This will be discussed in the next podcast, so I thought I’d share some tech details on our theme music. From the artist, Maestro Moj:
Geeky details about the music:
In the homebrew spirit, I tried to make all the sounds with instruments which I had soldered together myself. These were a Formant music synthesizer designed by C. Chapman from the Dutch/British “Elektor” magazine, circa 1977, and a FatMan synthesizer kit from PAiA Electronics. I play them through an ancient Kustom 200 guitar amplifier, which I’ve caused to smoke at least twice. The beginning is my K2 being powered on and tuned across 80 meters. I cheated and used a real gong at the end which a good friend went to the trouble of finding and buying in China, but I fed the sound through a PIC Polywhatsit designed by John Becker and described in Britain’s “Everyday Practical Electronics,” December 2001.
If anyone wants to sing along, it seems to me that the words are: ” – Sol-Der Smo-Oke, – Sol-Der Smoke (repeat over and over) “
Music, like all home-brew, is never truly done. Next time I’ll try to get a theremin working again – there’s a radio-circuitried musical instrument!
If my grandson has kept the site up, there may be garage band music of his and mine on MySpace under Mikeandtheceiling.
In the homebrew spirit, I tried to make all the sounds with instruments which I had soldered together myself. These were a Formant music synthesizer designed by C. Chapman from the Dutch/British “Elektor” magazine, circa 1977, and a FatMan synthesizer kit from PAiA Electronics. I play them through an ancient Kustom 200 guitar amplifier, which I’ve caused to smoke at least twice. The beginning is my K2 being powered on and tuned across 80 meters. I cheated and used a real gong at the end which a good friend went to the trouble of finding and buying in China, but I fed the sound through a PIC Polywhatsit designed by John Becker and described in Britain’s “Everyday Practical Electronics,” December 2001.
If anyone wants to sing along, it seems to me that the words are: ” – Sol-Der Smo-Oke, – Sol-Der Smoke (repeat over and over) “
Music, like all home-brew, is never truly done. Next time I’ll try to get a theremin working again – there’s a radio-circuitried musical instrument!
If my grandson has kept the site up, there may be garage band music of his and mine on MySpace under Mikeandtheceiling.
Enjoy!
Mark “moj” Johnson
W8MOJ
W8MOJ
Speaking of homebrewing musical instruments, check out Raymond Scott, a man who definitely had the knack. http://raymondscott.com/ (especially look at the photos page) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Scott 73, Nicholas LaPointe, KB1SNG
Nice! Ditto the Raymond Scott and Harry Partch references…. ..
For those of you who might wish to venture into the world of computer music…http://www.csounds.com/ A bit off-topic..but you never know. 73 XE1GXG
Sadly John Becker is no longer with us, he became a silent key a couple of years back and is much missed by those of us that followed his articles in EPE, and communicated with him through email and on the EPE forum.
Tom Polk, a radionut, built a Tannerin for Brian Wilson’s live tour: http://www.tompolk.com/Tannerin/Tannerin.html Gil