I made a new music video for Tiger Island @tigerislandband called “Find out who you are (and do it on purpose)”. It’s a mix of green screen live action, stop frame animation and puppets that took around six months to create. Here’s a dartboard of behind-the-scenes photos. The live action was shot in an empty supermarket loaned to us by the marvellous @meksummat . Everything else was shot at my desk (I don’t have a studio, just a desk 😅) Visit @tigerislandband ’s profile to see the video or find it on the ‘tube. #animation #musicvideo
Saw a listing on the bay for this Microkorg being sold as spares/repairs due to ***NO VOLUME***. I put in a silly lowball offer for fun, and it was accepted!
When it arrived I did some initial tests and found all the potentiometers to be crackly and some keys producing no sound.
I disassembled it, separating out the front panel, PCB, mod wheels and key bed from the chassis, taking photos along the way to refer back to for later reassembly.
Saw evidence of something that had previously been spilled through the keys and a whole layer of grease coating the top of the internal surfaces. I also noticed someone had previously attempted to repair some of the pots, and one of the pot knobs was cracked and badly glued back together. I reckon it had been dropped on its front at some point.
I spotted the manufacturing stamp inside the chassis showing this synth was made in May 2003, so not very long after this model went into production.
Electronics were all cleaned with isopropyl alcohol 99%. The metal front panel and all plastic parts were cleaned with hot soapy water. The cracked pot knob basically fell apart so I was able to clean and reglue it using the correct hard ABS cement.
All left to dry then reassembled, and what do you know - works perfectly. I didn’t even have to get my soldering iron out 🙃
I’ve played around with it and love the way you can design new sounds and save them, and the vocoder works really well with the arpeggiator. Now I don’t know whether to keep it or sell it on…
#synth #restoration #electronics #korg
Incredibly excited to build my new @musicthingmodular Workshop system (purchased from @thonksynth !) Even before getting my soldering iron out, I’m really impressed by the thoughtful packaging and attention to detail in the kit elements.
Of course I’d watched the “excitable” @mylar.melodies video about how cool this thing is, but what tipped me over the edge into “let’s go crazy and buy one” territory was after I spent an afternoon playing with one at @schneiderskeller Denmark Street, London - thank you!
#diysynth #modular #diymusic #bleepbloop
I made a tremolo pedal and called it Choppy. This is based on the old Vox Repeat Percussion amp feature/effect. It lives up to the name, with three modes which change speed and also alter the waveform. You can get everything from 50s wobble to industrial synth noise. The depth control is gives you a less or more pronounced effect.
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#guitarpedals #diypedals #soldering #electronics #synthdiy #tremolo
Finished a new commission, say hello to Rusty! It’s a faithful copy of a legendary bass preamp, the Traynor TS-50B (which was later remade as the popular Rusty Box, hence the name).
It sounds great on all bass use cases from clean boost to messed up fuzz due to the unique “stacked” distortion circuits for bass, middle and treble - it affects each band separately and sums them at the end.
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#commission #diypedals #guitar #bass #soldering #electronics #diycircuits #veroboardingisnotacrime
Just popping my lovingly handmade hat in the ring for the #DHMISnewfriend contest. I love Don't Hug Me I'm Scared and this is how I wanted to let them know. Your new friend is just a phone call away 💝
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@becky.sloan@blinkindustries #dhmis #handmade #felt #donthugmeimscared #donthurtmeimsorry #roy
Just discovered that the preamp out of this Sunn amp (basically a Fender black with a different name) I restored sounds incredible straight into my DAW. The range of tone controls in this little amp means you can get almost any sound out of it. I think the huge reverb tank also helps though.
