New Music Created

Neal Beard and his Machines made some weird noises in a basement last night...

Fridge Squidge (after one week version 5) by Neal Beard & his Machines

Made using various oscillators, a Korg Er1 and a C64 running MSSIAH.

Matrix Mixer 3x3

Another device joins the merry throng - a homemade 3x3 matrix mixer built using schematics from Nicholas Collins excellent book Handmade Electronic Instruments.

Tracks 2,4,5,6 use a circuit bent Casio Sa5, WSG, and an EHX memory man feeding back.

Track 3 uses an EHX Small Stone and an EHX Memory Man feeding back with no inputs.

Track 2

Track 3

Track 4

Track 5

Track 6

Repetitive Textures

Last night Neal Beard and his Machines experimented with repetitive textures and machines running at different tempos...

Texture 1

Texture 2

Texture 3

Texture 4

Texture 5

Instruments used

Circuit Bent Casio SA5

Circuit Bent Belcat 503

Various Filters

Homemade Oscillator

Modded Cry Baby

Homemade Sequencer

LFO controlling Atari Punk Console

Circuit Bent/Modded SK 322b

555 Vactrol Box

Circuit Bent Belcat 503

Another machine joins the merry throng.

The Belcat 503 is a cheap delay pedal which (I think) uses a PT2399 chip. (The printing on the chip inside mine was hard to read)

I didn't study schematics for the chip but instead used the Reed Ghazala prod it and see approach...

There are probably more bends to be found but I was happy with these - three of the bends cause endless oscillation to distortion. The other causes glitchy noise bursts.

There's an 18 minute improvised recording using it here.

INSTRUMENTS USED

Circuit bent quid bleepy keyboard

Circuit Bent Belcat 503

Resonant Lowpass Filter + Holy Grail Reverb Pedal (these were set at the start of the recording and not changed so all the sound manipulation is done with the 503)

Towards the end of the recording I introduced a homemade oscillator and my circuit bend/hacked crappy SK 322b.

Basement Noise Track

Last night Neal Beard and his Machines made a lot of noise in a basement using circuit bent keyboards and homemade oscillators.

You can hear a 5 minute excerpt here...

LSDJ MC2

Neal Beard's first foray into the world of chiptunes! Having had a color gameboy hanging around since the late nineties, I decided to put it to use...

I bought a pre-flashed LSDJ cart from the excellent DJ Transformer website/shop, and because all my machines are MIDI integrated their DIY LSDJMC2 kit .

I also Pro-sound modded the gameboy for better sound.

A first track called 'The Gameboy Bajan Bee Song' here.

Drums are from a circuit bent DD10, additional keyboard from a Casio VL1.

A link to LSDJ's wiki site here and all the LSDJ manuals here.

And a link to firesARTer's MC2 schematics here.

Credit Card 'Scratcher'

Another cool device joins the mechanised throng, a homemade credit card 'scratcher' based upon an idea from Nicholas Collins' excellent book Handmade Electronic Instruments. The credit card reader was bought cheaply through ebay and I added a pre-amp circuit using a CD4049 chip to up the volume a bit.

Sound samples to follow...

New Tracks by Neal Beard and his Machines

Two new tracks by Neal Beard and his Machines have been included on an anniversary compilation of circuit bent, chip tunes and experimental electronica by Audio Sodomy Records. The compilation is called Happy Birthday Audio Sodomy and is available for free download here. Their site is full of lots more circuit bent, chip tune and experimental electronic audio - and is well worth checking out...