I have built a few of these in the past, and after reading of the death of Michael Waisvisz last week, I decided to use my last 709 to build this:

Due to the woofer in a ported enclosure with a tweeter, this thing is way more efficient(louder) than most crackleboxes with a small speaker. There is a significant amount more bass as well.

I installed a line out, for stadium use.

It runs on two 9 volt batteries(in parallel, so they last longer).

The contact points are pennies.

www.notbreathing.com/swash.jpg

made up a commonsound noise swash from scratch – built a 386amp w/ a real nice deep speaker
did the lfo add on – added some extra pots for impendence issues – really weird weird instrument – i recommend making one! www.notbreathing.com/noiseswashdemo.mp3 www.notbreathing.com/swashland1.mp3 www.notbreathing.com/swashland2.mp3 these we’re recorded using the ‘line out’ – the speaker actually sounds allot better and the imp issues are crazy

It belongs to Muff Wiggler!

This thingie i made is called a MinceFinkx.  the meter tells you how screwed up you are that you bought this as you use it.  Why did i make it?  because, grandpa needed to hear me talk to him as he is hard of hearing.  but first, i had to probe his brain with direct screeches and train wrecks.

to hear this thingie, the MinceFinkx, go hear: http://www.buzz-r-electronics.com/Exotic%20Electronics_files/mccain.mp3

to see more thingies, go hear:  www.buzz-r-electronics.com  ta da?

Angelo Fraietta offers some CV-MIDI-CV conversion modules for sale.

They are reprogrammable, and can even operate wirelessly via Bluetooth. Excellent!

And what really gets me is this line:
“This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body” … You’ll never see the US government supporting work like this.

Although I need to note that Jim Plamondon, the inventor and promoter thereof, hasn’t had much luck finding investors willing to bankroll mass production. And it is a shame. A simple version of it would not be very costly to manufacture.

He has been very, very aggressive about promoting his idea. For example: Valleywag, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Engadget, Coolest-Gadgets, and a TV station in Austin TX.

Didn’t anyone tell Mr. Plamondon, a former Microsoft marketing dude, how difficult it is to sell a new kind of musical instrument to musicians? If I were offering advice, I’d tell him to start small. Manufacture a boutique version, get some user feedback. Build the business up slowly, because, trust me, it is the only way.

This IS NOT a mass market. It IS NOT like selling a videogame gadget. Musicians are conservative and spend irrational amounts of time practicing on their existing instruments. Popularizing a new instrument is like invading Russia. Look at Adolphe Sax — he battled other instrument makers in court over patents, and his saxophone did not become popular until well after his death.

Judging from the Wall Street Journal article, which ran six months ago, this is probably a dead issue by now:

“Taking stock of his savings, he says he has about six months left before he’ll have to find a full-time job. At that point the Thummer will be relegated to an evenings-and-weekends enterprise, he says, “and that’s the death of a start-up.””

Matrix ran a link today to this Denver outfit, called Revolution State.

Right there, on the front page, frontman Ben Pebley runs his Livejournal. In which he:

(1) complains that he can’t figure out how Trent Reznor manages to give away his music for free.

And (2) bitches “I hate audacious bastards that think they are somehow “entitled” to steal our music. There is NO reason in the world that anyone is entitled to steal our music. It’s only $10 for our CD for fucks sake!”

Sorry, Ben, with all due respect, you’re doing this incorrectly.

I’ve never heard of you. And since the mp3 samples on your “discog” section are broken links, I still have no idea what your work sounds like. Without some reference, I’m not inclined to drop $10 on your CD. Just trumpeting your love of Einsturzende Neubauten and Coil won’t quite do the job. You still have to get people to notice you. Living in Denver won’t help either–have you toured on the East or West Coasts lately?

Perhaps the “provegan animal liberation revolution” needs some work.

(Message to Dave Lovelace: read their Livejournal and tell me what you think.)

http://www.notbreathing.com/thecrackinet.mp3 – audio sample (work friendly)
combo cracklebox with the analog peasent’s idea of using electret mic
played like an ocarina – right hand holds and plays mute pushbutton
right hand holds unit and plays the contacts
sing/blow into microphone
made with a few trash spare pcbs and some standoffs
so its like some kind of wind instrument my ass

Courtesy of WordPress 2.5 – we should hopefully see our issues go away….. please kick the tires and make sure everything is working. If there are still problems – post a comment here or email mweeks at endmusik.com

The MIDITRON, basic version only $149. Up to 20 inputs for keys or buttons, or 10 analog inputs. They even have a wireless version for $399. If only it had more like 32 digital inputs.

This is the rape deck, its an elderly alba tape recorder bent onto an old broken keyboard i got from a charity shop for 2 quid, added a speed controller… ACE

It’s… It’s beautiful…

The Furby Gurdy. Lots more weird things at nervoussquirrel.com.

[via Ectoplasmosis]

rippin off eric barbour n ken stone – two 2d21 vcos, 2d21 noise source and eric bandpass vcf w/ a ef88 or some shit

no idea how it got the name klondyke – said i would post this when i finished it – months later… unijunction transistor based VCO scaled to keyboard (from dead juno106) – passive filtering either a warped sine wave or a weird pulse out via switch – output to passive ring modulator using old bat56 hot carrier shlongsky diodes – carrier signal is a multivibrator based around two transistors – switch to scale it to the same keys as first vco or free running – two knobs to tune the oscs – some switches – line out.piece of crapthat was the point – but i love it – www.notbreathing.com/klondykedemo.mp3 slowly crawling out of my sound diy mental block (analness and dayjob)

HellFire Modulator Clone and Tube OscillatorThis is a picture of my homebrew Metasonix TS-21 Hellfire Modulator clone.  “Tumor Refilled Halo” is an anagram of the original name.  It is next to a 1934 Clough Brengle Beat Frquency Oscillator which works like a theremin in that it outputs the difference between two high frequency oscillating tubes for a very sweet sine wave, and instead of an antenna it has a dial for changing capacitance and thus the pitch.  There is also a home brew signal generator that I got on eBay.  The Two oscillators come together in the Frostwave Blue Ringer and their ring-modded output goes to the TS-21 clone.  That signal then is fed to a drum box and gated.  There is a demo file at http://www.twango.com/media/Baghead.sounds/Baghead.10008  and the guts of the TS-21 are on display at http://www.flickr.com/photos/matrixsynth/sets/72157594354036818/