![You suck at protoshop. No, you [i]really[/i] oo.](http://blog.gg8.se/images/you-suck-at-photoshop-you-really-do-your-awful.png)
Originality Award Monthly November: burnkit2600
December 11th, 2008The November winner of Nonfinite’s Originality Award Monthly is Burnkit2600 for their album This Is The Sound. Burnkit2600 are also avid circuit benders. For example, me and Veqtor are planning to bend our Alesis HR-16 after seeing his HR-16 info page.
Congratulations to a well deserved prize!
Anime Wallpapers (Asuka Langley from Evangelion)
December 11th, 2008
Thanks to this picture by Ignatz I found this wallpaper by this artist. (<- Click that link for more)
I usually use a plain black background instead of wallpapers. (Opera is covering the screen most of the times anyway) But I felt that I needed a change, so I’m using this wallpaper instead. 
Fun with NYC video billboards
December 10th, 2008Can video billboards normally displaying advertising be transformed into art? Three artists agree they can. These billboards are placed allover NYC at subway stations, and apart from spreading commercial messages, they make perfect light sources for unauthorized art.
The Pixelator is IMO the most innovative of the three. By using a grid of walls and diffusion gel, you get a live pixel effect on any TV screen.
Light criticism by Anti-Advertising Agency and Graffiti Research Lab is using the billboards as a light source by covering it with a board with message cut out. The messages are anti-commercial, like NYC’s TRUE GRAFFITI PROBLEM, GRAFFITI and GRAFFITI = ADVERTISING
You should check out the rest of Graffiti Research Lab’s projects as well.
The idea of the The Abstractor is to mask out everything shown on the screen but a thin horizontal line, and so make an abstract subset of the TV image.
Click on any of these links for a better description and instructions how to build that project. Each link also contains videos of the project in action.
Through: Project October
New song draft: Knarkkatt
December 9th, 2008Thought I’d post this. It’s the first draft of a sort of chip+ambient song I’m working on.
The chip sounds are pretty melodic, described by some as “shimmering” Actually the melody is from “Belsebub Till Frukost” which can be heard on my myspace. (Skip to about 3 minutes into the song)
The pads are made with Reaktor and are somewhat detuned and played to color the chords of the chip melody. The result is a really moody feeling.
Sorry for building a suspense and then ending abruptly, but it’ll make you enjoy it even more when it’s finished.
Download Knarkkatt (Draft 1)
ModularDuino - An Arduino Based Modular Synthesizer Concept
December 9th, 2008
General Description
The idea of using my Arduino for modular synth utilities started out as a crazy idea that I’m now starting to seriously like. The pictures above shows my first design, an oscillator. (I have plans for other modules, see the bottom of this post)
The left picture shows the first prototype where I tried to use PCM to produce the sound. That didn’t sound too good, so I built an 8-bit resistor ladder passive DAC. But I only hade enough of one resistor value, so I used only that value. This gives a non-linear output voltage response. (Distorsion) Additionally I’m only using 6 of the possible 8 bits, further degrading the sound quality. The input voltage response does not conform to any standard (Eg 1V/octave) but has a inversely proportional relationship (f(V)=c*1/V, where V is the voltage, c is some constant and f is the resulting frequency) This relationship is not completely unlike how a Gameboy responds to sound values that you write to it’s sound controller. However, surprisingly enough, it seemed almost impossible to hit musically dissonant intervals, so it seems like I did something right.
I could fix these things, but considering how much I like the itty-gritty lo-fi sound, I doubt that I will.
So, me and Veqtor hung out in Studio 6 at EMS, playing around with the Serge interacting with the Arduino. The result is the following sounds:
Sound Samples
Clean/Filtered side by side
This is a short sample to demonstrate what the Arduinoscillator could sound like in a typical modular setup.
Right channel: Clean
Left channel: Filtered by the Serge multimode filter, in LP mode, using an envelope. Various parameters are controlled by the Serge sequencer, and the seuencer is triggered randomly.
Arduinoscillator Glitch Mode
This sample demonstrates how the Arduinoscillator sounds when modulated by the Serge precision VCO, itself and the 50 Hz ground loop that it picked up from my finger. (Hehe)
It gives a pretty good idea of the waveform that this thing outputs.
Funky Arduino Acid
This is the result of my and Veqtor’s session at EMS, where we built a patch that controls the Arduinoscillator with the Serge analogue sequencer, a bit of Serge filter on that, some Serge generated drums. You get the idea.