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#fender #sunn #amrecording #homestudio
My @korguk MS-20 mini has quickly become one of the most fun, rewarding and inspiring synths I own. I love the scale controls on the VCOs and the way you can get the two oscillators to throb and interfere with each other using two squares and the pulse wave adjuster. The separate high pass and low pass filters with peak controls, along with the highly playable frequency and cutoff modulation controls make sounds that are surprising and off the wall but also useful and easily reproducible. It’s really easy to get mad growly crackly bass and then switch to ethereal high pads with just a few knob changes. Ooh it’s so good. I’ll stop geeking out now. #korg #ms20mini
In amongst all the death and destruction I managed to fix something - a Casio SK-1 synth from 1985. It came to my desk in a sorry state - all the keys were snapped, it wouldn't power on, it was held together with gaffer tape and the insides were completely covered in battery acid, which had rotted through most of the circuit board traces.
I managed to not only clean it up and get it to power on, I also replaced several parts of the circuitry that were completely corroded, and added a new power switch and volume control.
While many of the functions were beyond saving (the ones I coloured in red) I managed to make a neat little 7 voice synth with envelope select, plus vibrato! The most fun part was repairing the black keys and replacing the missing ones with Lego.
It's not a perfect restoration by any stretch but the fact I got it to make sound again is enough of an achievement for me, considering where I started (see last photo).
I had a play with it last night through a bunch of effects pedals and it sounds great.
This will now be heading back to @greenmount_studios_leeds where it will hopefully inspire someone to make something weird and wonky.
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#synth #restoration #casiosk1 #soldering #retroelectronics #diypedals
I made a pedal! This is a modified version of an EHX LPB-1 circuit feeding into the incredibly complicated 7 transistor version of the DBA Fuzz War.
The second circuit is built with “set and forget” controls so once you’ve dialled in your sound the fuzz circuit becomes a one knob “1 to 11” pedal. This is a commission designed to be used on line level instruments like synthesisers.
It’s made with folded metal, huge LEDs, black Hammerite in a distressed finish with oak cheeks, finished off with a lovely orange transparent back cover to show off the ridiculous circuit nest.
To say this one caused trouble would be an understatement, a more accurate summary would be that I am never building a 7 transistor Fuzz War again 😅
#soldering #electronics #diypedals #fuzzwar #dba #ehx #makingthings #handmade
I made this submarine for my new animated short film to accompany the song Plunge from Fig by Four.
The first time I heard the song I was captivated by the pulsing bass line, like a sonar blip transporting me in to the verse. I saw an underwater world before me, a cave of secrets waiting to be explored.
I dreamed of sharing the story with the song’s creator Sarah Statham (@fig_by_four ), and sheepishly asked if I could make the film for her.
Luckily she said yes, and I spent the next month making a submarine and imagining the journey it would embark upon. Another five months of development ensued, filming using stop-frame animation, making sets and compositing using Photoshop and After Effects.
The serendipitous thing that finally brought the film together was when Sarah sent me a photo of a painting her auntie had made of Sarah’s eye - it looked like the underwater cave in my imagination. I used this painting as the basis for the cave structure as well as it forming the backdrop for the whole story.
The link in my bio goes to my blog-type-thing where there’s a link to watch the film and also a post about how I made the submarine.
If you get chance to watch the film, I hope you enjoy it. Also, check out the whole Fig by Four album ‘Capture Reveal’ - available on all streaming services, or buy a copy from the link in Sarah’s bio.
#craft #miniaturepainting #modelmaking #musicvideo #electronics #animation #shortfilm #modelpainting
Oh hi, it’s been a while! How are you? I’ve been working on this custom commission for the last couple of sections of time, it’s a pedal of three halves - a boost (based on the EHX LPB-1) into a modified Fuzz War circuit, which runs through a blender to allow more or less clean boosted tone through. It’s designed primarily for synths but will also make guitars sound big and angry. It’s housed in a one-off folded aluminium and oak enclosure - I’ll post full shots once it’s finished.
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#diypedals #diysynth #synthdiy #soldering #vero #3pdt #fuzzwar #guitarpedals #gluegun #hammeritefingerpaint #icanneverrememberhashtags #egg
