Electric Gardens Music Festival - Sydney 2016

Electric Gardens Music Festival.

Australia Day weekend Sat January 23rd, 2016.
Centennial Park, Sydney

A much smaller line up than your average EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festival
though I kinda like this more. - Just 3 stages.
The BIG Festivals I feel are getting too big & possibly out of control.
Smaller festivals and old school clubs are returning electronic music to it's roots.

Pachanga Boys

I really enjoyed this festival and I think that part of the reason was the smaller crowd. There were fewer dickheads who were off their face on drugs and alcohol. Everyone that was there wanted to listen to the music. Don't get me wrong, I still love the big festivals but maybe the spectacle has taken over. Have the fireworks & special effects made the music secondary?

Nic Fanciulli

Nic's Facebook is here.

https://www.facebook.com/nicfanciulli

A great set Nic!

As I left the Electric Gardens, I started chatting with a random reviler who made very much the same comment about the demise of electronic music.
He quoted Fatboy Slim's statement that."EDM will crash & Burn".

I think that what FatBoy is referring to as "EDM" is the current Music Festival System. EDM used to be an underground movement but it is now mainstream and this popularity is corrupting it's soul.

John Digweed

My personal feelings are that electronic music & DJing is all about complicated rhythms, evolving baselines & leads. For me it's exciting to hear new mashups done on the fly. This requires a deep musical knowledge and experience that can't gained just from the studio. You have to play lots and lots of gigs to live audiences. All this requires a deep musical database.

Every performance should be different. Experimentation, improvisation & the odd mistake are all
part of the course. I suspect that many people at these big festivals just want to hear what is on the radio.

Dubfire & John Digweed

I'm hopeful that much of the audience at the BIG festivals will learn that real electronic music is more that just pressing a button and letting the special effects do the work for you.
Maybe they will migrate over to festivals like Electric Gardens where the DJs have to concentrate, count beats, and use primitive devices like records & 808 drum machines.

Dubfire

Erick Morillo

Fatboy Slim's computer asks the question: "Are we having fun yet?"


Eat Sleep Rave Repeat.


Right about Now.


FatBoy Slim pays homage to greats of the past.


Psycho Killer

ARP 2500 DIY cabinet

Some more pics from the mysterious Japanese ARP2500 DIY cabinet.
http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/arp-2500-nlc.html

Andrew of  NLCs is working on some of the modules.
They will eventually be reunited. For the moment I thought it would be good to document the case in its current state.

Before this system arrived we had no idea what to expect.
Five of the DIY modules are just a panel with no PCB behind.

So far Andrew has identified (from right to left):
1.  Reverb (extreme right) - the one with the big black dial.
2. Matrix mixer ??
3. DIY module - dunno - so far a mystery (3rd from the right)
4. Fixed Bandpass Filter (4th from the right)
5.  Clock (5th from the right) - this one uses numitrons.
6. Empty module A - just a faceplate with 20 pots & 8 sockets
7. Empty Module B - faceplate with 22 pots & 10 sockets
8. Empty Module C - Current meter
9. Empty Module D -  faceplate with 26 pots & a simple meter.
10.  ??
11. Empty Double Module - 39 pots, 25 switches, 3 lamps.

6.  Empty module A
     Twenty pots & Eight 3.5mm sockets

     Wonder what it was intended to be?

7. Empty Module B - faceplate with 22 pots & 10 sockets.

8. Empty Module C - Current meter

9. Empty Module D -  faceplate with 26 pots & a simple meter.

 

10. Empty Double Module - 39 pots, 25 switches, 3 lamps. 

      This is a monster of a module.

      I wonder  what it was intended to be.

      The pots seem fine, though most of the switches are Kaput.

 

If you the viewers have any suggestions as to what to turn these empty modules into please let me know.

This is going to be a long term labor of love.

Korg Volca Beats - A Modding, Circuit bending & Hackers Guide

The Korg Volca Beats is an awesome drum machine which can only be made better with the help
of some mods and a bit of hacking. There are quite a few mods out there already so we (Cobramatic & I)
decided to have a go at ours. I'd particularly like to thank Instructables & Darren Glen.
I've placed links to all theirs ideas at the bottom of this post.

