DIY ISD1820 is finished

My DIY ISD1820 sampler is finally done.

First tests...

 DIY sampler prototyping

CLIK-TRACK-SKETCH

I turned on some machines and ended up making this sketch of a track...

Main percussive element is from a Korg ER1 processing audio from Home made oscillators. Bass is from Arturia Microbrute. Pads are stacked passes from a Waldorf Streichfett and Arturia's Solina. Kick drum is a vanilla Logic EXS sample.

Thanks for listening!

DOEPFER A 132-3 V2 bleed MOD

I love all my my Doepfer A100 gear, it's what got me into modular in the first place!

Recently I noticed a bleed issue with my A132-3 Dual VCA.

It only seemed to happen in linear mode, and only with one channel.  A post to the excellent Doepfer Yahoo group yielded a reply from Herr Doepfer himself.

"Hello,

V2 is an older version from 2010. Due to tolerances of the V2164D sometimes

the VCA does not close with CV=0. To avoid this a high value resistor (e.g.

4M7) has to be added between pin 4 (upper VCA) or pin 5 (lower VCA) of the

V2164 and -12V. This adds a small negative voltage to the CV summing

node. -12V is available e.g. at pin 9 of the V2164 or the wire bridge "J1"

below the V2164.

In V3 and V4 of the module the 4M7 resistors have been added.

Hope this helps

Dieter Doepfer"

A quick mod with two hefty 4M7 Resisitors and my Dual VCA closes to silence. Stuff like this makes realise why I love the modular scene.

I don't think many units with this problem were shipped, but I'm posting this just in case it might help any other folk...

Topside of my V2 unit

Underside of my unit with 2x 4M7 R's in place.

Job Done.

ONDE MAGNETIC TAPES

Makin’ tapes for my wonderful #ondemagnetic @SCTTCMPBLL pic.twitter.com/qmYqI4QFpI

— Neal Beard AHM (@nealbeardAHM) April 13, 2019

Gameboy Clock Sync Doo Hickey

Just got an amazing wee doo-hickey off eBay for a tenner. It sends a clock from a gameboy to sync with other gear. Posting the film not for its musical merits, but just to show... it works!https://t.co/XaE9h5piIq pic.twitter.com/vE9ZpI3hZa

— Neal Beard AHM (@nealbeardAHM) April 11, 2019

Experimenting with battery power....

#iOS #patterning #midisteps #apps #mutableinstruments #cvpal #filters #disting #eurorack #fmnoise #bastl #kastl #diy #mixer #experiment #fun pic.twitter.com/fpXEz021Il

— Neal Beard AHM (@nealbeardAHM) June 28, 2017

Hacked Cassete Player with Music Thing Magnetophon and Koma Field Kit Experiment

DIY EMF Microphone

#diy #synth #fun pic.twitter.com/kSzRhI7hQh

— Neal Beard AHM (@nealbeardAHM) April 14, 2017

DIY synth fun

#lo-fi #synth #diy #fun pic.twitter.com/tPN53a4CLx

— Neal Beard AHM (@nealbeardAHM) April 9, 2017

Music Thing Chord Organ Sound Demo

Midiwidget syncs Bent Beats

An experiment using my Midiwidget to trigger and sync bent gear, made entirely with circuit bent gear.

For the percussive elements I used a circuit bent Tr505 and Hot Music drum toy. The Midiwidget also triggers a home made Lo-fi sampler which is CV controlled through a Belcat analog delay with a Doepfer A101.9 Universal Vactrol Module.

Square wave broken chords from a Gameboy runnning LSDJ.

Reverb is from ehx holy grail.

Only 3 mins long coz thats about all my ears could stand!

Thanks for listening/looking...

The Midiwidget with 8x RCA cables running out to various devices.

Circuit Bent Toys rehoused in black boxes and the Belcat Delay. 

The bent Tr505. The Midiwidget turns on and off bends between points on its ROM chip.

The Hot Music drum toy which I had to re-house to fit all the connections I wanted. It features dirty kick, snare and ride samples with lots of aliasing...

Midiwidget (still!) in Progress

I still haven't finished my midiwidget build, mainly because I've been using it so much in my music, but here's how it's looking at the moment...

I decided to go for a sandwich type enclosure so the USB connection is easily accessible.