Even though the oscillator waveform is a sine, it has some pretty smooth digital overtones, that together with the frequency response is perfect for funky acid, as this sample demonstrates.
Future ModularDuino plans
ModularDuino is so far just a concept, more than a truly useful product. The Arduino with it’s accessible design and relatively affordable price, has the potential of becoming a cheap lo-fi component for modular synthesizer users. Some people think that lo-fi sound and digital artefacts is only something bad. Whereas I think it has a place and can be really useful for producing certain sounds.
Anyway, here’s the roadmap for the project.
- Implement real 1 V/Octave frequency response for the Arduinoscillator. (Or keep it this way, hehe)
- Implement φM (Phase angle modulation. When most people FM, they means this) This can be done, but probably requires me to learn more about the Atmega168 controller on the Arduino and write some assembly code. Bricks will be shat.
- More waveforms can be added relatively easily.
- I’m also planning a delay module. The Arduino has the potential to store a buffer of about a second in RAM, which could be used to create a lo-fi 8-bit delay comparable to BBD delays.
- It’s pretty possible to make waveshapers or distorsion units with a characteristic digital sound.
- Envelopes, LFOs and perhaps sequencers with extended possibilities, editable code and a lo-fi touch.
- This is just a little dream of mine, but I would guess it’s not completely impossible to create a filter using the arduino. The most CPU intense part of most filter algorhithms is usually the resonance, so my idea is to solve that with an external feedback loop, while the Arduino emulates a 1-pole filter.
The last module might not be worth it, but the others can be achieved pretty easily, so check back regularly. I’m planning to release the code and schematics under a Creative Commons license at some point, but right now the code is a mess and the schematics only exist as prototypes on a breadboard, so bear with me.
I’d Also like to give a shout out to the crazy Aussie Sebastian Tomczak who’s a Gameboy fetishist and Arduino wiz. A little bird whispered in my ear that he’s planning yet another audio-related Arduino project. I’ll be waiting eagerly.
48 kHz and the number 168
December 7th, 2008Weird things… I don’t want to believe in things like the law of attraction but sometimes I’m starting to doubt. Like with number the number 168. I released an album on the now defunct Project168 (Go here instead) and I thought it was a cool number for some reason. And sure enough, I started noticing it “everywhere” like on car plates and other random places, but I thought that was just because I knew about it and actively thought about it. That was until I discovered that I was born on the 168th day of the year.
And then 48 kHz. I started using 48 kHz locally on my computer because my craptop laptop soundcard is designed for that frequency and thus produces less artefacts that way. So far so good, when suddenly during the last two days, several sound files not produced on my computer (And thus unaffected by my own sample rate policy) turned out to have that sample rate instead of the more standard 44.1 kHz or 96 kHz. And then the Blipfest live stream.
I still don’t seriously believe in that stuff, although it does tell you something about the human mind and its capability to imagine stuff and see what it want to see.
</weird rant>
Blipfest 2008 livestream
December 7th, 2008Live stream from the 8-bit music festival Blip Festival in NYC, USA. Will hopefully be up until the end of Sunday night, when the festival ends. Sponsored by 8bitcollective.
Pro Backlight for Gameboy (Highly delicious!)
December 2nd, 2008
Words can hardly describe how delicious these pictures are. The red one looks like a lava pond and blue one… so clean and so solid. I’m just trying to imagine how these would look IRL, which is giving me goosebumps. This mod by Nonfinite comes in several colors (See more pictures here) and it’s presumably made using ultra bright LEDs, bat wings and a mushroom from Lost Woods.
There will be DIY kits and modded units for sale at Blipfest, so be there.
Blip Festival advertising on 4chan
December 2nd, 2008
I just noticed this. Maybe this is old news, after all I haven’t visited f4ilchan in like OVER 9000 years. I heard moot broke up with AdBrite which would explain why they’ve accepted Blipfest as an ad publisher. I don’t mind, it helps spread the chip luv.
Blipfest general info:
Archaic game and home computer hardware is recast into the unlikely role of musical instrument and motion graphics workstation in the BLIP FESTIVAL 2008, a four-day event showcasing nearly 40 musicians and visual artists occupying the international low-res cutting edge. The Blip Festival takes place DECEMBER 4—7, 2008 at The Bell House, and is presented by Manhattan art organization THE TANK and NYC artist collective 8BITPEOPLES.
You can’t spell dinoaids without aids
December 1st, 2008You can’t spell dinoaids without aids, and that’s kind of the point.
( v v v clickie clickie! v v v )
