'Clap Clock', Volca Bass and Volca Beats Jam- 'Clock House'

Published on May 12, 2015 ChrisLody

"https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SymetriC...

Fun with a Volca Beats, Volca Bass, a mixer and a clock with a contact mic and interference mic taped on it acting as a clap :)

No Prizes for guessing the BPM of this track!"

VL-1 Micro Jam - Week 10 catchup - Royalty Free Electonica

Published on Aug 26, 2013 ChrisLody·67 videos

"This track was created using a Step Sister, a Casio VL-1 (not easy to play with massive meat shovel hands), Ibanez DM500 delay and an Inkel MX880E Mixer. Using the DM500 and the inkel mixer i was able to create a wide delay effect by running the DM500's normal and inverted outputs into the mixer separately and hard panning and EQing them. Another quicky this one as i've been too busy to do my weekly upload so i'm trying to catchup!

Right, so here's the idea. Trying to write, upload and give away a fresh piece of music on a roughly weekly basis. Will i be able to keep it up? Will i run out of ideas? Can i be bothered? How shoddy will they be? Does anybody care? God knows. But that's the point.

Basically the idea is to flex my musical muscles a bit. I have collected quite a bit of gear over the years and not much of it is getting used as much as i'd like, so this is my attempt to justify all those purchases whilst practising improving and getting ideas down fast as an antidote to procrastination. "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." as Picasso once said.

Royalty free for you to use for whatever under the creative commons license. Just rip the audio out of the video for now, i'll get these tracks uploaded to a dropbox account when i get my act together. Let me know if you use it, i'd be stoked."

Step sister v1.1 sequences Korg Ms10

Published on Jul 9, 2013 ChrisLody·61 videos

"The Step Sister is a 1-10 step analog sequencer with a built in VCO and VCF that is available to buy from my Etsy shop. Recently i have added gate and CV outputs to the rear of the device to control external equipment. There is a CV out with a range of 0 to 5v and normal and inverted versions of the gate on left and right channel respectively of a stereo mini jack socket. No sound is being produced by the Step Sister in this video, only the output of the Ms10 is heard (its difficult to get them in tune with each other anyway as the VCO in the Step Sister wasn't built to a particular standard and the CV and Gate were added as an after thought).

It has also been tested by a customer (Thanks Shockenetic) with a Yamaha CS5, Korg Monotribe, Modded Monotron and a Technosaurus Microcon.

Here is the original Step Sister video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fVANwMonEU

And other links :P

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SymetriColour
http://symetricolour.tumblr.com/"

Earonator modulates Korg Ms10 - rather evil :)

Published on Mar 29, 2013

"Thanks to Matrixsynth [this post] for suggesting this.

This video shows the output of the Earonator modulating various parts of the Korg Ms10, including oscillator pitch, filter cutoff and pulse width. It is also used a a source for the external audio in.

The Earonator generates 2 light controlled square wave internally which can either be output separately or set to modulate each other. So 2 parameters can be modulated at the same time, either from separate sources or a mixed mono ring modulator like source (a diode OR gate). The square waves DC offset is removed before reaching the output (due to being designed to work with headphones) so the resultant modulation sounds more like a bipolar saw wave than a square. It oscillates at around -4.5v to 4.5v.

It sounds as smooth as tarmac at 90mph.

The Earonator can also be used on its own with headphones. For more about the Earonator see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKbMm8... [posted here]

It is available to buy now from:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/SymetriColour
http://folksy.com/shops/ChrisDodswort..."

Earonator - Pocket Sound Art - For Use With Headphones

Published on Mar 28, 2013 ChrisLody·54 videos
Curious about the volume levels. Could make a fun modulation source.

"The Earonator is a tiny portable piece of sound art. It is designed to be used with headphones, measures only 2 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" and weighs only 11.5 grams (30 oz) including the battery so it can easily be taken anywhere for a shot of noise in your ear holes.

It runs off a single pp3 9v battery. The circuit creates 2 square wave oscillators (the bit that goes beep), the pitch of which is controlled by the amount of light falling on the integrated sensors. These are either fed into each ear separately for a clean stereo effect or modulate each other for a dirty ripping type sound similar to that of a ring modulator. The 2 modes are selected using a switch on the side of the unit. There is also a power switch and a nice shiny blue power light.

It also comes with 1 Metre of suede cord so you can hang it round your neck, dance around manically and confuse onlookers.

The 3.5mm output socket that the headphones connect to can also be used as a 'line out' socket so the Earonator can also be connected to an amplifier such as a home stereo, PC speakers or a PC sound-card etc.

The Earonator also comes with instructions. The headphones and battery shown in the image are not included.

