. and if not, i hope to 'play' the full set in antwerp sometime soon!

Jam Jar Comes Alive

the prototyping is over.. and it's alive, alive i tell ye!

recycled a set of discarded organ foot pedals, hooked it up to a pretty nifty (if i do say so myself) yet extremely rudimentary (if i do say so myself) square wave synth, and ran it into a horn driver i had lying around.

the original plan with the horn driver was to make a talkbox.
it became a wooden box instead. also fine.

the whole thing is monophonic, but the nifty part is i came up with a way to play power chords by pressing a single note on the pedals - you can mix the base note, a fifth up and an octave up using the three knobs on the left.
master volume on the right.
in between is a switch to throw the whole thing another octave up.

i'm quite happy with it, i must say, although it's pretty hard to play.
in a way it's so ridiculous it becomes poetic. well, almost.

video footage here!