more precussion instuments than you can throw a stick at.

Phil did a phishing exercise for gullible students to preform at the trash to fashion event, a small group agreed out of those available

Jason
Josh
Judit

The reasons for signing on were a last thank you to Phil for his work in the last brief and to have a big finale, A chance to preform and share outside our normal sphere of communication, a wild ecosystem free from people who have seen the birth of the instruments a chance to have fresh ears in a unfamiliar venue. a excuse to further refine my instrument.

I added a new button which origin was from the main board, and most importantly jumping off a led from one of the input boards.stealing some of the led current allows for pulsing auto beats and also bringing life to the other side of one of the sustain switches that got busted anything that made it light up or was indistiguisible from the line in noise is now able to be heard. All this had to be tamed due to it was creating 3 distinct plateaus of volume with the newest sounding loud enough to not be amplified. I added it to a potentiometer and it changed tone slightly and but not enough of a decrease in noise so I had to stick a resistor on this line of the circuit.

Today we had our practice session, a preplanned skeleton structure with most being derived from playing with others instruments or just playing. it was surprising that 4 instruments that are so unique are able to intertwine and form a coherent unison of noise.

heres a practice video. a work in progress

interview with myself

today the final task of our week of self discovery and one day projects ends with us having to interview ourselves,



INT; What is the point behind your instrument?
RGS; I decided to create a digital and woodwind combination. In the end the balance of the instrument leaned more towards the digital aspect. than the woodwind. i've had a long ambition to try out circuit bending for a couple of years so i decided to give it a go.

INT; The instrument doesn't look very pretty. is there a reason behind this?
RGS: That's because its a partially modular system. therefore a finished refined look would be out of place its mostly driven by usability (with a few visual aspects). The exposed electronics are partially for easy replacement and also add another playing element . For ease of adjustment replacement and for playing purposes.

INT; What is the thought behind the form factor?
RGS; Yes its partial a homage to the key-tar are more aggressive version of the keyboard taking the form factor of a guitar. Is able to be preformed as vs the normal keyboard that just sits on a stand.

INT; Where did the sound noise choices come from?
RGS; The digital noises were found by jumping points on the board, and picking the most prominent and general playing around on the board, this is also the reasoning for the instrument requiring amplification the end combinations were based on aural aesthetic decisions

INT; were there any biases between the elements?
RGS; I spent more consecutive time on building reeds and went through 5-7 iterations, this focus was due to the building of a woodwind instrument was more foreign to me than poking around at a series of circuit boards.

INT; If you were to take the project further where would you go with it?
RGS; Add a new circuit board, to try jumping between two separate circuits would be extremely interesting , refine the horn aspect, maybe change the body materials more buttons. most would be simply refinements than complete overhauls of the original.

INT; what has been the most enjoyable part of the project?
RGS; my favorite part is possibly leaning the quirks of using your fingers to short the solder points on the instrument through this i’ve found it works a tad like a resistance plate with the notes working like a scale away from the first fingers trigger point. also this allows you to occasionally find radio stations when its plugged in to the earthed computer at home.

INT: are you happy with your descision to act as a individual through the idea, design and construction phases?
RGS: definitely the resulting instrument was more "me", rather than a comprimise between a group. the project also feels more acomplised, and theres still comradery between some of the other students. so its still got the comunial feeling just without the strings of a partnership.

objecting to questions

Today we had to bring along items of sentimental value. most weren't that intersting. one of the interesting discussions was taylor saying that he had two items and decided to put out the less personal after finding out the first task.
I did this, I had 5 items stached in a bag 4 were simmalar the last was something that wasn't.

ripped off judits method since i cbf jumping through all the hoops to set up spoiler tags for this article, click on the images to get the questions lead image has my items description of its sentiment.

Today we built a grid and had to interpolate the shapes between our 3 starting blocks

The second part of the task was to create a 3d render of one of them in maya.

I spent a while tweaking the lighting of the object

grasping ideas

this week we are having a project on the process of ideas
a series of one day projects, meant to free us up a bit.we were given Richard serra's verb list and had to create works relating to the chosen verb which had a nogistalic feel back to CADI for me. as a simalar task was taken but we were limited to 3 materials and were in groups. without a team you discover the perserverance of ideas is shunned and your more free to just play.

the first 3 are "to simplify." the others are "to light"

videos

this is where Im going to stick all my videos youtube wont let me say "|<"eytar :( . right click -> save as to download a free mp3 -> HERE

Fingering away at the tempermental bitch.

Friday morning I did the final soldering of the buttons to the bending wires, this was left to the last day due to the tendency for the circuit board to change more than someone with dissociative identity disorder.

phil noted that there was a degree of secrecy to mine, the basics of the circuit bending was done mostly in class. refinement was done at home due to the low output from the speaker strugling against the subtle air conditioning let alone other instruments. the descisions about interface was done thursday and was left that late due to the interface needed to complement the shape as well as the combonation of jump points (I'll do a whole post dedicated to the design/configuraton next) It was somewhat nice having people wanting to hear what it sounded like, then subsequently complaining about it!

