Photos by Andrea Fincato, from a lecture on TONEWHEELS at the University in Padova. Later that evening I performed TONEWHEELS for the Nu-Fest. Hopefully I’ll get some photos of the audience going bananas at that one in the next few days… Thanks to Mauro Martinuz for putting the whole trip together, and for the unbelievable enthusiasm of the students at the lecture in particular!

I stayed up until 4am the night before my flight to Venice (not the wisest idea, to be sure) re-making the Macumbista Mini to include my new Voltage Controlled Slope/Analog Logic module alongside a Polivoks filter and output mixer (not unlike one of the Serge M-Class panels). The new configuration had it’s live debut in Padova, displaying incredible feedback/chaos possibilties which I’ll try to document soon with photos and sounds as well.

Hypnotized by the unfolding synchronicities of [The User]‘s Coincidence Engine One: Universal People’s Republic Time, at the Transmediale Festival 2010 (Collegium Hungaricum Berlin). Inspired by György Ligeti’s Poème Symphonique For 100 Metronomes, the work features hundreds of cheap plastic clocks, each with its own imperfect little heart. Seconds come like a light rain, and minutes like brief hailstorms. Photo by Elena Kaludova.

This piece reminds me of another, Ligeti-inspired work which I helped Helsinki-based composer Libero Mureddi realize using Pure Data in 2006. Déploration pour la mort de G. L. is a rhythmical canon with 88 voices for Disklavier. Each key plays a constant tempo, the lowest being 40 bpm, with a 0.3 bpm increase per key, starting from low A.

The effect of this piece on the player piano is that dynamic ripples and reflections are created up and down the keyboard as keys move in and out of phase with each other. I think Libero was as startled as I was when we “performed” it for the first time during the Pd workshop!

Video by Egle Oddo.

Now Playing

Lars von Trier–Antichirst[2009 film] (fucking wow!)

Desperately trying to finish some new electronics before other tasks consume my attention… the latest module for my DIY synthesizer is something like a clone of the recently released Makenoise Maths, which is itself a riff on the Serge Dual Universal Slope Generator. I actually imagine it much more as a kind of analog computer to tell the truth.

It packs two Serge Voltage Controlled Slope Generators, a pair of bipolar “Attenuverters” with positive/negative offset and a series of “analog logic” functions behind a single panel.

In other words, it can create two different waveforms at low or audio rate, with voltage-controllable upwards and downwards slopes, and can perform a number of mathematical functions close to the original Serge “peak” and “trough” functions on these slopes. And yes, it can go into cycle mode by itself, to give me a basic LFO or VCO function.

First basic tests indicate it’s quite a monster! I tend to use one VCS to trigger the other, then cross-modulate the Exponential CV inputs through the Attenuverter, and use one of the Analog Logic outputs to drive a VCO. Instant chaos. It’s incredible to compare the very different flavors coming from the AND, NAND, OR or NOR outputs from the same two input voltages. This module and one or two VCOs would make a very complex little synth all by themselves.

A quick and dirty example of the above patch:

Voltage Controlled Slopes + Analog Logic test by macumbista

NAND drives one VCO, OR drives one LFO. LFO patched back to left-hand VCS “both” input, also to VCO FM, some other cross-modulations as well. Here’s a photo of the patch:

INPUTS VCS (x 2)

Rise CV / Fall CV / Both CV / Exp CV / Signal Input / Trigger Input

MANUAL CONTROLS VCS (x2)

Rise Time / Fall Time / Rise CV / Fall CV / Linear-Exponential mode switch

OUTPUTS VCS (x 2)

End of Cycle Output / DC Output

INPUTS ATTENUVERTER (x2)

DC Input

MANUAL CONTROLS ATTENUVERTER (x2)

Positive-Negative Gain / Positive-Negative Offset

OUTPUTS ATTENUVERTER (x2)

DC Out / Also linked to ANALOG LOGIC inputs

OUTPUTS ANALOG LOGIC

AND “tough” (lowest of two voltages) / NAND inverted “tough” / OR “peak” (highest of two voltages) / NOR inverted “peak” / Sum of two voltages / Inverted Sum of two voltages

The module was created using PCBs from Ken Stone/CGS synths. I love Ken’s boards to death. I used:

2 x CGS75 Voltage Controlled Slope

1 x CGS26 Analog Logic

3 x CGS04 DC Mixer

There’s really not much out there that can’t be self-built with them, if you’re clever with how you put them behind the panel. I’ll be putting a bunch of CMOS digital logic boards on order soon, and putting together a modular synthesizer super-computer in the spring! Hell, one could almost clone an original Serge with them.

Me, I’m not interested in “cloning” anything, thus the hand-stamped letters and general rough feel. Took some fiddling to get it running properly, but now that it does it’s fantastic.

