Basement Instrument Repairs

Yamaha CS-50

As so many of us do, I have some vintage instruments hanging out in my basement.  I played with these as a child, but actually understand how to use them now, so I was definitely interested in bringing them back up to spec.  The first of the three is circa 1977 Yamaha CS-50 Analog Synthesizer.  All I could do with this as a child was make garbage noise, but I had a feeling I would know what to do with it now that I understood what all those little markings like VCO, VCF, and LFO mean.  I was very excited to get this awesome vintage synth up & running again.

The second instrument is also very exciting.  It is a Hohner D6 Clavinet... like the kind Stevie Wonder uses.  This really cool instrument has a keyboard that frets a note on one string for each of the 60 keys.  After a quick soldering of the battery connector, and a fresh 9v, I had this thing making funky noise immediately!  But there was definitely still something wrong, a few of the settings weren't working and not every key worked.  Fortunately I found a very good resource to fix these things.  More on that later.

Hohner D6 Clavinet

Finally, and I think this one has the least hope, there is a Chinese Hammer Dulcimer or Yangqin rotting away in a case that is falling apart.  The finish is cracking and all of the bridges are starting to separate from years of mis-tensioned strings.  The hammers are missing and one of the bridges has entirely detached from the body of the instrument.

CCRMA Tour

20110615

Foyer Exhibit/Study Area

While I was in California, I happened to be very close to the Stanford Campus.  Stanford has a program within their music department that I have been interested in for quite a while.  So I set up a tour of the building and the program, CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics), pronounced "karma".  The building was relatively empty, as this was the first day on campus after the spring graduation.

The center is located in the old governors mansion at one of the highest points on campus and has a fantastic view of the  buildings below.  Right as you enter the building, you know that you are in the right place.  There are various keyboards, speakers, and other things I would bet are instruments, but not like any I've ever seen.  There is also a reel to reel, next to a pyramid shaped speaker array, and a giant machine that appears to be one of the earliest GUI based DAWs.

Shpongletron

201104
The Boulder Theater







So I'm pretty much over this acid-techno type of music, but I am still interested in seeing what these artists are doing visually as well as with their music.  Simon Posford is a world-famous DJ from the UK and tours under many monikers, such as Shpongle and Hallucinogen.

Shpongletron

Communikey11!!

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Opening Night at Bombay Bistro

Wow, it was only a week ago, but time is just flying by.  Communikey, for those of you who don't know is Boulder, Colorado's Festival of Electronic Art and Music.  Check out past year's festivals.  I've been involved for the past 3 years, and attending for the past 4.  This was the fourth edition of the festival, and it was a tremendous success.  My role is to act as technical lead at various venues and assist with tech issues as they arise.

Normal Ones and Jason from offthesky in the ATLAS Black Box
  
This is a fairly media heavy post, so please bear with the loading times :)  And there's lots more after the break and on Flickr and YouTube.

 

Pulshar at the ATLAS Black Box

A Digital Media Explosion

Well, the end of February and beginning of March certainly kept me away from my creativity time.  Fortunately, now that my employers are all on Spring Break, I've had the chance to work on some music, video, patching, and all kinds of art.

A sample from one of my Glossom collections...
I suggest you try it for at least give it 1 second,
it is interactive and is a unique concept.

My main goal has been to continue to increase my net presence... to I've added quite a few social networking sites to the mix.  Twitter (@iEEEj), Scribd (a site to publish papers), and my personal favorite, Glossom.  This site lets you create a collage of your work (video or picture or text w/ links) in a grid you must conform to.  It is a very interesting concept, and I suggest checking it out if you have any things you want to share on the microwebs.

Additionally, I've been making lots of digital art, both music and video.  I even overloaded my Vimeo upload limit, so I have to wait a week to post "Digital Paint : in 2 movements" (the second video).  So here are a some of the videos that I made over the past few days... I'll give some details after each one.

Fact of Life

This is a sound responsive physical and digital melding. The video is of TriLEDs (LEDs that can output any combination of red, blue, and green). They are controlled by filters that respond to the music being played. There's a little editing at the end, but it was just to keep the piece short.

... Yes there's more; I figure if you're interested I might as well just keep it all on the same page...

C3 showcase at DU

LED globes

I was unexpectedly invited to a new media showcase at the new Digital Media Studies and Electronic Arts, Media, and Design center at the University of Denver.  These are two degrees the university offers.  Their new center "C3" (Center for Creation and Collaboration) had just recently been finished and this was the inaugural gallery event.  I didn't know exactly what kind of work I'd be seeing, other than the work of students and instructors of the various programs.  I was invited by Synthia Payne who might possibly be teaching a Digital Audio and Telematic Music course next semester (if you're intrested, email her).

Playing with cellphone vibrators

Here are some rhythmic experiments with the tiny motors used in cellphone vibrators.  They bounce if you hold them just right.  They're fun, but everything really depends on the quality of the material you're using it against.

In one scene I'm running way too much voltage through a cellphone vibrator. At one point, it broke... not from too much power, but from bouncing so hard the cable snapped.

There's some pretty cool musical things you can do with these... plus they cost like 89 cents.