26 SEPT 2014. 02:57AM. Peacefully, at home, with family. Small Irish wake. “Take a deep breath and jump” was his greatest advice to me. So I did. Steve Holzer made the greatest jump of all that night. Have a good trip, Dad.

Obituary: http://bigbendnow.com/2014/10/holzer/

Dear friends.

Since last December my father has been battling cancer, and currently the prognosis is not good. You can read more on the issue here.

Now that I am here in southwest Texas with my father and our close family circle, there is a strange calm, as if we all know what must be done. There are small windows of consciousness, through which we can communicate with him. But the greater part of the time, he rests and prepares to let go of the meat-suit.

I am very thankful for the messages of support and kindness coming to me and my family here on various platforms. They do make a difference.

This very necessary last-minute trip takes some resources which are difficult for me to afford at the moment, however, and I am far more comfortable working for them than begging for them. Therefore — and I hope this does not strike anyone as crass commercialism, for that is not the intent — I am offering a 10% discount on any Benjolin, Butterfly Benjolin or FuzzTone SoundBox orders placed before 08 October, to be completed by the end of October with gratitude and love for the man and my mission to be with him here.

You can get an overview of these instruments here: http://macumbista.net/?page_id=4035

Thank you for your kind support.

I am proud to announce my participation as musician in the Markus Öhrn/Nya Rampen/Institutet production “Bis Zum Tod”, premiering at the Volksbuhne in Berlin 20/21 September 2014.

http://www.volksbuehne-berlin.de/praxis/bis_zum_tod/?id_datum=8050

We will tour this production to Poznan (3/4 October), Malmö (7/8 November) and Helsinki (14/15 November).

Pictured: Linus Öhrn and Anders Carlsson

Photo: Christian Kleiner

Please join me in inaugurating the “Atelier Macumba”, my new working space for the construction of handmade sound devices in the HB55 Kunstfabrik in Berlin-Lichtenberg, Friday 29 August 2014 starting 20:00.

There will be a handful of sound toys to play with, and possibly also a few short live sets and random duos by myself, Juan Duarte, Seth Zahn, Andi Stecher and various other kind folks I know, all on our glorious mono PA system. Details to follow.

BringYourOwnBooze. If you’re all very good, I might cook chili…

Herzbergstrasse 55, Berlin-Lichtenberg, Second floor, entrance B.

Google map: http://goo.gl/maps/UW1Go

Please RSVP if you plan to attend by email, and contact me for my mobile number if needed.

A soundscape project I worked on in 2005-6 was just featured on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” in the USA last week. Click the player above for the 3 minute feature, or visit Soundtransit to book a journey around the world through sound…

Soundtransit is a collaborative website that features evocative and everyday sounds shared by people around the world. The audio recordists who contributed sounds to this story are (in order): Tim Hayes, N. Ege Gural, Kamen Nedev, Matthias Kispert, Dmitry Urupin, Keith de Mendonca, Laurie Principaud, Arno Peeters and Seb Bassleer.

Derek Holzer (USA 1972) – “White Elephants” – solo performance for self-made analog synthesizers, speaker box, found objects and room. Approx 30 minutes. http://macumbista.net/

Concert for the exhibition: Franziska Frey – dimensional
SAT, 19. JUL 2014 — 20:00

galerie weisser elefant
10117 Berlin – Auguststraße 21
Tu – Sa 13–19:00
Tel. (030) 28 88 44 54

mail@galerieweisserelefant.de
http://www.frey-raum.de/

A new generation of the SoundBoxes is born, combining the touchable body contacts and high-gain portable amplifier from the original design with a nasty distortion with enough controls to keep your fingers busy wiggling for a long while.

OVERVIEW

* Large, high-efficiency (read: LOUD!) 12cm speaker
* High-gain input, suitable for contact microphone, electric guitar, etc. (Line level signals can be attenuated if clipping is not intended.)
* Line output
* Neutrik 6.3mm (1/4 inch) jacks on both input and output
* Four-control, switchable, extreme[!], vintage hand-selected Germanium transistor distortion
* Six “circuit-bending” touchpoints
* 9V battery operation
* Includes a resonant spring contact microphone.

This SoundBox could easily be used as a portable guitar amplifier with built-in distortion, for example, or can be used as an instrument in it’s own right to create a wide range of electronic sounds and textures.

The sound of this instrument is quite similar to what can be heard in the following video (however the video was done with the SoundBox and FuzzTone distortion pedal as separate units). Through the creative use of feedback, as well as the CHP and SQZ settings on the pedal, generative tones and chaotic patterns can emerge:

nonlinearity I from macumbista on Vimeo.

