Narniabike

Last weekend I had a run up to manchester to spend a few hours at the northern model engineering show. It was amazing to see what people get obsessed with building and the time and the dedication they put into there craft. There were many many amazing engines and planes and trains and the like but for me this project stood out.



Yep thats right its a wooden bike! She's an absolute beauty in the flesh and is completely (seriously 100%) wooden, not one screw, nail, bit of rubber or anything! This project was on the Stockport and District society of model engineers stand and I got to chat to Nick Russell who is chairman of the engineering society but also one of the threestrong team who built this bike. They are hoping to challenge and beat the existing wooden bike speed record (currently about 11.5mph if I recall correctly) but also due to some very emotive personal links want to raise as much money as they can for the motor neurone disease association. Its a terrible disease so if you're impressed by these fella's wooden bike and feel like donating read some more about the narniabike on their website and also find out there how you can make a donation.

Kodak ki8 and Zoom H1

I've had my zoom H1 for a while now and I love it dearly...yes the case is a bit plasticky and creaky but it records at great sample/bit rates, the inbuilt xy mics sound great and the external mic preamps aren't too bad at all. Recently I picked up a second hand kodak KI8 camera...these are pretty cool...they shoot HD 1080, but also 720p at either 30fps or 60fps...now my phone can do most of that but what is brilliant about the KI8 (and missing from so many other camcorders) is it has an external mic/line input with adjustable gain. This means 2 things I can shoot clips and run audio into the camera through a better mic...but also could run a combination of signals through a mixer into the input...meaning when I do my videos showing new creations I can chat to a mic but then get much better line in recordings of the device I'm demoing. Yay. In celebration I just did a 10 minute hack job and made a quick mount for both the zi8 and the h1...I'll make a better one at some point but its good enough for now.

Sold out! but more on the way!

Indeed...I've sold out...not just sold the four Matrix Mixers I made but also the prototype I used in the videos in the previous posts and even the original one I made using larger pots and point to point wiring! 4 of the mixers went to people in the UK and I even had one that I hand delivered to a fine fellow in manchester by the name of humbletune the other 2 are currently winging there way to both Denmark and Texas USA.

There's another short run underway though so if you are interested ping me an email and we'll start conversing about it. concretehub(AT)yahoo(DOT)co(D0T)uk

Also mighty big thanks to Palmsounds for not only making a purchase but posting and talking about my work...most people who purchased mentioned they'd come from palmsounds!

Matrix Mixers, made, sold and available(ish)

It's been a busy few weeks...I finished this week the first run of four Mini Matrix Mixers

As you can see they're finished in lovely splatterpaint and I think they've turned out really well. I have been talking about these mixers for a while and a few people expressed interest even before I announced the prices. In fact three of these four are already sold with 2 in the post and 1 to be hand delivered tomorrow (brilliant random coincidence of being in the same city for a day out as someone who wants to buy one!)

So there is one more available currently although I'm sure I'll be making some more soon. These Mini Matrix Mixers cost £30 plus postage and packing which is £3.65 if you're in the uk..if interested ping me an email to: concretehub(AT)yahoo(DOT)co(DOT)uk and we'll work it out.

On a related thread I also made up these 2 prototypes of my passive 4 - 1 mini mono mixers and despite a little trouble (I'd made a slight error on the layout) they've turned out really well, one has gone to a good buddy and I'm keeping the other one, but I plan to do a short run of these this week. They'll be £10 plus p and p so again ping me an email if you're interested.

Mini Matrix Mixer piece

Heres a track I uploaded the other day, it's made from some edits from a jam session with 3 fx units and a circuit bent talking computer.

Help me...I'm Melting

So todays adventure...I managed to get my homemade furnace up and running and melt down a small amount of aluminium scraps and pour it into a crude sand cast to make a vaguely cylindrical bit o metal..

So above is the shot of my setup! Its an old paint tin into which I cut a hole and for a small tube to go into (about 15mm outside diameter about 12mm internal). In the bit of the tube that is inside the furnace I drilled a series of small holes about 10mm apart in a line to allow air to escape the tube. The paint tin was then lined with a 25-30mm depth lining of fire cement ( a lot of online guides for furnace making have quite complicated refactory mixes to line furnace but for a small one like this about 8quids worth (a large tub) of fire cement will do the job).

I did the cement lining of the base first up to the depth of the hole for the air tube, which I then cemented in place and then built up the sides.

On the end of the air tube is a cutoff plastic bottle top as a kind of wind funnel and then place in fron of the funnel is a hair dryer (set on cold..warm air is not as good and it would burn more electricity anyway). The piece of terracota pot on top was acting as a slight lid to try and keep as much heat in the crucible as possible. The heat is supplied by lighting a small fire of some broken down pieces of charcoal briquettes, incidentally the charcoal sold for bbq's will work (it's what I used today) but they say that better quality charcoal will burn hotter for longer.

I used a steel can as a crucible and after a while heating and adding aluminium scraps I poured the results into a crude sand mould which was a small tin filled with builders sand, very slightly moistened so it held shape.

Here's the result! Its vaguely round and although looks rough (due to the lack of resolution offered by building sand..oh and that I just pushed a lighter into the sand to make my mould!)..it would be round enough to put into a lathe to make something from...I WANT A LATHE SO BAD!

Next steps for this at some point are to buy a small amount of casting "green" sand and make a cope and drag (like splittable cases for sand moulds) and get casting some more interesting shapes.

If you're interested in casting metals please don't just read this...read as much as you can on the web as there is lots of safety stuff you need to follow...like don't wear any synthetic fibres as if you are splashed they will melt and stick....EEEK

Making Mini Matrix Mixers

So a bit late...Happy new year!

I've been continuing my odyssey into PCB manufacturing and have designed and built this small (10cm by 9cm) passive matrix mixer with 4 inputs and 4 outputs. I'm currently building some more of these and am going to try and sell them online which I'll announce here and via my twitter feed. If you're interested in these I've done a couple of videos, this first one explains a bit about how they work before venturing into some feedback sounds at about 3minutes..

New handmade mini matrix mixer from concretedog on Vimeo.

I've also done another video today featuring some crazy sounds from a gameboy running the mighty Trippy H...its a bit of a slow start but I like the sounds about half way through....

More Mini Matrix Mixer from concretedog on Vimeo.

Finally if you want further examples of matrix mixing on of the tracks of my album "The coracle and the yellow shell" was made completely from a matrix mixer setup with a string reverb and other bits...here it is..



So stay tuned and if you have any questions feel free to get in touch.