Glacial Communications

This could be interpreted as an alternate version of the DJ set I did last weekend at Recycled Rainbow PRIMER. One in which I only had a few of the records I actually played , and many that I wished I had at the time (i.e. Manuel Göttsching's E2-E4 (seriously, any chillout-type set is incomplete without it making an appearance)). I also kicked up the train sounds, in order to more accurately represent the event, which is held adjacent to a heavily used rail line. Lessons learned: 1. Klein & MBO's "Dirty Talk" sounds just as awesome at -18% as it does at regular speed. It's like Belgian New Beat meets Italo Disco and forms some kind of hideous groove beast. Though, really, how can you go wrong with it? It's a damn near perfect track -  good enough to be a direct influence on Blue Monday, anyway. 2. I really shouldn't try mixing some things live until I've, uh, actually tried it a few times. Or just let Soulwax handle it. 3. I really need to rip my copy of New Order's Video 586 onto the laptop. Wished I'd had it last night.

Press The Button Podcast for May 20, 2009. Show notes are available at http://www.glacialcommunications.com/news

I spent a little more time playing with the Where’s The Party At? 8-bit sampler this evening. I first tried my theorized CD4046 voltage-to-sync circuit, but that didn’t seem to work. Not sure where the problem lies, but I think I’ll need a scope to figure it out for sure.

That said, I then made a couple of quick demo MP3s. The first is a straight up demo: wtpademo.mp3. I play a loop on my RY10, and sample it into the WTPA at its highest fidelity. I let it play for a few bars, and then messed with the sample rate a bit. Then I try some of the special effects – reverse, half speed, one of the “math modes” which takes it into an overdrive, backwards halfspeed, and then triggered playing. Note that this demo only uses one of the sample banks.

The second demo uses the fact that you can vary the  sample rate while recording: drumfight.mp3. This is two loops from the RY10, varispeed-sampled into the WTPA, and then manipulated. This again, didn’t take advantage of the banks – I just multitracked it. The first loop plays alone the first fifteen seconds, then the second fades in over the next fifteen seconds and the two play side by side for a minute or so. Then the second starts getting its sample rate further manipulated.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I managed to fix no fewer than three Arduino boards this week – two had broken battery clip wires – one of which was my MIDI sequencer that broke during AHMW, and the third apparently wasn’t actually broken, but just refused to be a Pocket Piano during AHMW. It’s happy now.

Having fixed the sequencer and APP, I uploaded this polyphonic FM sketch into the APP, and then did a tiny bit of recording – here’s an excerpt. One channel is my MG-1 being sequenced by the sequencer, and the other is the APP being manipulated while playing a chord. As the title implies, this might be a rough sketch of things to come in Volume II (of course it would help if Volume I got released sometime soon! For those curious, Volume I is close, just gotta finish the artwork, mass-produce that, and get it to Ryan…)

Also, the Gristleizer is starting to get Gristle-y. Somebody pointed out an error in the layout diagram that when fixed, made things somewhat happier. I’m not sure if it’s perfect yet, but it definitely seems closer to usable. I may fool with it a bit more over the weekend.

Also also, I got my Where’s The Party At? 8-bit sampler kit and managed to get it finished during some vacation days last week. Lots of fun. Expect a demo or something soon. Trying to figure out an appropriate way of getting voltage control of the sync input. I’m thinking a CD4046 PLL ought to cover it, but need to do some prototyping and testing. An oscilloscope wouldn’t hurt either, but I haven’t got one…

Finally, I put together one of the GetLofi APC 2.0 PCBs I ordered months and months ago. I like it better than the one I built a couple of years ago – it actually works right!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Press The Button Podcast for May 13, 2009. Show notes are available at http://www.glacialcommunications.com/news

Press The Button Podcast for May 6, 2009. Show notes are available at http://www.glacialcommunications.com/news

Something is done. Kind of. Not a synth component, though.

After the first attempt at the USB sound module didn’t work, I hastily tossed together the second one, using more-or-less parts on hand. This time, I didn’t do the flood-and-drag technique on the SSOP IC. I did something a lot less electrically unsafe – I fluxed the board, laid solder on the pads, fluxed again, carefully placed the IC on the pads, and then used my craft heat tool to solder it. I then tested pin-to-PCB connectivity, and hand-soldered the three or so pins that didn’t get connected by the heat gun. The board is noisy sounding, but it works! I think I’m going to try desoldering the first one with the heat tool, and maybe trying it again that way. If it doesn’t work then, I’ll have to write off the IC as dead. (Update since I wrote this earlier today: did the desolder/solder thing. WORKED! Now I’ll have to get an enclosure for this one. With any luck it will be quieter (better parts, better grounding), because this second one is noisy as hell.)

Other stuff worked on:

SN-Voice- giving me lots of headaches. It’s all together, but has some very odd problems. I have gotten the LFO to produce sound under certain circumstances, and I think I heard the output of the noise generator once, so, it’s progress.  Ran into a problem that appeared to be a bad socket. trying to fix that led to all sorts of issues that aren’t quite resolved yet, but getting there.

Gristleizer – poked at it a bit, but no real progress. I may try putting one of the other boards together, see if it works any better.

Upcoming projects:

The “Where’s The Party At?” 8-bit sampler – it should be arriving Monday.

A SoftRock Lite Software-defined Radio – picked this up at Notacon.

Some monitor speakers – I got the cabinets already, and now figuring out appropriate drivers/crossovers/whatnot. Then I’ll have to build some amplifiers…