The price is EUR 225 (incl. 19% EU VAT) / EUR 190 (shipped outside the EU) plus shipping. Each instrument is made to order with an approximately one month waiting time. A 50% deposit on the price is required to begin work.

Please contact me using the CONTACT page here, or through MACUMBISTA at-the-domain GMAIL dot COM. Thank you for your kind attention.

Today I was informed that my application for a grant from the Foundation of Lower Saxony at the Edith-Russ-Haus 2014 was selected by the jury! I will be working on a vocoder-based sound art installation during the second half of 2014. Thanks to the jury for their kind support!

Derek Holzer, Delilah Too

With his project DELILAH TOO, the Berlin-based American sound artist Derek Holzer conducts media archeological research toward the development of a language cryptography instrument on the basis of a vocoder. This device from the history of electronic music constitutes the foundation for a multipart sound installation. It enables visitors to transmit encrypted conversations from one private space to another, where the listener can then decrypt them. The voices modulated in this way produce an abstract electronic spatial sound that can be perceived by all of the visitors in the surrounding public space.

With his experimental sound art project, Derek Holzer not only transforms an instrument from the early history of electronic music for current use in producing analogue compositions, he also creates an artistic transmission of the current debate concerning the protection of the personal and the boundaries of the public sphere. The jury was persuaded in particular by Holzer’s in-depth research on the history of electronic sound generation and his scheme for its artistic implementation in a do-it-yourself process as well as by his socio-political approach, which not lastly find expression in his eponymous reference to Alan Turing’s secure speech device Delilah.

I will be giving a series of SoundBoxes workshops in Belgium and the Netherlands next month. This hands-on workshop combines the arts of electronics, noise, sculpture and collage to produce unique, “circuit bent” electroacoustic instruments.

Details here: http://macumbista.net/?page_id=1897

SOUNDBOXES WORKSHOP LIEGE: 09-10 April, L’An Vert
http://www.entonnoir.org/cg/copy/

SOUNDBOXES WORKSHOP DEN HAAG: 12 April, Villa K
https://www.facebook.com/events/1407118902885760/
http://www.stichtingcentrum.org/

SOUNDBOXES WORKSHOP ROTTERDAM, 13 April, WORM
https://www.facebook.com/events/560334607406703
http://www.worm.org/home/view/event/15049

Hope to see some of you there!

I am currently taking orders for the next run of the Macumbista Benjolin V3 2014.

The Benjolin is a standalone synthesizer designed by Rob Hordijk from the Netherlands. It contains two oscillators (one LFO and one VCO), a voltage controlled filter and a circuit called a “Rungler”, which allows chaotic cross-modulation possibilities between the different parts of the circuit. Hordijk refers to the Benjolin as a circuit which has been “bent by design.”

These hand-made Macumbista Benjolins have been further customized with a patchbay, which can be used to interface with other modular synthesizers or to setup further control voltage feedback systems within the Benjolin itself, attenuators on the three control voltage input and LEDs displaying the internal state of the Rungler.

You can watch a short demo of two of these Benjolins in action here: http://vimeo.com/70111383

Price is EUR 495 (incl. 19% EU VAT) / EUR 416 (shipped outside the EU) plus shipping. To be included in this run, please send a prepayment of 50% by 15 March. I anticipate finishing this run in the first week of April.

A double version, the Butterfly Benjolin, allowing incredible amounts of chaotic cross-modulation between the two halves, is also possible. Price is EUR 895 (incl. 19% EU VAT) / EUR 752 (shipped outside the EU) plus shipping.

The patchbay of these Benjolins has banana jack connections for the square and triangle waveforms of each of the two oscillators, the Pulse Width Modulation output of the two oscillators, the Rungler output, the XOR (exclusive/or) logic operation of the two oscillators and the output of the filter.

There are also banana jack control voltage inputs with attenuators for the frequency of each of the two oscillators and the filter cutoff frequency. The layout of the panel is designed to be both intuitive and playable (unlike many EuroRack modules, for example…). And finally, the three output bits of the Rungler have been visualized with red, green and blue LEDs.

All Benjolins use a Neutrik 6.3mm (1/4″) output jack (two in the case of the Butterfly Benjolin), an additional GROUND banana jack to interface with other modular systems and a 12 VAC “wall wart” power supply (mainland European and North American versions available).

These Benjolins are produced under licensed agreement with Rob Hordijk.

Please contact me using the CONTACT page here, or through MACUMBISTA at-the-domain GMAIL dot COM. Thank you for your kind attention.