If you hate modern samplers with all their supposed fidelity, longing instead for the glitchy digital distortion of samplers past, a DIY project has brought you the sounds you love. “Where’s the Party At?” has been inspiring tingly sensations in digital lovers since I first wrote about it in September.

Now, the kit version is shipping. It’s a unique-looking combination of reliability and sonic unreliability, good open source design engineering and, as the creator puts it, a certain “crustiness.”

Apocryphal Feature List and General Horn-Tooting:

• 8-bit max sample depth, 1-bit minimum.
• 20kHz (or so, user adjustable) max sample rate, no minimum.
• 512k SRAM, about 26 seconds (minimum) or sample time.
• Big, versatile 6 button, 7 knob, 8 LED user interface. For Cavemen.
• Even more big and versatile full MIDI control in and out capability. Fully sequenceable. For people who use Live and general bespectacled electronic music nerds.
• Sample banking — multi-timbral recording, playback and audio processing across all banks.
• Sample multiplication, XOR, ABS, and all sorts of other weird sample processing and cross-modulation.
• Real time overdubbing.
• Preferences saved in permanent memory.
• Hackable analog clock source which can be syncronized to other synths.
• Non-Hackable crystal clock source which will always do Exactly What You Tell it.
• Programmable clock jitter, bit rate reduction, aliasing, and sample clock errors all adjustable in real time.
• All the normal backwards masking and half time and typical sampling features common to many commercial samplers.
• On-The-Fly Granular reconstruction of samples.
• Full pitch control of samples.
• Self test mode for debugging.
• 2.8Hz-357kHz frequency response (measured).
• Sub-audible noise floor.
• Looks nerdy and attracts people with stringy hair. Possibly bad skin.

Details on this kit, plus a video sampler version made for a specific party here in NYC, at creator Todd Bailey’s site:

http://narrat1ve.com/

Updated: Complete information on the kit itself, at US$75 – Some Assembly Required (read: you’d better have a soldering iron handy and know how to use it!)

Where’s the Party At, Hardware Version 1.01

I also love the bag of shiny hardware for aiding in making yours nice!

Wonderful things happen when you invite lovers of noise together in a room. Musicians and non-musicians, electronics geeks and first-timers, folks pick up a soldering iron — often for the first time — and cause utter mayhem. So we again had a fantastic time at Handmade Music last month. I’ve just gotten the photos in, so decided to share.

We’re looking for folks to bring stuff to Handmade Music on 4/16 – see the bottom of the article and give us a shout if you have software or hardware creations to share. They don’t even have to work, entirely – this is the place to find people to help give advice, so we like even partly-functioning inventions.

Even if you live far, far from Brooklyn (like back in Old Amsterdam), the featured March projects are within reach:

• Loud Objects Noise Toy was the star of the evening. Lesley Flanigan and Tristan Perich of Loud Objects — superstar composers and sound artists themselves — were onhand as patient teachers and guides in the ways of Noise.
• glitchDS on PC and Mac: The DS homebrew creator Bret Truchan delighted with not only his mobile gaming creations, but a netbook running a new PC cellular automaton MIDI sequencer, ported to Processing. More on that soon. (See the image captured by Make Magazine’s Collin Cunningham.)
• Pulsantes I got Jaime Munarriz’ strange Processing + Pd pulsating rhythmic toys working on a PC – thanks, Jaime, for the virtual contribution!
• jReality Peter Brinkmann demonstrated the sonic capabilities of audiovisual virtual reality framework jReality. Intense stuff – you don’t even need to use Cartesian coordinates. Elliptical, baby!
• Networked Objects: Eric Beug brought by his DIY wireless synth modules and an iPhone for control. This progress is under development, so I hope it makes a repeat visit.

By the way, in case you wondered what happens when a bunch of people play all their newly-built Noise Toys at once? It sounds something like … this (and sorry, my digicam mic was entirely incapable of capturing the resulting sonic chaos):

Now, why would anyone imagine this wouldn’t have widespread commercial appeal?

If you enjoy real analog insanity – crazy noises that challenge the ears – you’ll like these videos sent to us by Hans Tammen, the composer, “endangered guitar” artist, and director of NYC’s Harvestworks. He writes:

you like analog stuff, as I know. Here are two excerpts of a concert with one of Rob Hordijk’s Blippoo Boxes. Just that tiny analog beast plus volume pedal…

Of course, part of what I like about analog — and digital — sound sources is their range. Want to make something that sounds noisy and chaotic? Want to make something that sounds more organic? Delicate? We really do have infinite timbral choices.

So I’d say, even if you hate these kinds of results, they’re a reminder that no sound is off-limits. You can make whatever noise you like.

See also: the slow section. (”Adagio” wouldn’t quite fit, somehow.)

Elsewhere: I see these have already been on Matrixsynth.
Matrixsynth: Blippoo Box Solo Concert (1) – Slow Movements Excerpt
Matrixsynth: [Noodle]Blippoo Box fun

I really, really love the knobs on this one. Lovely. From mono-poly’s blog, via Matrixsynth.

Beep-it from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Cast your shadow, shine a light, make a square wave synth make noise.

Michael Una is at it again. This time, he’s created something called the Beep-It. It’s a wonderfully elegant design for a light-controller soundmaker, an optical Theremin. He describes it to CDM thusly:

This minimalist electronic musical instrument eschews esoteric interface in favor of intuitive, expressive control.  One button turns the device on or off, which can produce a continuous tone or a rhythmic sequence.  One sensor varies pitch of the output waveform in response to ambient light.  The resulting system encourages playfulness and body movement.

You can buy all this goodness in hand-built, signed form for US$25 from Mike’s Etsy store, and he’s made the whole project open-source.

Beep-It @ Etsy

If you’re luck enough to be in Chicago, Michael is part of an art show called “Electrify” with more of these sorts of creations. You can buy your own Beep-It from the man himself, while soaking up the live musical stylings of Moment Sound. Electricity isn’t just for electronics: these artists will interpret the theme in the form of “painting, photography, sculpture, stencil, collage, and video.”

Electrify, November 15 @ Deadline Projects (Saturday 6-11p)

Schematics, images, explanation

Straight out of Michael’s notebook / brain:

The Netherlands is already a artistic-technological hotbed, and today (Wed. 29.10) some of their best circuit benders are gathering in one place, including regular favorite of ours Gijs Gieskes. (Gijs made the wonderful, spinning device above, which I missed when it came out — see it on Music thing.)

If you can make it, we’d love a report!

29 oktober ’s-Hertogenbosch (The Netherlands)
Nerdlab (initiative of CBK-Digitale workshop) organises topic evenings in the Verkadefabriek with artists who work on the borders between art, science and physics.
The topic of the first edition is circuit bending.

On this evening the following artists will performing:

Gijs Gieskes+Karl Klomp ( http://gieskes.nl/ – http://www.karlklomp.nl/ )
Rumatov ( http://www.myspace.com/rumatov )
Luc van Weelden ( http://www.lucluc.nl/ )
The Circuit Band ( http://toysfornoise.blogspot.com/ )
DJ DMDN ( http://www.myspace.com/dj_dmdn )

Location: Verkadefabriek – Boschdijkstraat 45

Time: 20:00 till 00:30 free admission

Be there early! Program starts at 20:30

http://www.nerdlab.nl/

Thanks to Martin Verhallen! (Yes, I’m behind, to those of you complaining. Yep, I was traveling / bad wifi / jetlagged!)

In other news: I think it’s nearly Circuit Bending Challenge season again, huh?