For the grande preformance Zak and I teamed up, our instruments seemed like a natural fit. We had a 15 minute practice session on the day which had a few heads peeking around the door, and could aledgedly be heard from down the hall. I decided to go bare reed since it was a bit louder and I wasn't going to be reliant on the aucoustic aspect of my instrument. The final roster was conocted up and we were drafted up as the finale which was unexpected as the opening and closing are prominent positions. opening has to set the mood for the whole show, the ending has to come across as a solid conclusion. We were the only group that inadvertantly wandered onto the fringe of an experimental genere Drone.




The Preformance:
The piece started with a short burrrrrr from my "|<"eytar a pause and then Zak's klakzon whirring up into life ramping up in pace. the pace for the begining was slow slowly building sound, through the peice the intensity and sound was rising till a point that it was like a heart beat or breathing in out in out in out in out in out. then letting out a final groan and you get the dying sound of the wheel slowing to a stop. Lead photo by Nilesh from Zak's Flickr
Second photo by Judit from My Flickr

The hardest button to button

Today we had a session of getting into a imporvisational mindset, and students we have developed a ability to overthink and be in control of our presentations to minute detail. the activitys we partook in was a psycological and physical experience where you are focusing on responding to an others actions, as a suporting peice or as a trigger. he most subtle of noises make good sound when you listen.
(add some smores here)


The final stages of my instrument I got some switches for triggering distortions found on the circuit board. 6 small coloured push instance buttons which are for primay sound creation, and
Two big red switches will allow me to have some sustain, as a suporting noise whilst i can focus on the wind part.

I'm immencely glad to have decided to build a modular system as there have been a few overhauls of the design, and it's grown from a series of sketchs in my book. to something that has a tangible existance.


Having the instrument remaining as a upgradable system brings up an interesting train of thoought, I could replace the reed with a replacement, the tube it blows down, a new keyboard a new body. but I like the result as it is now, its not about creating the most noise or the prefectly tuned scale. I vauguely rember back to something said earlier in the year that each creators personality is evident in their own creation.
does my instrument have my personality? an undistorted view of myself undisrupted by self sanitised expressions and the tug of war between equality in a exchange? could I go up to a stranger and go that is me a dull brown object that makes and ocasional noise?

a flaw in the plan

Upon a talk with phil the reason for my reed not making much noise is that it needs to be mounted inside the tube this should be fairly easy to ammend.
My project over the last 24 hours has fleeted betwen confidence, dispear, rebelion and loathing and is back to a optimistic aura.



On the circuit bent keyboard side its going well I've found some different pulsing sounds which should complement the aucostical (potential) qualites of the instrument (or just sound buzzy), it just needs some switches mounted in it for them and its ready to go. It still needs to be amped due to the whole killing volume thing.

A new revised design (lost count of iteration) was concocted up the reed has to exist within the tube so the reed was redesigned, and mounted on the nozzle.

the reed makes a wind wistling noise. suckcess!

Making Reeds

My wind side of my instrument needs some fanciffinification. So I decided to make reeds.

Version 1: a quick visit to wikipedia gave me an impression of what a reed looks like so i went out into the garden to go get bamboo which was subequently segmented and splitted then whittled down to a flat surface

Revison A: A small channel was added to try and coax the wind down the middle.

Version 2: after working out that physics dont just dont work that way and seeing a premade one I found out its meant to get blowed into, not out. I added a wedge like shape at the rear so that there could be the natural channel down the middle, a final wounding of thread to keep them together and the reed was ready

posible future refinements if the sound isn't how I want it.

Making: Circuit bending/broking

So I've obtained a cheap electric keyboard and taken it apart, testing the terminal jumps is a somewhat fustrating task, especialy you've killed something and you resultingly get only miniscule volume. oh dear (if worst case i'll just plug it into a amp and have a near mute, hissy, standard model. Ive found a few points that give a sine, but dont seems to cut out instead of change the pitch of the instument.

Sound Creation: Idea creation

I've been brainstorming intruments that I would like to make/use. A series of sketches base on interactions and desired sound.

The idea Im currently going with involves a wind instrument and a digital element, A bellows is something I find interesting, as a child I rember a old ornate fire blower used to coax along a fire. the idea of a bellows powering a trumpet shape would be the primary form of my instrument Initaly I was thinking of using keys as a secondary trigger system, but then I decided it would be most excellent to bypass the need of a computer and just introduce a circuit bent electronic instrument or toy.

I've been tempted to try circut bending a activity that involves short circuting parts of a circurt designed to produce a tone resulting in a new tone often turning a wailing anoying kids musical toy into a wailing anoying modified kids toy. the apeal is creating new sounds that weren't designed by the original manufacturer, and a sence of actualy creating something which can be rare with digital instruments.


Form: one of the most crucial aspects of instrument design (especialy one that is preformed) is what guise it takes. the three sort of common states are installatons, platformesque ones like drums or piano and mobile like gutairs.

The proposed shape:
A refrence/hommage to keytar's a popular instument of the 80's that had a mini resurgence in recent years. The gutair shape is often connotated with the phalic and masculine. the keytar is like a digital parody of the swauve and cool that gets lumped onto the gutairist steriotype. * see diagram.