Here’s a quick video to demonstrate:

One of these devices was built to order for a DJ who plays a lot of gigs in a lot of different environments, and from my own experience using these light-controlled instruments in live settings I know it can get a bit tricky dealing with the many and varied light sources which are often out of your control.

That’s the reason for having a potentiometer in line with the LDR, so the LDR can be quickly tuned to the conditions.

Also if the light is so bad the LDR cant be used at all, it can simply be switched off and the pot used on its own.

Schematic (click for full size):

Notes:

• To build the first device in the video, omit C1, R1, R2, S4, and the 555 chip.
• The two schmidt triggers (the triangles on the right) are on a 40106 chip.
• The LDR (photoresistor) has a resistance of 0.5M ohm (dark) to 8.4K (light).

Let me know how you get on building either of these designs, or any other light-controlled instruments. Or anything else for that matter. Good luck!

Glue Sniffin’ Beats is a free, open source, 7-part mini-album of synthbass and drum grooves. It’s released (one part at a time) under the Creative Commons Sampling+ 1.0 license which allows you to use these recordings for almost* anything you like.

My intention is that you should feel free to use anything from the album in any of your own projects without worrying about it. Use it as a backing track, use it in a mashup or remix, rhyme over it, write songs around it etc.

The whole thing is about 18 minutes long and can be played as one continuous song. It’s at 99 BPM, sometimes in double time and sometimes half. There are harder bits and softer bits but it’s all fairly tense, quite wobbly, a bit drum & bassy and a few other things.

It’s recorded in a “live-ish” sort of way (by electronic standards), there’s more info about the recording process on the album page.

Part 4

Part is more bass than beats, the other parts tend to be a bit more beaty. It might be the eye of the storm.

I hope you enjoy this music, whatever you choose do with it.

*The only use not permitted under the license is using it to “advertise for or promote anything but the work you create from it“.

At the opening I played some live experimental electro, and Silke from bFM sang and played ukulele. This is a short clip of some of the music I played, with images of some of the artworks for those who missed seeing them in the flesh. Below the video, some detail about the instruments used.

• The pulsing rhythm is the nand machine I built a few weeks ago, video here.
• In places, the nand is driving THE DESTROYER to make squelchy rhythmic sounds along with it.
• The constant sweeping harmonic squarewave sound is played manually on the Good Will Audio Generator.
• The feedback echo explosion sound are made by manipulating a Boss DM-2 analogue delay pedal.
• The helicopter sweeps and other sounds are made manually with a homemade LFO device.

You can see/read about more of Sean’s work here: http://artiwon.blogspot.com/ and less often here: http://artyone.blogtown.co.nz/

• Tuesday July 12th, 5:30pm
• Pierre Peeters Gallery, Habitat Courtyard, 251 Parnell Rd
• The facebook event page is here

I’ll be bringing lots of noise and lots of toys, and I might even have to bring my newest toy of all:

Light Dependent Resistors (LDRs) are really, really cool. Wikipedia has a proper explanation of how they work, but the short version is that the amount of resistance changes depending on how much light hits the face: more light = less resistance i.e. more current can pass through.

Over the weekend I finished off this little device and I’m quite pleased with it. It takes a line-level audio signal and amplifies it enough to power a big LED which pulses in time with the music. The pulsing light then drives an LDR which controls the pitch of a squarewave oscillator. Squeak wap bwowowow.

Just like this:

It has immediately earned a place in my new live rig and will be coming with me to Boardies & Bikinis on Waitangi weekend. Now it just needs a name. What do we call it?

Also includes weird old guy who was too curious not to walk right up on stage and check shit out.

Instruments played:

* Alesis HR16-B Drum Machine + tone generator + home-made ring modulator
* BOSS SP202 Sampler (vocal samples)
* Home-made square-wave oscillator
* Home-made optical theremin
* Home-made LFO device (start & end)
* DSP delays (on mixing desk)
* Antonio’s hand drum

All live – no MIDI, no software. Filmed by AJ.

I play music there – not entirely unlike the way I do in the following videos – and this Sunday my good friend Devon (ex Knights of the Dub Table) will be joining me. Will be fun.

In between jamming out new tunes, I like to play lots of old school funk, soul, afrobeat and such. If you’re looking for something to do in the Waikato, drop in. It’s on Stewart St (easy to find) and runs from about 9ish ’til about 2ish.

Videos:

New video for the song “Interstellar Traffic Jamming”

It’s from the Baldwin Fun Machine album “Stereo Also Playable Mono”. Here’s the rest of the album.

A quick video (about a minute and a half) that I made last night, playing around with a real-time looping program called Mobius.

Instruments in order of appearance:

• oscillator with LFO
• shaker
• HR16-B drum machine
• “Animal Band” toy keyboard
• oscillator with LFO

Got a few remix/re-releases in the pipeline, working over some b-side songs from the past few years. Here’s a taste of what’s happening in the studio at the moment:

Playing the tone generator from bside on Vimeo.