Fretless Acoustic Guitar

Family heirlooms. My brother gets the '28 Ford sedan with suicide doors. I got this guitar. (they were both in equal states of complete disrepair) 

The body is cracked, and someone tried to strip the finish before I got to it. The neck is bent too much to properly operate, and the bridge was providing a generous quarter-inch of extra room on top. 

So the frets were pulled and filled with MicroLite, then sanded smooth with 200-grit polishing pads. I took the old bridge out back and shot it. Had some tuning heads laying around (who doesn't) and strung it back up with the lower four of a D'Addario flatwound set, .056-.026W.

The new bridge is a block of walnut with .0625" rubber pads between the strings and body. The pad between the body keeps the bridge from sliding around and softens the sound of attack. 

Tuned 2/1 to a viola, C4, G4, D5, A5.

Recording the ShopBot

We set up a Zoom recorder with an XY m/s canceling mic to record the surfacing path of the CIF's ShopBot. The machine runs the perimeter of the table and planes it level. The cut noise is a bit erratic, occurring only when the bit catches a high spot. The router noise remains constant, but has an approach and decay from the mic position.

I was hoping for a bit of a doppler effect, but that might be achieved by putting some condensers at opposite ends of the table and panning them hard left and right to the capture device.

CIF Opening performance

On January 22, 2011, The Columbus Idea Foundry will hold its official reopening at its new location. Andrew Rahman, myself, and a few others are devising an audio performance for the event, utilizing both predetermined and live sonic properties that occur in a fabrication shop. The event will be recorded, then that recording transferred to a container housing an mp3 player. The sole function of the container is to play the audio event when accessed. 

On Wednesday Nov 24, Andrew and I had uninterrupted access to CIF for about four hours. We ran a bunch of power tools and hit all of the steel shelves with wood blocks. I'm not sure if Andrew recorded any of this, but I rolled a Tascam 488 with a Shure PG-81 to tracks 1-2.  Have to dump it down from cassette. 

The nonsense gave us two tangible pieces at days end. The first was an attachment to a drill that spins wooden blocks, the second was a thumb piano cut on the ShopBot.

More to come as this project unfolds.

www.columbusideafoundry.com

http://andrewrahman.bandcamp.com/

The Living Room

We'll be relocating the official work space to a studio at The Colmbus Idea Foundry at the end of December. One noteworthy incomplete project at the apartmoshere involved wiring the living room up with force sensing and light dependent resistors into an Arduino.  

Person's proximity to the LDR's hidden in the bric-a-brac, and FSR's under the carpet resulted in the playing of an audio synthesis program through the living room stereo (pc free). After a month or more of repositioning hardware, trying to match pairs of LDR's using "assorment packs" of unknown resistor values, and startling the housemates, the system was removed. 

Force sensing resistors under the carpet.

Walnut block with five LDR's recessed, which was positioned in the center of the room.

Quick Arduino Synth

getting a sense for how simple audio generation works with the Arduino platform. 

Auduino code available at 

http://code.google.com/p/tinkerit/wiki/Auduino

Seeeduino board with an Atmel 328

Seeed Studios have amazing things

http://www.seeedstudio.com/

first two pairs of potentiometers control a pitch and velocity each, and the fifth pot adds and subtracts. LED is from pin 13. the code is modifiable for chromatic and pentatonic mapping. 

this piece of hardware has stranded 22ga wire coming from the pots, but the prams for the board have solid copper.  the solder junctions were left uncoated for body contact points. 

this is proof of concept video. the victory is that it worked right off. 

poorish audio chain: android video phone sitting on top of the Vox Pathfinder. 

the enclosure is a hacked piece of electronic test equipment from Mendelson's Liquidation Outlet in Dayton, OH. http://www.meci.com/

it's best to go there in person. 

face plate is standard rack mount width, matching that Paia Vocoder kit tucked back in the arsenal. end product will be a plexi case for both, to be bussed together and used with external sound sources as well. 

my freaking eko kadet

the best luthier in ohio has my eko kadet. 
www.wrightfield.com


the body is made of some cheap italian mystery wood that shrank over the course of many years. in the restoration, cwright had to resize a new pick guard to compensate. photo is of the cheap plexi test fit. illustrator to PartWorks 2.5 conversion, cut on a ShopBot at the Columbus Idea Foundry   www.ColumbusIdeaFoundry.com

the boxes

first vessels for the relaxation oscillators based on circuits from the Paia graphite trace tannerin kits, 2009. Cosmos, by Carl Sagan, capacitance activated medical device, and a  surplus 5.56mm NATO ammo box keyed with micro switches.