White Noise Sample-and-Hold My Beer: Part I

Dedication: This post is dedicated to the memory of Ray Wilson, author and DIY Synth genius who passed away 10 years ago on July 21st, 2016. TLDR; i started this post midway through a surprisingly challenging project that caused a dark night of the soul. It worked out okay. Still, the flow/tone may reflect this.…

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State Inter State

Recorded improvisation: 19’23 Hardware Components: Scott Petersen/Ethan Bernard: Custom HEF4046BP audio feedback circuit Koma Elektronik: Field Kit FX Korg: Delay Monotron Technical description: This performance was accomplished through the slow rotation of a single potentiometer (one of six) that changed the internal feedback relationship between the three oscillators of the custom circuit. The knob was…

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Fun with the Wien Bridge Oscillator

To the fledgling electronics enthusiast who has just enough knowledge of electronic music theory to be dangerous, it makes sense that the simplest tone, the sine tone, should be the simplest/easiest to construct in the analog electronics domain.  Of course, this is not the case.  While geometrically simple to describe, the sine tone is not…

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DIY Workshop Madness

I am really excited to be teaching a series of open source software and hardware workshops this year at Yale as part of a new initiative we started called the Open Music Initiative.  The aim of the initiative is to indoctrinat… er, expose faculty and students to the merits of FLOSS and open source hardware via workshops wherein…

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Modular Synth Components

Last night El MuCo (The Mutagenic Cooptoraptors) accomplished a feat heretofore unimaginable: three circuit projects were undertaken and three projects were completed successfully.  While you may be tempted to think that, with the assistance of a book (Ray Wilson’s Analog Synthesizers) and the vast power of the internet this is not a big deal, you…

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Experimental Musical Instrument Workshop @MakeHaven

Yesterday was the 2nd of what will now be three workshops I’m giving at MakeHaven hacker space in New Haven, CT. The first two focused on creating contact mics and designing and building acoustic instruments. The third workshop, TBA sometime in October, will center on basics of electronics and circuits, bending/hacking instruments, toys, household objects,…

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Batch Normalize and add Fades to Audio Files

A new project I have just started has had me editing a lot of relatively long audio files.  I have to cut them up separating the noise from the spoken word, normalize each file, and add fades to the beginning and end.  Then, I have to export them.  I was using Audacity, which is a…

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INI Workshop Prototype Instruments pt. 2

These are the last of the prototype instruments I designed for the INI instrument workshop which took place last Thursday at Artspace New Haven.  If you go to ininewhaven.com you can see some pictures and video from the event.  Turnout was great and everyone had a swell time making things to make noise.  We plan…

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