vick tory us

BENCHMARK--> Colin finishes the looping station, I finish the Etch-A-Skletch. A huge hurdle to get over, and (technically) one day before the performance, still many a hurdle to go. As of now, Colin has to check, recheck, and triple check all his cassette tape players and make a slew of new loop tapes, not to mention learn how to play the thing. I have to make an analog visualizer using a fan, mirrors, a turntable, lights, and camera. More importantly, I have to figure out how the time base corrector works because my entire set up is banking on this one piece of equipment.

Doom

I made a vow to finish the looper today, then Doom.
I custom velcrode each tape player for its special spot. When it came time to attach the alligator clips, I opened one of the tape players to fix a small connection with the wires inside. Everything still fine, all fixed and ready. Then, putting it back together, something falls out...

















This is part of one of the only two switches I need on the whole thing. Each switch operates on two of these impossibly tiny things, which are impossibly close together. Well i shouldn't say impossibly, but improbably. I had a thumb's chance in a blender, and I proceeded to knock out all of them and smush two trying to fix it.

That was on the first out of eight. I somehow got myself to continue and finished the other seven fine. I am kicking myself and in desperate need of the perfect tape player! If you have information on where that one is, report it to the proper authorities. I sorta of finished, now I sorta feel like I can't go to sleep.
Almost So Close:

f-a-b-r-i-c-s & f.e.l.t

Etch-A-Skletchs new home is a Dutch Master box covered in obnoxiously colored felt. I actually really like the color combinations but I appear to be in the minority.



Colin finished upholstering the looping station and it looks amazing. All he has left to do is attach the industrial strength velcro to the case and cassette players and solder some alligator clips. He also is adding blinking lights from a bike so the thing is a light show as well.

When I woke up at 7:30am, and opened my door...

...this is what I saw:

VDO sandwich mixer

Just finished a super simple vdo mixer. Got the schematics from Karl Klomp (awesome video bending artist from the Netherlands) but instead of making it look professional in a nice enclosure like he did, I put it in a pink plastic sandwich case and made it look like one of those aliens from batteries not included. Once I get some leds or xmas lights in there it will glow all pretty like.

Sk1-VDO-out

It is finished. Crazy lines, change patterns with different sounds and bends...glorious.

whats happening at 1:34am at the house

Colin is busy being awesome making a loopstation out of our collection of portable cassette tape players. Fitting 8 cassette tapes into an old type writer case, 4 of which have radio capabilities for FM bending, another 4 having recording capabilities, and all of them having tape speed control, will make this a truly fucking great instrument when paired with a mixer and a bunch of tape loops.



I'm finishing up installing RCA video outputs for my Sk1. Getting the schematics from Gijs and benthack, I have two different video outs to choose from. More on this once I get the damn thing to work.

playskool toy amp life ire

We have a few of these toy cassette tape players that we are bending. On this one I installed two 1/8th inch inputs with individual volume control, master on/off switch, input cut off switch, and a pot to control the tape playback speed. Once we have a few more done team awesomonster and batt trees wreck wired can go mobile for gorilla performances anywhere anytime just using toys.

playskool cricket stomper

Colin bent and painted this drummmmachine. Two pitch bends, fine and coarse, with three body contacts. The toy has a demo mode for each of the instruments so its great for setting up beats and then destroying them with the body contacts.

cassette tape record player

The idea was to make a record player using a tape player circuit. Let the motors and gears from the walkman turn the record. I wanted to cover the record in cassette tape so instead of using a needle to make sound I could use a tape head. This attempt was not successful because I was to sloppy and relied to much on cardboard and hot glue. Also, the cassette tape didn't work to well going in circles. We decided we have to Edison style and use tubes, that way we could have longer or shorter tape loops depending on the width of the tube. And then from that point making a mellowman esque instrument is definitely possible by just adding more tape heads. More on that when the time comes.

Etch-A-Skletch

Working on bending a video Etch-A-Sketch toy. Many many exciting possibilities with this circuit. Constantly changing fields and bands of color mixing up with grids and lines and static. Just wonderful. All bends done by touching the circuit with my fingers in different places with different amounts of pressure. Also has a cartridge bay which makes the possibilities of interface absolutely limitless. I plugged in a Sega Genesis game (Tiny Toons Adventures) and could bend the Skletch by touching the Sega game. What am going to do is put the circuit in new housing which will look pretty and safely allow the insides to be accessible. I am also working on modifying an Atari joystick so it can be plugged into the Skletch and create bends based on its movements. Other ideas for the cartridge bay is to somehow attach a real Etch-A-Sketch to create bends.