Original inspirations & impetuses: Science Fair 75-in-1 Electronic Project Kit, Annette Peacock, Nicolas Collins' Handmade Electronic Music book.
Ongoing inspiration: electro-music.com DIY Hardware and Software forums (where I'm known as “RingMad”), Stela Zofrene.
These boxes are not for sale.
Click on a photo to see a larger version.
Another silly little battery-operated noise box, made during a break from a larger project. An accidental realization that putting an antenna on the VCO input of a not-quite-properly hooked up 4046 produced noise, so I decided to run with the idea and have three such circuits interact. The antennae pick up general random stuff, as well as proximity to living bodies. Completed March 2013.
Here is a quick RED noise box demo video.
After a few years of collecting speakers from stuff found in the trash, I finally got them off the floor and onto the wall. There are 47 speakers per panel, but only 16 per panel are wired up to the control box. The box takes a 2 channel input and randomly selects which of the speakers the sound is directed to (for each panel). The rate can be controlled by the knob, or via an external CV. There is also the optional interruption control on a per-channel basis... this cuts the sound going to a panel according to the rate set via the knob (or external CV). Alas, the box and the speakers are not very clean-sounding, so not just any audio is suitable. It is best to feed it with simple drone oscillators.
Completed December 2012. No video could really demonstrate what this installation sounds like. Click on the image to see the overall setup.
An automatic drone box for use with this thing is in the works....
A bit of a silly little box, made quickly to restore my sanity somewhat after spending an enormous amount of time and energy on the Sweet32 Speaker Interrupter-Switcher installation, which failed massively when I first turned it on. So, before getting down to serious debugging, I built this. Via the electro-music forum, I learned that the flickering LEDs in dollar-store electronic tea candles produce sound. So I chose 3 of them that sounded good together, and all the circuit does is mix the outputs through diodes and drive a speaker. Completed December 2012.
Here is a quick Tea Candle Noise box demo video.
Not really a soundbox, this is more of a small utility device for making breadboarding simpler. I got tired of building power sections and clock oscillators over and over, so I built this little box that gives me a regulated and filtered 9V and four square wave clocks. Each oscillator has 3 different range capacitors, so the box can produce frequencies ranging from about 0.01 Hz to 6300 Hz overall. With some alligator clips and/or wires, I can plug it into my breadboard and away I go! Completed September 2012.
Customized version of the Spacial Percussionizer (see below) for my sound-maker friend Alexandre St-Onge. He wanted a grey box with 4-channel output instead of 2, as well as all the trigger and spatializing oscillators voltage controlled. The power switch and output jacks are on the back side. CMOS NAND gate “percussion”/noises generator with 4052 spatializers (with 4 positions per pair of channels). Completed July 2012.
CMOS NAND gate “percussion”/noises generator with 4052 spatializer (with 4 positions...
hard left, hard right, sortof left, sortof right).
Based on a couple of circuits by “Inventor”:
1. Percussion Karplus-Strong Inspired,
2. A Lunetta Spatializer.
Completed (finally) in March 2012. Photo by Linus Ouellet.
Here is the Spacial Percussionizer demo video.
Triowaverator = Triple wave generator = 3 sine/triangle wave generators (XR8038 IC) with frequency, level and skew control. Skew sortof makes a triangle into a sawtooth. The bolts are for attaching optional external variable resistors e.g. photoresistors, which is what I used to make the “3 Candles, 3 Sines” video.
Completed February 2012. Photo by Linus Ouellet.
The Spooly J is a CMOS-based unpredictable sound-making device based on Bubzy's “Spooly Master” circuit as described here: www.electro-music.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48600. The bolt matrix allows one to connect 4 tap points to different pins of the 4040 divider chip, giving rise to many different combinations of sounds. Completed September 2011.
Here is the Spooly J. demo video (on youtube).
The Vidiffektor is the odd box here, since unlike all the others, it mangles a video signal, rather than makes audio. Basically, it slices up a composite video signal fed into the box, and adds several divisions of the signal back into it. Two of these boxes were made, the other as a gift to my experimental filmmaker friend Christine Lucy Latimer. Completed July 2011.
When the circuit was still on the breadboard, I made this Vidiffektor demo video (on youtube).
Here are more abstract videos using the Vidiffektor, including some by the aforementioned Christine: www.vimeo.com/tag:vidiffektor.
The Tritone Dioder is simply three squarewave oscillators mixed together via diodes. Also, the duty cycle of each wave can be changed. Completed October 2010. Later, the potentiometers (which were cheap junk) were replaced (and with larger knobs, which changed the aesthetic -- which was pretty botched to begin with).
Here is the Tritone Dioder demo video (on youtube). Note that it involves two phaser pedals and another very simple box I made called the Lopsided 2-Channel Auto-Panner.
The Quadratic Cascading Intersidereal Noisificator (or Le Bruitificateur intersidéral quadratique en cascade in french) was based on a circuit in the above-mentioned Nicolas Collins book. It is based on a cascading series of 4 oscillators made using a 4093 NAND gate CMOS chip, wherein the first oscillator is gated by a 555 oscillator, which itself can be affected with another 555 (called the Saccadeur -- which can sort of be translated from french as stutterer or jerker). Completed August 2010.
Here is the The Noisificator demo video (on youtube).
The only time I sold a box... it is now owned by my sound artist/noisemaker friend Magali Babin after making a few changes she requested (trig in jack replaced by volume control, RCA out jack replaced by 1/4" jack -- these do not appear in the photo).
Last updated: 2013.04.18