The 3.5 jacks are 8xgate outs for my eurorack. The rca's are coto reed switches which I  use for triggering my circuit bent gear, although they could switch anything.

I'm still undecided what to use the remaining 8x gates for. I think I might create a split board with 4x eurorack gates and 4x solenoid triggers as I loved John's demo here and have always wanted to try making some music in this way.

I also need to wire up the midi sockets and battery power- but like I said I'm having too much fun with it right now!

Jack-o-Mix

In a continued effort to speed workflow in my home studio I've just added this 1/4 to 1/8 inch adaptor.

It's made using a DIY PCB called Jack-o-Mix. I drilled the faceplate myself using this template from greyscale. These 6 1/4 inch outs then run to my patchbay as shown... nice and neat!

Organ Monkey Teeth

Two new tracks on soundcloud: Organ Monkey's Teeth Parts 1 and 2...

In case you're interested...

Both tracks were recorded and mixed in my small home studio in Portsmouth.

OMT part 1 was mostly made with doepfer a100, circuit bent barbie and a microbrute.

Bass 2xa110 vco> a106.1 ms20 copy. The settings on the filter lead to a notch around 100k which the kick fitted into snuggly.

Snare from circuit bent barbie– I sent noise from an am radio into it and then modulated it with a doepfer a100 system. The different timbres are created when I manually adjust settings.

Kick from a100, again no presets here!

Lead from a100 and the barbie again FM cross modulating each other.

Flute from mtron sent out into my mixer and back into logic. (I know it's software but I will never be able to afford a real mellotron!)

Reverb EHX hoy grail, delay EHX memory man.

OMT part 2 was made with circuit bent instruments and a small doepfer a100 system.

Bass a100 recorded through marshal amp with a low signal noise ratio in an attempt to not Freak out our neighbours (hence amp hum!)

Kick and snare also from Doepfer patches - no presets here!

Kick patch used sine and triangle from an a110>a131vca modulated with a145 adsr and a145 lfo (pitch)

Snare patch used the same crappy am radio  fitted with line out as a noise source into a bit crusher > also with an a110> vca modulated with adsr

Vocals processed through circuit bent voice changer and home made distortion box.

Lead from bent casio sa 5 into doepfer wasp filter being swept with foot controller.

Cow bell is a percussive noise from the a100 sent through a high hat with a piezo driver and picked up again with a piezo Mike.

Delay from ehx mm and reverb ehx holy grail.

All tracks run through mackie mixer and arranged in logic.

All in all, one of those sessions where the studio turns into a chaos of wires and possibilities- fun!

Thanks for listening... :)

 

 
 

DEATH / Transmission / LIFE : MYTHOS

Neal Beard and his Machines have their track 'Rikane Delmarre is Dead' included on a new compilation from Necktar.

The themes of this, their 7th compilation, is Death / Transmission / Life : Mythos.

(Beetween 15 and 17 hours of music by sound pioneers from all around the earth) Stay tuned §:)

Download or stream here

More info on their website here

3 New tracks...

Doepfer A100 modulating circuit bent belcat

A self running patch was set up with a Doepfer A100 modulating a circuit bent Belcat Delay pedal using the A101.9 Universal Vactrol Module. Both sections of the module were used controlled by two LFO's on different cycle rates. Sound source was a Hin Hon EE.

There is a another post about the circuit bending the belcat here...

And photo below showing new added inputs for vactrol control.

New NB Tracks on Soundcloud

Two new tracks up on Soundcloud...!





Both tracks made  with a Doepfer a100 played with hands and feet using foot switches and foot controller, various circuit bent toys being modulated by a combination of Midi (using highly liquids diy controllers) and 555 timed vactrols, EHX electric mitsress, and EHX Man. Mixed and aranged using an analog Mackie mixer and Logic Pro.

Recorded Portsmouth 2013.

Neal beard and his machines hope you enjoy listening to their musical collaborations.

Doepfer A100 modulating Circuit Bent Barbie Karaoke

Several years ago I started circuit bending a Barbie Karaoke machine using schematics from the amazing casperelectronics.

Then I became a Dad again and the project was shelved! But having recently aquired a Doepfer A101.9 module it occurred to me I could use this to control all parameters of the Circuit Bent Barbie with my Doepfer A100 when I eventually get to finish it...

Here's a quick test of an LFO modulating tape speed.