Glacial Communications

Mixer arrived today. Seems to work, though output seems low, but I’ve only used the RCA ins, not the 1/4″’s, which ought to be a bit louder, having some kinda mic pre in them…

I think I may bring some additional toys as well – like the Atari Punk Console I whipped up this summer (perhaps disguised as a Geiger Counter?), and since it looks like there will at least be a little power available, even the Juno-1.

hrm, it’s now Tuesday, and if I want my mixer before I head out to Recycled Rainbow, it needs to be here by Thursday. Payment was sent over a week ago, but I’ve heard nothing back from the seller. I hope I don’t have to get something at Banjo Center. eeek.

No, not the actual end of the world, but rather the latest Recycled Rainbow event. My main focus has been on a mobile, self-contained (and entirely portably-powered) live performance rig. I’ve been working on this conceptually since the springtime – initially in preparation for Burning Man, but that venture went belly-up so now it’s going to be for RR.

The kit contains the following:
• Boss DR-202 Drum machine
• Yamaha QY-10 sequencer
• Palm Tungsten E w/SD card for samples
• Realistic mixer (hopefully enroute and working, and should arrive before 9/28, otherwise I’m screwed)
• an old pair of Koss computer speakers that can run on 4 C cells

All of this stuff comfortably fits in an old laptop bag. There may even be room for a smallish MIDI controller that can be hacked to run on batteries, in case chords seem like a good idea.

It turns out we can’t go to Burning Man this year. It’s cost prohibitive for us, and we were running into some scheduling SNAFUs- for us in Ohio, it’s a two-week affair including travel…

Our loss could be your gain – we’re selling the tickets on eBay. Get ‘em while they’re there. update: They’re gone. Hooray for “Buy it Now”.

And here I just about had band-in-a-bag ready to go…

I think I may have found the appropriate bag for transporting my desert performance rig (and charging my spare batteries in the process).

I got a Korg AG-10, but it’s not powering up (which disturbs me a little, but it only cost me a little). I’m attempting to troubleshoot for now, but I think I’m back to looking for a cheap QY-10 (it’s familiar to me- I used to have one until I rather stupidly decided to sell it) or QY8.

I’m also busy working on our MIDI-controlled RGBLED light organ. It’s moving along, but the trip to DEMF kind of slowed things down. Things will pick up again either tomorrow or Saturday (likely saturday, since I gotta make a small parts run…)

I think I have the sequencer/drum box figured out – I scored a Boss DR-202 for relatively cheap on the ‘Bay, and I’m liking it so far. It runs on batteries(bonus!), seems relatively easy to program, and you can use the footswitch input for a drum trigger (sorta).

Now onto the “synth”. I’ve whittled it down to a few zillion possibilities, and have some definite requirements:

• DC power source. I don’t want to have to heft around a big battery AND an inverter just to power a synth while walking around. This probably rules out all Alesis gear(what’s with the 9VAC wall warts, anyway?), and a good chunk of Roland/Korg/Yamaha rack-type gear. Battery powered would win (Yamaha MU5, I’m looking in your direction), but I’m not finding much within my budget available…
• If I could set a patch that’s a ’split’ (different parts within the same channel), that would be über-bonus. Since the DR-202 can only do external sequencing on one channel, being able to ‘fake’ multichannel via this would be awesome.
• Keeping cost to a minimum would be good too, or I would have just bought something new. And heat my house by setting $20 bills on fire . I have a pretty strict budget for this, and I should be trying to stick to it.
• A front panel of some sort would probably be good. At least enough to select the current patch. The Korg AG-10 seems to have a good sound, but it looks impossible to do anything with without a computer around, unless you like Grand Piano (aka GM voice 1)

So that’s loosely what I’m looking for. Any suggestions?

With any luck, I’ll be able to try out the rig at Strangefest (the weekend after Memorial day)

Our Burning Man Easter Candy Sale ends on Saturday, so hurry up and get those orders in! We could really use everyone’s help to get us out to the playa!

Like I mentioned in the last post, I’m planning on going to Burning Man this year. One thing I’d like to do out there is some live performances. I’m starting to try to piece together an electronic music rig that is 1) inexpensive, 2) essentially disposable (or rather, I won’t care if it gets thoroughly clogged with playa dust).

Right now I’m thinking something like this:

• A Sequencer of some sort – Most likely a Yamaha QY10 or QY8. Worst case, I have a flaky Alesis MMT8 that I can hopefully coax into not breaking
• Some kind of drum box – this may end up being my RY10, though it’s getting to be like the MMT8 with regards to the buttons. If the sequencer has built in drums, that may be sufficient. I’m also looking at things like the Yamaha RY8, which has some definite perks.
• some kind of synth module – There are a number of options here (Kawai K1(m|r), Boss DS-330, Alesis Nanosynth, many others)
• Something to trigger samples with – maybe a cheapie flash MP3 player?
• My hacked-together optimin may also get some use

I’ve already got a cheapie 3-octave MIDI controller enroute for a related project, so I’m good for that. Anybody have any other ideas? Any good deals?

Myself and a number of other folks are trying to raise money to do some cool stuff at Burning Man this year. We’re trying some non-traditional methods of funding the trip, since travel money is pretty scarce amongst the bunch of us.

For starters, we’re selling candy online. Hey, it’s Easter season, and I can tell you from experience that the candy is quite good. The funds will help pay for the multple rental vehicles and gas necessary to get from Cleveland to Black Rock City.