Mike Ford the creator of beautiful metal sound sculptures has recently setup a dedicated youTube account and uploaded some videos of the new devices hot off the workbench.
Mike was also kind enough to answer a few questions about his devices.
CM: How did you manage to make the APC do what appears to be fairly set note intervals? Did you mod the circuit at all?
Mike Ford: I had tried the 556 schematic to no avail and had to go with a dual 555 set up. The circuit has been modded to include two rotary switches with various caps, sorta a range setting, I suppose. The other mods are two photocells that act as Pitch and interval. I plan on adding the Vox repeat percussion circuit in the future.
CM:The Nemo beat box is fucking rad! Are you getting those extra sounds through some feedback circuitry?
MF: NEMO is a bent 1980s Realistic/Radioshack beatbox. I kinda love those old drum machine sounds and hope to get a National Panasonic or Univox to mangle (circuitbend) soon! There were some trimmer caps on the board I wired some pots to gain control over the oscillators that were set from the factory.
CM: How are you managing to keep contact capacitance from influencing the circuits with all that metal?
MF: Oops. didn’t consider that!
CM: Lastly, have you ever built a really nice case only to realize that it was not worthy of the sound generator?
MF: Sure. I usually work out the ideas in parallel. Or, that is to say, sometimes things will develop simultaneously. Sometimes stuff sits around collecting dust till the inspiration comes or I am driven to finish something and get on with another project. I think I am about to turn a corner and start to actually perform with the works. After all, my intent was to build stuff I would want to use in a performance setting.
CM: Thanks Mike, we’re looking forward to new and exciting performances as well as devices.
Awesomeness.
Beautiful designs. I love the wood and brass. If you play the videos together you can get a sense of how great these different things would sound together.
TOny
dear god almighty. WW1 theremin. it doesnt get any better than this!
Thanks all! and a BIG thanks Circuit Master.
This was the first site I ever submitted any of my work to. I hope to get a few more cranked out between now and this Fall. I have some pcb boards I got from Tom Bugs over at Bugbrand, across the pond!
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