I had a chance to play with a huge Serge system at CEM in Rotterdam a few months ago, and my main area of inquiry were the Dual Slope Generators there. Made some incredible feedback/chaotic synthesis stuff possible. Maybe I’ll find some audio examples from that session and post them later. Until then…

The only true wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and it can be reached only through suffering. Privation and suffering alone can open the mind of a man to all that is hidden to others.

—Inuit shaman Najagneq, recorded by Knut Rasmussen

If you want to build a modular, my advice is not to do it if you want to have any friends, it takes too much time.

—Jessica Rylan

(click photos to make them BIGGER)

My new DIY synthesizer project is getting better and better. Right after I got my residence permit I realized I had almost a month in Berlin without having to get on a plane, train, bus or boat, so I decided to maximize that time by going deep into the modular cave. The Great Loneliness indeed–but with incredible revelations! This is the realization of a dream I’ve had for ten years now, so forgive me if I geek out for a moment…

The modules I’ve built, from top left to right:

TOP ROW
Two Dual Thomas Henry XR-2206 Voltage Controlled Oscillators (Bugbrand PCB layouts, self-etched)
4×4 Bipolar DC Matrix Mixer (Ken Stone CGS 33 & CGS 04 PCBs)
Blank Panel (singlewide)

MIDDLE ROW
Super-Psycho Modulation Source (Ken Stone CGS 21)
Wave Multiplier (Ken Stone CGS 29)
Blank panel for another Dual Thomas Henry XR-2206 VCO (will complete tonight!)
Blank panel (doublewide)
Two channel DC Mixer (three inputs per channel, large jack outputs)(more CGS 04 PCBs)

BOTTOM ROW
Dual Synthacon Voltage Controlled Filters (Marc Bareille PCBs)
Dual Polyvoks Voltage Controlled Filters (Marc Bareille PCBs)
Blank Panel (doublewide)
Blank Panel (singlewide)
Breadboard Prototyping area (= doublewide blank panel)

Besides most of the PCBs, I’m really committed to making every part of this thing with my own hands. Some people in the synth DIY scene send their front panels out to get professionally etched and anodized. I’m not really concerned with having the “professional look”, partly for financial reasons, and partly because it’s really important to be able to rapidly prototype things, get them in the case and make some fucking noise. The fact that it looks handmade separates it from all that store bought crap that people don’t have any clue what goes on inside of anyways.

With that in mind, I found a great “finish” for the metal by using an orbital hand-sander and 100-grit paper. Very Neanderthal, just the way I like it! The top row modules all have this finish. I’ve got some metal-stamps on order for the panel lettering, and then I’ll probably clear-coat each panel to keep the finger-grease out.

Speaking of noise, sounds soon, maybe on the weekend.

Now Playing (…besides the synth that is…)

baroness–blue record[2009 relapse]
coalesce–ox[2009 relapse]
converge–axe to fall[2009 epitaph]
eagle twin–the unkindness of crows[2009 southern lord]
helmut schäfer & zbigniew karkowski–eminent risk factor[2008 ALKU 65]
light–life is meaningless & goes on forever[2009 self released]
pelican–what we all come to need[2009 southern lord]
prurient–rose pillar 11″[2009 heartworm]

Neanderthal Vocal Computer

Saturday 18 July 2009 2PM

This workshop combines three of the basic building blocks of the longer Neanderthal Electronics workshop (TL072 op-amp comparator, 4093 gated oscillator & LM386 audio amplifier) to create a very crude, caveman-style analog computer for the processing of vocal input through a microphone. Participants will learn some analog and digital electronics basics to create an experimental prototype on the solderless breadboard, then recreate the circuit with permanent connections. They are also expected to bring their own box, case or other object in which to construct the final circuit. The last part of the workshop will touch on how this circuit can be expanded later on to include all kinds of mixers, modulators, distortions and filters through the use of other cheap, easily obtained parts.

For more information and videos from the Neanderthal Electronics workshops, see:

Ring of Fire

Due to popular demand, and as a way of saying “thank you” to Ingo Froelich who helped me with some woodworking for my new synthesizer, I’ll be cooking another transcendental(ly hot) chili at the amazing courtyard gallery at Torstrasse 111 for the opening of Erling TV. Klingenberg and Marcin Szydlowski. Also showing from th eprevious opening is the highly recommended “Return of the Art Zombies” video by Veronika Schumacher and the rather Texas-style paintings of Silke Thomas. Kickoff is at 19.00.

Friday 17 July 2009 19.00
Torstrasse 111 Berlin
Erling TV. Klingenberg and Marcin Szydlowski
Veronika Schumacher and Silke Thomas
http://www.tor111.de

Now Playing

anthony pateras & robin fox–end of daze[2009 editions mego]
iannis xenakis–metastasis pithoprakta eonta[1993]
va–black mirror:reflections in global musics 1918-1955[2007]
z’ev–sum things[2009 cold spring]