Dethklok Build Log – Phase 3

Posted on by Dylan Wood

I’m realizing how much I’ve bitten off with this monolithic synth project of mine, I’m not getting to spend much time on it but I’m slowly ticking away at it.

I had some problems getting everything up and going but after I tracked down a reversed capacitor in the PSU section I’m underway!

Next up I’m going to build a better case for it so I can start calibrating oscillators and making sure that I’m not getting any interference from the PSU, right now it’s all a bit spread out and unwieldy so some more tidy wiring is in order.

 

Hopefully the next update might actually include SOME SOUND! You just never know.

Deathklok Build Log – Phase 2

Posted on by Dylan Wood

So it’s been a LONG time since I did any work on my modular synth project but I’m finally making progress again. I had fully designed up a panel in illustrator to get laser cut or CNC’d and printed but I’ve decided to go a little more lofi and upcyclce a dead G5 case I got from work. Half the reason I went DIY in the first place was to get cool toys for less money (ok so for the most part it doesn’t actually work like that) so re-using something and drilling the panel by hand means that I can keep moving with the project without having to spend any more on it.

It came out pretty good, the holes are a bit crooked in places despite my best efforts so mark and stamp them straight. I think next time I’ll bother to go visit someone with a drill press, the hand held is just way to unpredictable. But overall I’m happy, it’s starting to look like what I had in mind when I started.

I watched some very nerdy but quite helpful tutorials from Ray Wilson of musicfromouterspace.com as this was my first time metal working.

Progress is being made.  Hopefully soon I’ll actually get it to make noise =)

Reasons I want an iPad/Rethinking My Musical Approach

Posted on by Dylan Wood

As per usual I’m mentally buried in re-thinking how I might approach making music. This is the usual headspace I end up in after a long period of not enough time to be creative, with our second child arriving 7 months ago music making has been thin on the ground. I’m also in the midst of considering how to separate my musical projects (which are currently on my work laptop) from my actual work (which funnily enough is also on my work laptop)

The iPad has been out in the world for a while now and the apps just keep on coming, I’m starting to seriously consider using one as my main music making machine. There are a few different parts to the creative process at a basic level ; drawing inspiration, creating ideas (ideation) and then implementing them. Applied to music this can be considered as listening to music, generating musical ideas and then capturing, editing and mixing those ideas.

My feeling is that the iPad could probably cover generating ideas and capturing them, I’d probably still look to use a desktop/laptop machine for actually editing and mixing but that’s really less of the creative part and more of the implementation side. So this post is primarily a rant to myself to crystalize these ideas, its also a place I’m going to post some Videos of iPad apps that make me consider this a possible scenario in the first place.

Also not embeddable but fairly awesome is the Apple Garageband promo video

KORG iELECTRIBE / iMS-20 v1.5 from KORG iELECTRIBE on Vimeo.

Genome MIDI Sequencer from White Noise Audio on Vimeo.

DM1 – The Drum Machine for iPad – By Fingerlab from Fingerlab on Vimeo.

 

INTUA BeatMaker 2 – Official demo from INTUA on Vimeo.

Praxworld Arduinome Panel is here!

Posted on by Dylan Wood

The new aluminium panel for my arduinome 128 has arrived. I got it from willum @ praxworld
It’s REALLY nicely made, the only hurdle now is finding some imperial screws for it since it was made in the US.

I can’t wait to have this put together, my wooden arduinome case came together well but without a lot of routing and sanding the buttons will never be as smooth as I want.

Impressive Sony Tech Demo – But Why?

Posted on by Dylan Wood

Sony have posted a video of Smart AR their new augmented reality technology.  Whilst technically impressive it leaves me wondering about a few of the use cases.

Why would you want to point your phone at a menu so that you can browse the menu on your phone?  It’s right in front of you anyway, just pick it up!

I’m sure this kind of technology will become more prevalent in the coming years but I think there will need to be a focus on augmenting reality in situations where it actually makes sense to do so.  I can’t wait to see the lame marketing attempts where they “drastically improve” improve user experiences that probably didn’t need improving in the first place.

 

New Project : Circuit Bending the Casio VL-Tone

Posted on by Dylan Wood

I’ve had an old Casio VL-Tone battery powered keyboard/synth/calculator sitting in a box in my garage for a long time and I’ve always meant to do something with it.

Found this video today and it makes me think there is hope my my VL tone yet…
I’ll put it on the project list, between my Deathklok modular synth , the meeblip open source synth I’ve got on order and the arduinome case I’m going top rebuild I’ve got a few things piling up.

CNC in the cloud?

Posted on by Dylan Wood

Ponoko are a New Zealand based company doing amazing things with online fabrication and digital design.

http://www.ponoko.com/

Right now you can order laser cut parts, electronic components and 3D printing.  They announced today the 5th iteration of their service.  I was hanging out for this as I was hoping for CNC and thought it would be answer to all my DIY face plate needs.

Unfortunately they only offer CNC in the US and only with wood right now, not metal.

I can’t wait until it’s possible to order something from them made from a decent thickness of aluminium.   My good friend Aimi @ Vestax is helping me make the front panel for my Deathklok synth, I hope in future I might be able to do this myself online.

 

Looking forward to their next iteration!  In the meantime I’m going to get them to make a perspex front panel made for the open source meeblip synth kit I have on order. http://meeblip.noisepages.com/

Modular Synth Case Designs

Posted on by Dylan Wood

I’m getting really close to getting the front panel for my modular synth made so that I can start assembling.  Since I started this project I’ve been thinking a lot about how I might actually want my rig to look once I’ve built a bit more gear for it so I’ve been researching buclha style fold up cases.

Deathklok was intended as the starting point for my modular synth DIY, it’s 6 U and pretty much contains everything you need for a basic system.  In hind sight I think I’d have been better off to pick a case and few modules as my starting point as fitting the 6U Deathklok design into this kind of folding case will be a challenge.  I’m either going to have to build a REALLY big folding case or build Deathklok into a more standard case and then start constructing this kind of portable rig separately.  Good food for thought regardless.

 

Images courtesy of some amazing work on the muffwiggler forums, sorry forgot to keep track of where these came from so can’t post links.