Friday 30 May 2008

Workshop Noise Machine Schematic

I've just put up the schematic for the recent Workshop Noise Machine on my BugBrand Electronics page. Sometime soon (probably August or so) I'll offer kits for this with all parts and more detailed instructions. The first run of the workshop at Pickled Feet in Berlin went really well last weekend - 14 people (some with zero electronics / soldering experience) got the kits built quickly and with everything working first time - lots of fun noises ensued!

Thursday 29 May 2008

Weevil08 in Mexico played by Erica


Sent to me by Felipe Waller, this is an amazing and touching video of Erica playing a Weevil in Mexico. Thanks to Felipe and good luck to Erica!

Monday 12 May 2008

Workshopping


Here's a new board-synth design that is going to be used for some upcoming workshop events - build your own drone'n'noise machine. The schematic and design will be shared imminently on the BugBrand Electronics page (once I do up a pdf document for the workshop teaching).

This design features:
3 oscillators - two of which can be sync'd to Osc1 resulting in very rich harmonic drone sounds.
Each osc has a switch for hi or lo pitch. The Oscs are all running at audio-rates (rather than the sub-audio clicks of the PostcardWeevil)
Mixer and comparator to bring together the Oscs and give a stable output level even when starved. The starve also has two settings - stable and unstable.
CMOS overdrive with tone contol and drive setting.
13 touch points!
10 dials!
7 switches (well, 6 if you discount the on/off switch)
1/4" jack output and/or onboard mini-amp.

Results? Power drones and chaoscillations. Touchy-screamy!
(Demo sounds coming soon)

Time to build - pretty quick - hopefully people with little or no experience will be able to build these (and learn something about what's going on too) within 4 hours or so. (maybe being optimistic?!)

Workshops are currently booked for Berlin (24th May at PickledFeet) and then in Lisbon at the UM festival sometime mid-to-late June (exact date TBC - via New Interfaces). Get in touch via the main BugBrand site if you'd like to book a workshop for your area...

BugBrand HoneyComb


One off batch - won't be entering full production.
Crunchy sounds, very sweet indeed...

BugCrusher Batch Apr2008