Disclaimer

The actions described in this post will void your warranty and may damage your equipment. I take no responsibility for your soldering ability or actions.

This blog posting covers the obvious improvements like the snare, adding midi & getting individual outs for each voice.Plus there is a bit of circuit bending. If you have discovered any new mods please let me know.
I'd be happy to put a link to your page in this post.

First remove the battery compartment, then detach the two PCBs from one another.

This is the top PCB board.
Notice the rather tiny SMD components.
You will need a magnifier, a good light and as fine a point tip as you can find, as well as very thin solder. 

The mods are in the lower right corner.

Of course just opening this box will void your warranty. So only do this if you are confident you can solder onto SMD components.

This is a closeup of the first mod. It's replacing a missing capacitor.
This involves soldering a capacitor across these two points. I chose to solder leads first then attach the cap.
I used a 104 ceramic. ... 0.1 uF (5mm pitch)

Once you have done this it's a good idea to secure the leads with electrical tape or glue stick to the board. I found this out the hard way as after I was done I decided to try my hand at a bit of circuit bending and in doing so inadvertently undid all my work.

And a good bottle of Red will do wonders if you need extra help to steady your nerves.
Today I'm using a Taylors Red. This is a lovely 2001 drop from the Clare Valley of South Australia.

http://www.taylorswines.com.au/

Thus the second mod point was tried. This involves soldering a capacitor across a resistor.

I wanted to test if varying the capacitor size would affect the sound. Yes it does !!!
The interesting ones were 105 & 104s.

My idea was to use a SPDT switch to access both sounds.

From another angle.
At this point secure your leads with tape or glue.
Don't do as I did and leave them to float.

All these tests will put strain on your solder joints and lead to tears.

To make matters worse when the second mod failed the solder came off along with a resistor which now meant I have to replace both caps and at least one resistor.  :-(

This is what I should have done from the beginning. Glue stick rules !!

These accidents happen for a reason. In accidently removing the resistor we were forced to test replacements. I decided to replace the 1k SMD resistor with a 100k linear pot.

Now its time to drill holes into the front panel and install switches, pots and the midi out socket.

This is the ideal drill for that midi socket. It reminds me of the "Mole" from Thunderbirds.

The panel is quite strange. It's metal over plastic

.Nice!

Next the Midi out jack:
Just 3 connections are required. These are labeled VD, GND and TX.

 This gives a 16 step sequencer, which can trigger 10 sounds over MIDI, with adjustable tempo.

This pic is from Paul's drum which has a different mod - more circuit bending. However, the midi connections are no different from mine.

Next individual drum outs

Paul's mod is slightly different to mine and uses switches rather than pots to allow quicker swapping between sounds.

Useful Links.
+ Instructables
+ Darren Glen - Snare Mod hack
+ Circuit Surgeon
+ Utopian Labs - Midi Mod
+ Muffs - Cobramatic lament  - My Mod BLEW UP!!!! – Please give me some love (A Novel)
+ Muffs - Volca Skiff
+ Muffs - Volca beats PSU for Euro
+ Muffs - Volca BeatsE

Buchla-Volca Bass

Published on Jan 14, 2016

This vid is a unedited take. The sounds are just from the hacked Volca.
I'ts not a TB303 but it's not too shabby either,,... esp considering its price.

The 208 is syncing the volca, and also provides its power.
I'm not finished modding this .. the box is too small so I will prob end up putting this into a bigger case.

Here is more information on the volca bass hack:
http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2016...

Buchla 100 at the Library of congress

Great post on the legendary Buchla 100.
It now resides at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.
I reckon this should really be on display at the Smithsonian. 
It's music room in the American History section in shows classical European instruments for some reason.

http://blogs.loc.gov/music/2016/01/unboxing-the-buchla-model-100/?loclr=eapab

This is actually not the "original" commissioned system.
That system is at Mills college in Oakland, Ca.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkOV2v3xQm0
It was originally at the San Francisco Tape Music Centre).