RoboRehearsal

So I spent some of today trying to get all the midi controlled things I have built set up and begin to make some sounds together. Since building the robocymbal player I have hacked together a couple more things including;


Above is a machine that has a couple of motors under midi control, each motor has a felt strip attached as a rotor which kind of strums the wires attached to a piezo disk..I love the effect you can hear it on the track at the end of this post coming in at around 36 seconds.

Also in the track you can hear an effected drum clatter, this was made with my second drum player here;



Opening this majestic piece (!) is the sound of my modified Amdek percussion synth, this synth that is designed to be hit by drumsticks is being triggered by a simple motor with a bit of wire and a weight like so;



So here's the track


So today has given me a big jobs list... I need to sort out better ways of being able to attach things to each other (particularly the drum/cymbal player things) I also need to sort out communal powersupplies for some of these things as at the moment everything is running on rechargeable batteries which is getting slightly ridiculous when most items are running at the same voltage.

I also want to build a few more instruments before I sit down and hopefully write a sizeable piece with all this stuff...and then write some visual stuff....then find venue....I'll get there eventually I guess!

Lastfm

My bigbadlabel boss has sorted out the warm data content on lastfm you can find my Warm Data released stuff here to stream

Modded gameboys...

In amongst working on other things, I've done another couple of modified gameboys. Both these fellas have the "pro sound" modification done, I've done this mod before but on these I've done it so that the new improved output has its own socket in the bottom of the case meaning you can retain the headphone socket. As the mod renders the (awful) internal speaker useless I decided to pull them out and fit LED's to shine out through the speaker grill...I really like the effect.

A lot of people have got into adding backlight kits to old gameboys, but I managed to pick up a couple of these slide on "Nuby" lights which again..I love the look of...so I probably won't attempt this mod.

However it has come to my attention that I have procured way to many gameboys than one could ever need so this one is off to ebay to try and raise some cash towards a new portable recorder...(mmmh micro br mmmh) EDIT...Heres the ebay link if anyones interested

Midi Motor...

Today I made a midi controllable motor with a phono socket to hook it up to the msar. I am going to do some motors that, when triggered, do something mechanical, ie turn something to make a sound, strike something or possibly create a strumming motion. However this one I have just been playing through a tape deck head of a hacked walkman. Its interesting as a dry sound but I can get some good sounds by feeding the walkman through an effects unit. Here is a short sample, starts dry and then I dial in a chorus/reverb effect..

Finishing things...

So I've been putting in some time finishing things off, below is a picture of my finished MSAR kit I've posted about before. I've finished it by giving it phono socket outputs for each relay and mounting it in a plastic food box! Believe it or not I've given this enclosure a lot of thought.. the sealed nature makes it pretty splash proof (good for gigs with drinks involved) it's see through so (with some extra led's in the box) its easy to see what is plugged in where, I've also made it so that the on off switch sits under the lip off the lid so when it's powred up and the lid is on you can't accidentally knock it off...similarly you cant knock it on when it's in transit.



I showed a couple of posts ago a rough mockup of a robotic cymbal player well I've also completed a better more final version...



So this robocymbal machine is built using more bits salvaged from the original toy that I got the solenoid from, the base of the unit is one of the pcb's from the toy and the uprights and the "drumstick" are made from some plastic tubing that came with some packaging. Again I've used a phono socket as the connection so its a simple phono lead to connect it up to the msar.

Lastly it's a bit of a pain to connect this all together and then to a midi source if I just want to check that the robocymbal unit is working, so I made a switched phono plug just for test purposes...sometimes the simplest things are very satisfying..



and yes I do like leds... they are useful for showing that things are receiving power...but also look great in the dark...like so..



next jobs are more instruments for midi control...stay tuned!

Warm Data Soundcloud

The mighty Warm Data netlabel have a grand selection of tunes available for streaming on their soundcloud site. There is a tune off my EP that I didn't do a video for so you may not have heard it..(unless you are one of the great people who bought my ep:)

Here's the link

Robocymbal....

Concretedog Robocymbal from concretedog on Vimeo.

A continuation of my tinkering with the highly liquid MSA-R kit, today I built a little test system that plays a ride cymbal controlled by midi...Its kind of inspired me to create a robot band!...I'm sure it will pass!