Ah, another piece of social media that I've been neglecting... What can I tell you? I've been helping to raise a child that wandered into our lives in July. Not that I have had the lion's share of the work, mind you. Substantial creative pottering has gone on, including the making of some nice and useless things, such as the Harrington 1200.01 pocket version (below). If I don't have a big project to work on, then I fiddle around with little stuff. If I do, then I fiddle around with little stuff until it's almost too late to do the big stuff.
The Harrington 1200.1 is an analogue sequencer for the Korg Monotron synthesiser. It's a portable version of the Harrington 1200 from the science show
Look Around You. Of course I should really be posting a video of it in action, but perhaps the functions of this device are more enjoyable in the imagination.
Next time, I'll show you my solar-powered mobile. With a video, I promise.
The mess below is a work in progress and- if I can get it all done without starting a fire- will eventually be a step-sequenced filter pedal. It's got a great sound, and owes a lot to the schematics of the man from Beavis Electronics (who seems to have forgotten to pay the subscription for his domain name this month, hence the lack of a link)
The white tube is a vactrol, which is a nifty little component consisting of a Light Dependent Resistor staring right at a red LED. I love the concept of it: it's so simple.
I did this silly cartoon for a mate a few years ago. See if you can guess the name of the song.
This week I've been hard at work building a cigar box guitar. I'm a lucky chap to be able to waste so much time on such things. It plays well, has quite a nice tone and holds its tuning.
There's loads of good advice on building them online, especially at
cigarboxguitars.com. I got the idea from
Make magazine initially, and then found out that- of course- there's a load of people making them, from the most basic up to the Stratocaster-with-a-cigar-box-stuck-to-it level. My fave builder is
Chickenbone John.
I was worried about fretting it for fear I'd get the intonation wrong, but I think I'm going to go for it, because I want the sustain that frets give. I had a load of friendly help from the guys at
Deimel guitars in Schöneberg, who have made axes for no less than Sonic Youth.
I've got lots of instruments already, but building a simple guitar was a wonderful thing: It's all your creation, from the look to the sound, and you feel that you have to work with what you've made. You can have the limitless capabilities of Max/MSP, but there is also power in having a limited palette.
I've dreamed of making an album for years and years, but in my mind it would have to perfect. Unsurprisingly this got in the way of doing anything about making an album.
Then Bandcamp came along and took away the chore and the pressure of pressing, distributing, folding and gluing etc.
This morning I thought "There's no point sitting on a whole load of good music is there?", so I looked through the big variety of tracks that I've accumulated over the years, tweaked them a bit and stuck 4 of them together on an EP, which you can listen to and/or buy by clicking the cover art below. I do hope that you will enjoy it.
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