Touch Polysynth

 

I found a piece of wood on the beach, round and smooth, nice to hold. 

I've routed with CNC to house a proto circuit for a polyphonic touch synthesizer. 

The spiral pads on the top present individualy tuned oscilators that sing when pressed and can be bent with the lower pads.

I've been playing with circuit ideas for this for a year very undecidedly. Although I wasnt satisfied with this result the open circuit on top led to realisation that I can route the signals directly to the amplifier through my fingers instead of having dicrete vcas for each oscilator . Therefore

-enabling a more sesitive touch effect

-removing unwanted oscilator noise bleeding though the vcas

-reducing the part count by 70% or more

Memory loss prototyping

I made three prototypes, altering the layout and the functions of the switches each time. The first prototype has several sockets around the feedback loops so I can try out various component values as well as various points to test the power rails. The feedback control is has a renonant effect and I chose to lower the central pitch a little compared to what I'd done previously and let some lower frequencies in.

I wasnt satisfied with the function of the switches on the first prototype, so I did some more breadboarding and settled on these two switch functions.

Switch one simply removes the power filtering capacitor that almost every audio device has the to keep the voltage steady and clean. The pedal needs to be powered seperatlely (no daisy chaining) in order for this to have effect because noise will be filtered by other effects which undoubtebly contain power filtering capacitors. This switch just makes it a lot more glitchy and noisy which is what i intended to do but i think its nice to be able to flick the switch and clean it up.

Switch two selects whether the audio signal feeding the delay chip comes directly from the audio amp (386) or primarily though negative ground via a capacitor. These two circuit confogurations have unique sound palattes, one a layered distortion with thick full sound as well as hf radio fuzz when you roll back guitar tone controls. The other is quieter, cleaner, freindlier sounding, with popping glitches that I liked from the old video and has the same sort of low cut treble boosting tone as the original.

The knobs are all the same as from previous versions. I still need to make a layout and description for each one. 

 I found that i got better noise and glitching without the grounded case acting as a faraday cage so on the third version I've added a switched jack for a noise antenna. The antenna is a loop of wire, a few inches long with a 1/4 " plug. I have to use a plastic insulated jack so it doesnt short out onto the enclosure. The antenna works conjuct to the impedance and gain knobs for tuning in noises. By moving your body around the antenna you can incite effects as well. When no antenna is present the signal passes on unimpeded with less noise.

ML222

 When i made up the Memory loss pcbs I ordered I came across some strange behaviour with some of them which I determined the causes of and by exagerated them to incorporate it into the final design. Something I'd mused on for a while was heterodyning effects and synthesizers.

The best examples of this that I've found is the Ciat Lonbarde dogvoice and rollz with ultrasound. Paradoxical oscilators spiralling into high frequencies are translated by a switched capacitor filter. https://ciat-lonbarde.net/ciat-lonbarde/rollz5/index.html

A high gain operational amplifier can pick up local radio stations. This guy seems to have stumbled onto the same anomally https://www.edn.com/create-radio-receiver-circuits-with-the-lm386-audio-amplifier/

 It tends to latch onto them and oscilate at the strongest frequency in the prefered range. 

The pt2399 shift register runs at a similar 3-4 mhz frequency so the preamp can be heterodyned with the delay chip making the chaotic radio noise audible and reactive to the input signal.

Tonecoder-sharktooth

A novel effects box

A year or two ago I connected a photocell to a time delay circuit and found that modern light bulbs will modulate the playback frequency. They oscillate at audio frequencies to reduce energy usage but the downside is that it disturbs natural brain function.

Tuning my instrument to the room light (carrier frequency) gave a nice tonal resonance with interesting sideband frequencies. This is essentially fm resynthesis, with the modulator set at fixed frequency.

The pt2399 has a VCO input, so to make a tunable arangement of this you can insert an oscillator directly to modulate the signal. 

I've been designing a box to make use of this effect. After discarding the first circuit board because of noise issues I rearanged the layout

and made two prototypes with various features and concluded with the most simple arangement- two tuning knobs. There is wide range oscillator control- for the carrier, and an attenuator. Its a special effect when full on and but i like to use it almost fully attenuated to enliven the harmonics and tighten the sound of slacktuned guitar.

The box was made from an old rimu door. I hollowed it out enough to house the electronics and cut some iron sheet for the faceplate. The sheet metal got a wee brittle from to much hammering and split on the top edge but otherwise it came together well and it feels nice to hold. The first prototypes had an inlayed plate that I milled with the cnc but I prefer the feel of the iron folded over the wood.

The PT2399 circuit give great depth of modulation and clean sound with some compression. Its still a touch noisy from the internal clock aliasing the modulation oscillator. 

Nightlights

These charge in the day and turn on in the dark. The 1.2 volt battery is boosted by a coil and hf oscilator to power led lights.

Lightswitch

Tiltswitch

This one has the coil oscilator and brass tilt switch

Métamorphoser

-+ Making sound with ambient light +-

Whistles softly in low light, ocean waves in medium light and silent in full sun.

Made from hollowed chair leg and brass sheet.

This guy has a control panel for dialing in ocean baby, radio static and wet cricket in full light.

Light dust/rain to pure white noise depending on light exposure. 

The circuit has very low resistance and begins emiting sound with only a slight glimmer of light(natural or artificial) and goes silent in full sun unless you bring a water based mass close to the left wing which is a capacitive sensor. This makes it sensitive to humidity also.

74hc14 hex inverter with dual transistors and a74hc595 shift register.

 

5 low frequency oscilators set at various rates of charge/discharge create a randomised wave. it is read by a vco in high audible to ultrasonic range range.

this doesn't make sounds but resonates at high frequencies

Daisy chains

Transistor neuron circuit for feedback loops. 

memory loss - echoes

The last of the glitchy pt2399 circuits that I sold previously as the seppuku memory loss, eccodrone and fragment.
The pt2399 is designed to be a karaoke reverb chip but this is less an echo and more of a analog noise generator/effect. The delay is in fact a 44000 bit shift register.
The chip has an internal lowpass, shift register, modulator and demodulator current control and  reset function  that can be used as a comparator with gate delay.
The input signal flows through three paths each having a distinctive tonal effect that is chopped up and displaced depending on feedback balance and delay time. The feedback path goes through a lot of resistance which allows for a floating area where it drifts in and out of oscillation but it means that the critical stages of the turn is caught in the far reaches.

There are rotary controls for feedback and feedback path, clock, input and output voltage.
The toggles are for processing/generator modes and led diode clipping/gate.

This is another take on the pt2399. It has a voltage control input for delay time., feedback loop has a clipping/squishing circuit and the delay is set up to allow control of compression and manipulate the samplenhold of the a/d conversion. Does nice rising triangle oscillations that interact with the input. (input velocity x freq)   It is good for extending sustain and playing very slow music.