Feedback Looping!

This is a video I did awhile back on feedback looping.  Using this technique, you can make some really cool sounds using only a mixer, or you can play effects pedals, as if they were their own musical instruments.  Dig!

Get Bent!

Here are a few good documentaries on circuit bending.  Enjoy!

Homemade Tape Delay

My latest project is a homemade tape delay effect, made out of a tape recorder, a walkman and a radio shack mixer.  This is probably the third time I've set out to make one of these, and this is the first time it's actually worked.  The concept isn't that far out, but it's just hard doing anything with cassette tape, it's skinny, the tension on the tape has to be just right, tape players tend to eat it, and on and on and on.  The sound I get is still a little warbly, but not too bad.  Here is a crappy diagram of what I did, followed by a link to what it sounds like.  Notice at the end of the recording, I just let it repeat itself, and it kind of just degrades into oblivian.  Some of the connections were 1/4" to 1/8", I made myself some cables with 1/4" on one end and 1/8" on the other.  These have come in very handy for weird little projects like this.

Amplifier Worship

I've got a thing for amps.  Amplifiers allow you to harness and control raw power.  What I feel for amplifiers must be something akin to what early men felt for fire.  After years and years of destroying weak and obscure amps of various make and model, I finally purchased my Marshall JCM800 full stack about six years ago.  I thought that would put an end to my amplifier lust.  What happened is I have now regressed back to small, obscure, and homemade practice amps.  The big Marshall is only ever practical on stage, and sometimes not even then.  Little amps allow you to crank up the tone without hurting the feelings of those around you.  When I was in my teens, I learned that with the right adaptor, you can plug any electric instrument into any powered amp or receiver that has an input.  Here is one of the easiest solutions to the "I need a little amplifier right now" conundrum.  Computer speakers.  You've got to have the right adaptor on the input jack, but most homes have at least one set of these speakers, and they are readily available in resale shops.

Lately I've picked up where I left off plugging into random amps by wiring inputs directly into toy radios, walkmans and boomboxes.  Every different radio has it's own distinct tone, and some of my home-wired devices sound better than anything I've ever played through.  Here's one of my first prototypes, a toy sing along cassette player.  I simply removed the mic and replaced it with a 1/4 inch input.  This doesn't have much in the way of volume, but sounds great with any effects pedals I've tried.

Cool old boomboxes have become easy to come by lately, as the tape motors eventually fry, or the belts rot. A cassette boombox makes a great amp.  There are a few ways to wire these up, but for this one, I rerouted the three wires that go to the tape head, and ran them to a jack.  Hit the play button to turn the amp on.  This thing sounds so good, I couldn't believe it when I first tryed it out.  The guitar sends a stronger signal than the tape did, therefore distorting the signal, giving it a great overdrive effect.

Here is what this sounds like, no effects whatsoever were used.  Gibson SG to Boombox amp to cassette:
http://soundcloud.com/troy-peterson/boomboxamp

Another radio made into an amp.  This time I figured out how to actually wire into the radio instead of going through the tape head or mic line.  Plugged into it is a great little Fisher Price phone toy I got at a junk shop. The only mods I did were adding a line out after I took of the face of the toy.  This is easily the coolest toy I've found yet.  When you put a battery in it, it just starts making random bleeps and sqwaks, and all you have to do is touch the circuits to manipulate it.  It's even sensitive to movement, whether you move the toy itself or just put your hand near it without even touching it.  Like I said earlier, the older and more archaic, the easier it will be to bend.

Amplify Everything

A few months ago, I bought a bunch of balsa wood to make little furniture for my daughter's dollhouse, I was fully into it for a few days there, but that dollhouse only has room for so much stuff.  I bought way too much wood for the task at hand, and until about a week ago, my intention was to build a few birdhouses.  Out of sheer boredom a few days ago, I started messing around with my surplus of balsa, and decided that it wouldn't be hard to put together a simple stringed instrument.  Soon after building a little box with one string, I did a little research and found out that it's pretty easy to make a contact microphone and turn my little acoustic box into an electric.  A trip to Radio Shack and about twelve dollars later, I was rocking.  I was also obsessed.  I love to tinker around in my basement, making things with my hands, but most things that I would like to do are a little too much for me.  I have basic soldering and woodworking skills, so these electric balsa instruments are right up my alley.  It's also nice that each one only took a couple hours to make.

I started planning my next build immediately, and the next day I went back to Radio Shack to spend the last of the month's grocery money on microphone parts.  Before I dove into #2, I upgraded my first build with two more strings and a few little improvements.

For the next one, I wanted it to be quite a bit longer, and to have frets.  Again, in the spirit of raw simplicity, I decided to keep it as a plain rectangle.  This one worked out really well, and I'm actually blown away by how nice it sounds.

At this point I'm not only obsessing over my next build, but I am completely enthralled by the possibilities these simple contact microphones have opened up, so I started experimenting with those as well.  The difference between a regular microphone and a contact mic, is that a regular mic amplifies vibrations in the air, while a contact mic amplifies vibrations on or in solid objects, or even liquid.  Everything in sight is starting to look like an instrument that needs to be mic'd and jammed upon. These are all functioning microphones, each one costing no more than ten dollars to make.

Stepping up the creativity and craftsmanship factor, here we have the skateboard deck electric slide guitar.  I just put this together in about an hour the other day, and it sounds great.  All of these home made stringed instruments are difficult to get into any semblance of a tuning, but once you're there, they are really fun to mess around with.

My latest and greatest contraption, which I call "Clank", for obvious reasons.  It's a total caveman noise machine.  You can play it with a bow, a pick, your fingers, or just smack it around.  This thing coupled with an effects pedal and a loop pedal through an amplifier will keep me occupied for days on end.