Circuit bent mechanical Furby sequencer linked to Korg SQ-10

YouTube via thenervoussquirrel.

Up for auction here.

"One of a new batch of four Furby Gurdies. This model allows you to program your own rhythms by rearranging screws inserted into the four wheels.

There is also a 'trigger out' socket, which has been used in the last section of the video to operate an old sequencer and synthesiser.

More details here"

via nervoussquirrel on the forum.
"Sometime prior to the 11th century A.D. a strange hand-cranked instrument called the hurdy gurdy appeared on the scene in Western Europe, drifting in and out of fashion but remaining in production to this day. In 1998 Tiger Electronics produced a scary children's toy called the Furby, and sold over 40 million of them in three years.

This auction is for the strange and terrible result of combining both of these phenomena - this is a rare chance to own your own Furby Gurdy!

This instrument involves four modified Furby toys that can be made to produce sound in a sequence by winding a handle. Each Furby has been 'circuit bent', which is a process that involves adding connections to the original electronic circuit board to create interesting new sounds.

When the handwheel is turned, four wheels operate four switches in a sequence. The sequence pattern is created by adding or removing screws from the 12 holes around the circumference of the wheels. Each of the four switches operated by turning the handwheel correspond to a Furby, causing it to make a sound as the screwheads pass.

Each Furby has six controls on the panel underneath it:

(1) Mute - turns off an individual Furby's sound
(2) Loop hold - captures a short loop of audio while a Furby is speaking
(3) Loop momentarily - useful for searching for a good sound before using 'Loop hold' to keep the sound
(4) Microswitch mode select - Switches between audio being produced by either the screwheads on the wheels or the gaps between the screwheads
(5) Crash - creates a stream of glitches and garbled Furby speech, random bleeps, crunches and hisses
(6) Reset - used to restore good health after the crash function

There is a main audio output socket on the front (1/4 inch jack), as well as four individual outputs on the rear of the unit.

There is also a socket on the rear of the unit that allows the switch under the fourth wheel to be used by an external device. Plugging a jack lead into this socket disconnects the fourth Furby and allows other devices to be triggered in time to the winding of the handwheel. In the video I have connected this socket to the step input of a Korg SQ-10 sequencer, so that the sequencer advances by one note every time a screwhead passes the switch.

There were four of these Furby Gurdies made - this auction is for one of the last two, serial number 00075.

High-quality switches and components have been used throughout, and build quality/soldering etc. is all very good. The casing is made of folded aluminium sheet and painted MDF, and the handwheel is solid machined aluminium. The rotating shaft has been mounted on bearings to ensure many years of lasting Gurdy goodness."

BBoT

YouTube via EA78751
"TR808 clone drums + original synths and sequencer. apologies for sound quality of this recording. visit the link to hear better examples.
http://ericarcher.net/devices/big-box...
thx: douglas ferguson for video help."

Electric Gongs - an experimental music installation

YouTube via EA78751. via Harry
"Three bronze gongs are activated with electromagnetic drivers. A touchscreen interface shows all available notes and guides users to consonant pitch relationships with a network of white lines.

At Austin Childrens Museum (Austin, TX) until September 2008.

more information and recordings:
http://ericarcher.net/devices/electri..."

DFW Synth Diy

flickr set by robstave

via the comments of this post

Dallas Fort Worth Synth DIY

Okkam-01 Demonstration

Okkam-01 Demonstration from yoctopus on Vimeo.
"An electronic musical instrument utilising Native Instruments Reaktor software and MIDIBox hardware.

Conceived, designed, programmed and constructed by Justin Shave for the purpose of creating music both in the studio and through live improvised performance.

for more explanation and tunes:

myspace.com/shaveosphere
info ... yoctopus.com"

Modular Synth: Chimera BC16 Inverter Card

Modular Synth: Chimera BC16 Inverter Card from Tom Whitwell on Vimeo.
"Cute little inverter card which reverses phase of control signals. 5v in = 0v out. 4v in = 1v out..."
That would be Tom of Music Thing.

Circuit bent box containing Musini, sampler and ELC piano

YouTube via thenervoussquirrel
"This box basically consists of three sections:

A modified Musini, which is a baby toy originally intended to get toddlers dancing around the living room. A sensor detects floor vibrations and matches the tempo accordingly, or as the manufacturer puts it:

"Musini's patented MusicSensor detects their every move and translates it into a totally unique musical response, teaching cause and effect."

New knobs and switches have been added to create strange new sounds that would probably frighten the previous small owner of the toy.

The second section is a simple lo-fi sampler that can record up to 20 seconds of audio, either as one long sound or four shorter ones. The sounds can then be looped and the pitch altered.

The third section is a modified Early Learning Centre 'animal piano', which can be used to create blips, crunches and bleeps which contrast nicely with the mellow sweeping sounds of the Musini. This section could also be useful for communicating with a pet dog, cat or bird.

The box was commissioned by Norman Fairbanks (www.normanfairbanks.com), after a few e-mails discussing the types of sounds he was looking for. There should be some higher-quality audio samples on my website at some point, and Norman is planning on creating some new music with the box, which is exciting."

Cats

flickr by Mouldfish

full size

MIDIBridge for AudioCubes Preset System Update

"The MIDIBridge software got an update today fixing a few minor bugs and adding support for all setup parameters to be stored and recalled using the preset system. You can read more about the update and download it here: http://forum.percussa.com/viewtopic.php?t=40.

The updated Max/MSP patches for MIDIBridge will be available in the next software release package for AudioCubes. As you probably already know, all host software for AudioCubes is freely available and open source, and built in Cycling 74’s Max/MSP software. So you can customize it easily to your own needs. Do you need OSC or some other protocol instead of MIDI communication? If it’s available in Max/MSP you can easily use it with AudioCubes and the freely available Max/MSP patches."
via the Percussa Audio Cubes blog

soundbite

YouTube via sduck409
"watch over my shoulder as I tweak some settings on this large modular synth patch. 3 different voices, using a motm 510 wavewarper as twisted mixer. Mostly synthtech MOTM modules, and a Blacet Binary Zone, Wogglebug, and a MusicFromOuterSpace sequencer. Sorry about the low audio quality, this was just a quickie job, otherwise it might never get done."