//// pictures of our sound-making machines ////

[Byzero]

Tidy. It looks fantastic. The modules are framed perfectly!

[shortsleeves]

I’ve always wanted a 100% Malekko/Wiard case with the gargoyles… One day I’ll make one. This one looks sick, mate!

[jbowman]

[Puscha]

Finally finished my modular-electroacoustic hybrid system!

Jacob Richards

It has a bunch of internal preamps and some ins and outs wired to the side of the case. I can send the modular signal out through things like exciters and solenoids to resonate whatever I attach them to, and run them back for mixing and processing. In the above video I’m resonating an autoharp, which gives a beautiful sympathetic ringing and droning in tune of whatever frequencies I send it, and using a pickup to return that signal back into the modular. It works amazingly with the Harmonic Oscillator, being able to raise the sliders to be able to pick out different strings to resonate out above the otehrs. Works surprisingly well! I can also run external instruments through the preamps, so for example I can play a guitar through the autoharp via modular for a spectacularly musical spring reverb type effect!

Picture of the custom-made ins and outs below. The bottom right panel is the interface for running modular in and out of these connections.

[kuorinki]

Wow, nice system with a vision! Something not so common. Feels like you been working on this for quite some time to end up with this form?

[Puscha]

I first started thinking about it mid last year, getting some ideas and inspiration from @synthetivv and his incredible and touching album he wrote with his father (https://davidgarland.bandcamp.com/album/vulneraries-vol-1, thread here: "Vulneraries" - 12-string guitar and modular synth), as well as from an exciter/resonator thread on here (Transducers / Exciter Speaker). After hanging out with Meng Qi for a day when passing through Beijing in August while he was working on the Wing Pinger, I felt inspired enough to pursue it as a tangible project. So it has been in the works for a while! There was some trial and error in figuring out what modules would suit the project best, in terms of control, tonality, making it work with the electroacoustic elements, and fitting the streamlined minimalism that I appreciate in a system and in my composition approach. I think it’s there now. Last piece will the the Verbos Foundation Oscillator. Still learning the USTA, and there is a hell if a lot to explore to find the best ways to approach it for my flow, but feeling really excited about the possibilities! I was lucky to know a really clever engineer who helped me put it all together (he did all the wiring) who could tell me what would and wouldn’t work, and how to achieve it too

[oot]

Really interesting to see someone use the whole Radar echosystem in a smaller case like that.

Cool that you’re using an autoharp for string resonator purposes! I thought about getting one as well but was more interested in it for the chord muting part that I see you removed…
How are you exciting the strings? Vibrating the body with a motor or driving them magnetically?

[Puscha]

The Erogenous Tones modules take up a lot of room, but are actually really space effective. RADAR with Blip offers an incredible amount of modulation options, and makes a terrific combination with USTA

I actually have another autoharp that still has the chord mutes, and still have the ones from this one in a box. I’ve found that it does a pretty good job at resonating the strings in tune and their harmonics pretty well anyway, but have it tuned to a big lovely chord, as the dissonances would ring out some.

I have an exciter stuck to the back close to the bridge:

It works pretty well, though the pickup does pick up some sounds from it. I would like to try mounting a larger bridge with the exciter stuck underneath, I think that would work better. The pickup should pick up less of the exciter that way, as it won’t be stuck to the body as the pickup is. Guess I could try making a bridge for the pickup too, hmm!

[caelmore]

I recently won a gift card from Patchwerks thanks to Podular Modcast, so my wife used it to support a small business and buy me a Pressure Points for our anniversary. It took me a few years but I’ve finally assembled a Shared System Plus without all of the Black & Gold panels. Pictured here alongside some auxiliary modules that have helped me with different things over the past few years as my system and my knowledge of synthesis has slowly grown.

[t3h]

[janglesoul]

The outdoor studio. OM21, zoom h2

[Cementimental]

A friend kindly sent me his old Sirkut Electronics dual white noise generator

[fahmi_m]

Experiment to created electronic sounds without synthesizer, but only no-input mixing board and effect pedals :

Audio-video version.

[tilman]

Nice System!
It’s funny, I’m right now in the process of building something similiar, with the purpose of mechanical feedback via transducer->instruments/things->piezo->preamp. Really dig the minimalist approach of yours, mine is more maximalist with the integration of a computer with Max and ES-3 into the case.

May I ask you, which preamps you built into it?

I really like the open spring reverb, this is something that never gets old, at least for me.

I can totally recommend soldering an old coil from a relais to a jack cable and waving it over the actuator coil of the spring reverb, howling-tones-fun for hours.

Since this is a picture-thread here is the first incarnation and the not so far progress of my new one, unfortunately I don’t have any recordings to present yet:

[flowers_hair_dirt]

my lil groovebox bb is born! Took a lot of inspiration from the lunchbox thread but ended up building more of a picnic basket ︎(‘ω’)︎

[foreignkeys]

would love to hear this thing!

[vytis]

Some amazing setups in this thread! Very inspiring. Today I thought I’d share my eurorack suitcase. Took me a few years of swapping modules and cases until I arrived at this, but it’s a real joy to play. In the future I’d like to squeeze in an envelope or function generator but it’s already providing me with all the elements needed for musical expression. I have played hour long sets and recorded an album with this setup alone. Looking forward to seeing more sound-making machines!

[lanserdj]

@vytis How do you like the Harmonic Oscillator?

[vytis]

@lanserdj

Oh I love it. I’d say it’s become the centre of my system and big part of my sound. I run its outputs through the Erica Synths tube mixer and that gives a lot of flexibility for shaping the sound. However, it’s absolutely great for pseudo-polyphonic percussive patches with 4 x low pass gates, in my case the Sputnik Quad VCF/VCA. Send 4 of its harmonic outputs to separate lpgs and ping them using triggers from multiple clock sources. Lots of flexibility. It can be used in many scenarios. In fact, I’ve just finished a rock’n’roll inspired album (including vocals, no drums) where the main and often only sound source is the very Verbos Harmonic Oscillator you see in this photo. The record is at the mastering engineer at the moment. So yeah, HO is here to stay.

[Cementimental]

Fixed up a gameboy today: added a backlight which I bought in 2012 and never got round to… GB back lighting technology has moved on a lot, I had to look up ancient instructions on archived sites and messed it up a bit but finally got it working. Tried to bivert it (a mod which inverts then uninverts to improve the contrast) but that didn’t work so for now it’s just inverted which looks cool anyway. Had already done the prosound mod years ago but now changed some capacitors for supposedly better bass frequency range, and added a power filtering cap which doesn’t seem to do much. Oh and new pink screen cover

Now to properly (re)learn Nanoloop!

Edit: just fixed a second one, no mods or backlight, just fixed vertical lines on the screen and cleaned the corroded battery contacts. Has no speaker for some reason? And didn’t bother with the pro-sound mod since it sounds OK and I feel I should have the option of authentic original gameboy sound with a bit of hiss.

Bricolage-fixing gameboys is very calming and satisfying to me