It is available to buy now from:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/SymetriColour
http://folksy.com/shops/ChrisDodsworthDesign"

Step Sister first build - Mini sequencer controlled synthesizer - Featuring Daisy the cat

Published on Mar 7, 2013 ChrisLody·52 videos


"No animals were hurt during the making of this video. Seriously.

After a development period comprising of much swearing, procrastination and video gaming i have finally built my first test version of the Step Sister.

The Step Sister is a 1 to 10 analog step sequencer controlling a saw wave VCO, a low pass resonant VCF, and an AR envelope. There is also a gain knob which wave shapes the saw and over drives the filter. The steps in the analog sequencer can be set to any pitch rather than just notes in a scale and can be turned down low enough to be considered off, they have a useful range of about 3 1/2 octaves.

The Step Sister will be available to buy through my Etsy and Folksy shops once i've built a few more, they will be slighty more polished with a printed laminated legend above the controls instead of the Dymo labels.

This video also features some expert videobombing from Daisy the cat o_O

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SymetriColour
http://folksy.com/shops/ChrisDodswort...
http://symetricolour.tumblr.com/"

Step Sister prototyping part 2. Now with badass overdrive wave shaping and other bits.

Published on Feb 13, 2013

"For part 1, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWsOy... [posted here]

So i've added a bit to the Step Sister since yesterday that i thought was worth sharing. It now has a waveshaper that squares of the saw wave but also overdrives the input to the filter, yummy. I have also added the Attack and Release controls to the envelope that were mentioned in part 1. This test version is shown running 4 steps for a bit of variety but the finished version will be selectable up to 10 steps. Enjoy.

It should eventually be available to buy from my Etsy and Folksy shop and if its not nightmarishly complicated to build, a kit version too.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SymetriColour
http://folksy.com/shops/ChrisDodsworthDesign
http://symetricolour.tumblr.com/"

Step Sister prototyping. Lovely analog beepiness ahoy.

Published on Feb 12, 2013 ChrisLody·50 videos

"I've been messing about with a new design of noise maker i call the Step Sister.

It is a step sequencer with a built in analog saw wave VCO, a square wave LFO which is synced to the sequencer speed, linked through a basic envelope to a resonant lowpass filter. This is just a test version and is yet unfinished. The finished version will (hopefully) have attack and decay controls for the filter envelope (this version just has 1), a selectable number of steps in the sequence from 1 to 10 and wave shaping to turn the saw wave into a pulse wave of some description. It also won't need 2 batteries as shown here. There are also a few knobs on the board that aren't connected so it a bit simpler than it looks. Honest.

It should eventually be available to buy from my Etsy and Folksy shop and if its not nightmarishly complicated to build, a kit version too.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SymetriColour
http://folksy.com/shops/ChrisDodswort...
http://symetricolour.tumblr.com/"

Noise Hero Kit Now Available

YouTube Uploaded by ChrisLody on Mar 18, 2011

"Noise Hero kits are now available to buy from http://www.symetricolour.etsy.com in USD and http://www.folksy.com/shops/ChrisDodsworthDesign in the GBP. There is also a pre built version for sale.

The Noise Hero is a lofi noise maker with a lot of routing options built onto a piece of stripboard using a 4093 quad nand chip. This video shows some of the example sounds that are located on the CD rom that comes with the noise hero.

For more about the Noise Hero see this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd9QBBueroA"


Uploaded by ChrisLody on Feb 16, 2010

"First build test of my Noise Hero (previously known as ill logic)

Noise hero is a little 4093 based noise maker which is available to buy from http://www.symetricolour.etsy.com in USD and http://www.folksy.com/shops/ChrisDodsworthDesign in the GBP. There is also a kit version available. I may also produce a boxed version depending on demand.

It is controlled by 5 knobs, 8 switches and one push button.

It has 3 oscillators (Yellow, Green and Blue knobs). Osc 1 produces audio frequency ranges whilst osc 2 and 3 produce LFO and audio freqencies.

Osc 1 goes to the output through a simple passive filter (Red knob) while osc 3 can be switched to the output but bypasses the filter.

Osc 3 modulates osc 1's pitch by the ammount set by the orange knob. This modulation can be shaped by 2 shapers which can be switched on and off. Osc 3 can also gate osc 2.

Osc 2 can gate osc 1 and passes through an inverter after which it can gate osc 3.

There is also a push button to trigger the unit (actually a power button), a switch to lock the power on, a power led indicator and a battery cap switch which lets the unit run for a short time after power off for springy type noises.

A certain configuration can even produce sounds that stop after a time determined by osc 3 which is good for maker sound effects. (see 4:44 onward)

The knobs all go backward as you may have noticed. This is because I'm using logarithmic knobs which make the oscillators easier to contol when wired up the wrong way round.

This is my first build. Everything works perfectly but I found I'd barely alloed myself enough room to fit everything on the stripboard. I'll make the next one bigger.

I'm keeping this one!"