Recently in General Category

for use with MIDI to control voltage arduino code found here - Arduino MIDI2CV Good stuff, tho I'm tempted to skip the pwm and head straight for an spi dac or even rig up an r2r dac. wee shalll seee.

In an effort to get this site taken off google's "this site may harm your computer" list, registration has been closed. Comments can now be made without registering coutesy of WP-SpamFree. Here's hopin' this helps!

A year ago today Boston authorities completely overreacted to a creative ad campaign promoting the Aqua Teen Hunger Force animated series. The people who made the promotional LED signs faced very serious criminal charges for a harmless decorative act. Let's all try to make technology a little more open, friendly, and familiar to the world. We need to keep all this rampant fear in check - our rights really do depend on it.

I've just been appointed MAKE Flickr Pool Curator! I'm very psyched about this new role I'll be fulfilling at makezine.com. I honestly couldn't imagine a publication I'd want to work with more. I'll be on the lookout for great projects in the pool and adding some hacks/how-to's/how-not-to's of my own as well. We'll be upping the interactive ante with some contests and prizes for user projects. It's a natural progression - MAKE shows people how to do cool things, people show make how to do cool things, repeat.

While looking for substitution tables I ran into this pic of the first transistor. Amazing, It could easily pass a work of art in a modern gallery. I find the zig-zagging lead particularly interesting (I'm assuming it's the base junction). I was assumming the shapes purpose was to increase capacitance, but it turns out the odd shape acted as a spring to suspend the large plastic triangle very gently over a germanium crystal.

It consisted of a plastic triangle lightly suspended above a germanium crystal which itself was sitting on a metal plate attached to a voltage source. A strip of gold was wrapped around the point of the triangle with a tiny gap cut into the gold at the precise point it came in contact with the germanium crystal. The germanium acted as a semiconductor so that a small electric current entering on one side of the gold strip came out the other side as a proportionately amplified current.

- http://www.cedmagic.com/history/transistor-1947.html

Damn, that's cool.

further reading:
http://www.pbs.org/transistor/science/events/pointctrans.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor

Looks like we made it after all.Below that scuffed aluminum dwell a veritable clown car of wire bulk. And you know what? That bulk makes some damn fine sound. Now onto the 1V/Octave keyboard controller as I wait for my temperature controlled resistors to arrive by post.

Sound Lab - Panel to Board Wiring

Originally uploaded by Collin Mel

After everything else, following the alphabetically coded board -> pcb wiring is a refreshing snap - though it may look like a crackle an a pop as well (huh?)

Cube-Tube x 2

Mo' tubes is good tubes. I'll post a video of it in action soon.

WSG003
Originally uploaded by Collin Mel
Yet another Weird Sound Generator.
BTW - Ray Wilson is now selling WSG component kits for your DIY Synth building convenience.

Atari Tube v2

A new take on the atari tube APC design. I'd have posted a video of the synced LEDs but it seems I fried one during installation :/

But I'm happy to report it actually sounds quite good - a bit smoother than the original design and a tad bassier.

Sample to come . . .

WSG2 Near Completion


Originally uploaded by Collin Mel

In case you missed it - The WSG "Arctic Knob" edition.

This little guy was actually painted up a bit more after this photo and then delivered to the patron who commissioned its creation.

Light Sensitive LED


Originally uploaded by Collin Mel

Man, when circuits get extra small, they get extra cute. This one will be used as an earring.

Once a 3V coin battery is attached the blue LED will light up in the dark.

Well I dunno maybe you would. Though an 'accidental modification' at first I quite prefer the curved solder tip to straight ones. I've seen curved needle nose for sale but never a solder tip, hmmm.
Well as you might guess from the occurances described in the previous paragraph, I am very busy of late and therefore not been doing much info-decorating on the web. Much good things to come.
Like this newborn WP-20, still waitin for paint and a few knobs:

I am beginning research in utilizing simple bioelectrical readings to be used in place of an LFO circuit for a traditional analog synthesizer. My desire is to use EEG readings to influence the sound produced by a musical instrument. Unfortunately the very delicate and precise nature of EEG readings make the related hardware relatively expensive and difficult to construct. (although the OpenEEG project's research is diminishing that fact) ECG hardware is much more approachable in terms of budget and experimentation. I will begin by constructing simple ECG and VCO circuits and then adapting the ECG output to conform to standard LFO control voltage parameters. My hope is to create an instument whose voice is dynamically augmented by the physiological state of its user.
more to come . . .

I have to say - photoresist is the way to go when etching a pcb. I have my eyes on the developing direct inkjet process, but for now I'm sold on photolithography. Processing the board pictured took under an hour even with all my 'first time' errors and fumbles. I highly reccommend the Datak Premier Presensitized boards. I only used one 15 watt daylight bulb for the exposure!

Dark Red/Black positive transparency
15watt daylight bulb 4-6" away
6min exposure
10:1 hot water:developer
develop ~30sec
sweeten to taste, and serve.

Oh, I almost forgot, the subject matter of aforementioned pcb - the Baby 10 sequencer. I'm pretty sure I flubbed this prototype while rushing to test the photo method but I have high hopes for the final design.
Well now I'm off to make some rent money - later on.

A while back i tried starting a message board for people i know to share ideas and such. It didn't quite take off the way I'd imagined. Perhaps a group blog would be more appropriate?
if you would like to contribute, mail me at:
"me at collinmel dot com"

Darwinia officially rules my schools. It's an independently developed, non-traditional, real time strategy game for mac and pc. You "run programs"(aka: make units) to fight off viruses and collect the remnants to create a population of little green folk.
Best of all:
# of unrealistically huge breasted women = 0
# of ripped lone wolf military superheroes with an attitude = 0
# of awesomely nondescript little green people to care for = unquantifiable

and get this the mac demo is actually the full version of the game to try for 30 days.
and no, they're not paying me.

woah, google wants your videos!
damn google, damn.

I wish I could find more art vids on the net.

from Rachel Arieff (whose site almost boils over with content) we find Captain Mustache. He plays the piano even!

thanks Lisa.

I didn't know the famous Mr. Carl Lewis made pop music or pop music video for that matter. At least he used to.
But after seeing the vid, the question burns: Who's that lady?

An impressive collection of music video links from Gran Faro.

Makes me think all content should be directly hosted by the creator, that way they can add all the DRM bullshit they want and never really hand anything off to promotional channels and such. I know from my job that DRM is ridiculous. I heard someone compare this "securing" of digital media to making automobiles which require horshoes in order to satisfy blacksmiths who were put out of work by the passing of the horse and buggy. Who said that?

Adam sent me this PSA from the American Lung Association.

who made this? Chris Cunningham?

Generica