I’ve entered a new stage of tinkering - building circuits from scratch, rather than merely mucking about in existing ones. The first couple of circuits I’ve built use 555 timer chips to make LFO’s. If you connect the output of these circuits to various places in a toy such as the Radical Rhythm guitar above, you can trigger sounds or effects at a regular rate.
This is a very basic circuit, but I got such a rush when, after cursing and squinting as I smeared solder every which way, something I made actually worked. So, no more anti-theory, I might just try to understand how this shit works. (more…)
Ahh . . . Remember the turn of the century? I do. And DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing was the soundtrack. It holds a Guiness world record for being the first album entirely made up of samples. And it still stands up as an amazingly well conceived and balanced work. If you haven’t listened to this in a while it is worth your time again.
This is a video of a high school percussion ensemble recreating some of Endtroducing. Absolutely awesome! In my high school, we were too busy playing lame jazz and poorly executed movie soundtrack music to do anything half as cool as this.
Also wanted to post this mp3 of the Moroder song Tears, sampled by DJ Shadow on the track Organ Donor.
Classic!
Someone finally gets it!
A fountain of strange noises…
I found a low feedback as well as the high feedback on the last one. Also added an LEP (Light Emitting Penis). It interacts with the low feedback photo resistor for a delightful complication. Add a hot “photon” paint job and you’ve got one hell of a machine. (more…)