Archive for the ‘ Electronic Music ’ Category

4ep

4ep is available now.

The recordings on this release were made in early 2011 using handmade analog electronic hardware. Using a homebrew interface, the analog sound-generation hardware was coupled to custom laptop software which derived its parameters via real-time analysis of the analog sound signals. These improvisations are the result of the composer/performer/maker interacting with a set of electronic systems, which themselves are largely out of his control.

Not intended for listening on headphones.

tabulaRasa Volt per Octave Demo

tabulaRasa project active on Kickstarter.com!

Help fund the tabulaRasa project on Kickstarter!

tabulaRasa Logo

tabulaRasa Logo

tabulaRasa sample

A sample of my tabulaRasa wavetable oscillator prototype. Modulation by hand and an LFO.


tabulaRasa PCB

Here's the first prototype of my tabulaRasa wavetable oscillator module

Here's the first prototype of my tabulaRasa wavetable oscillator module

Making progress on the tabulaRasa hardware – ordered the second prototypes from dorkbotpdx today. More soon.

Rebuilding a Livid Ohm: Powering up.

The power block of the main board.

The power block of the main board.

Above, you can see the main board close-up. The fuzzy terminal block on the left is where the main board receives power and ground from the I/O board. (At this point I still didn’t have an I/O board, so I had to improvise a supply.) The ground signal is then split off and connected to the sensor panels.

The terminal block has connections for 9V and ground – which is strange, because it turns out that the entire unit is powered off 12V. More on that later.

Breadboard_Ohm_Supply

Using a pair of 9V batteries in parallel, I breadboarded a small power supply.

To my surprise, after powering the board, the board came to life.

Board_Lit

The small, blinking light in the center of the main board responded when I moved controls, so that was promising, but the LEDs were only working on the left side.

In the next post, I’ll discuss how I tested the MIDI functionality.

Rebuilding a Livid Ohm: Initial Assessment

The box the Ohm came in.

The box the Ohm came in.

I recently found out that you can get a “graveyard” Ohm MIDI controller from Livid Instruments for $30. This is a defective unit that they couldn’t sell. They’re secretive about what’s wrong with the units, and there’s little to no documentation available, but I thought it would be fun to attempt to rebuild one.

I also ordered a Ohm64 case, which is a wooden shell for the hardware. It’s not exactly the right size, but I thought I might be able to convert it to work with the Ohm Classic.

The circuit boards of the Ohm, as I received them.

The circuit boards of the Ohm, as I received them.

You can see in the image above that the boards are a bit old, I had to rub some corrosion off – a bit of rubbing alcohol did the trick. The “double-checked” marking  on the back of the main board was reassuring. The loose wire beneath that main board was a bit scary, but it turned out the be a ground wire which connected the three panel boards to the main controller board.

In all, I received 4 boards – three, attached to the panel, which contained the pots, sliders, and buttons. These three connected to the fourth through a set of ribbon cables and power wires.

Note that these “graveyard” Ohms do not come with the MIDI/USB I/O board. I ended up having to order one separately. Extra shipping – be careful!

Main board, wired up for testing.

Main board, wired up for testing.

My next step was to somehow power the board – without the I/O board power circuitry – and test the controls. More on that later.

USB-Octomod MIDI Support

Screen shot 2010-11-25 at 9.01.04 AM

The new USB-Octomod Software GUI.

The USB-Octomod software now supports MIDI input. Using MIDI controller numbers 20 – 27, you can convert MIDI to control voltage. The new version is a free download here.

USB-Octomod Demo Video