Tin Can Synth Jam: Recent Episodes
Juanito Moore
I've built a radically DIY synthesizer out of electronic components and tin cans and paper bags. Listen to me wrestle mightily with it, trying to get it to make tolerable sounds!
Welcome to the first new episode in a WHILE! If you're thirsty for more regularly scheduled TCSJ content, check out https://www.twitch.tv/tincansynthjam/schedule
which will show you when I'm going to be streaming live every week.
If you're just plain thirsty, maybe get some water.
In this episode, I talk about circuit design and brag about my new module, NyquistNightmare. You can hear it a lot in this episode, and I'm working on an automatic gain control circuit that will let you hear it even better in my next episode.
In which I explore my Doubleplusbass kick drum prototype and my RumbleKikBoom proto-prototype, get really into some nice grooves, find myself extracting fascinating noise textures out of a few ultra-simple modules, and have a lot of fun.
Me talking about synthesizer stuff that's been happening, and then me doing a pretty laid back 135BPM techno jam with plenty of breaks for interesting sounds and a couple samples.
Without listening to be sure, this may be my favorite episode so far. A passage in the middle even caused me to get goosebumps and tears. Much less rhythmic than almost all of my previous jams, but of COURSE in the last third that pesky kick drum sneaks in :D
I really like this episode. Much much much techno. And then toward the end I think I figured out what the problem is with my EasyEi8ht trigger sequencer, so I can get to fixing that.
This was recorded at PlayThink Festival 2021 while a chair-dance class was underway. Listening to your environment through headphones (and especially while being processed by a modular synthesizer) is wonderful, and highly recommended.
I built a new microphone! And I sounded so good to myself that I wound up talking for like fifteen minutes.
My goal with this episode was to use my new mic to record a vocal sample onto one of my voltage-controllable ISD1820 chips (so noisy, don't know why) and pitch it into something interesting with one of my sequencers, then use that exact same sequence to control two other "quantizable" sound sources, first, my Atari Punk Console x 1.5 and then one of my Braids on a simple waveform.
Also, contains my first ad, "brought to you by the Modular for the Masses EasyEi8ht trigger sequencer"
I listened to Podular Modcast's recent interview of Captain Credible who I'm ashamed to admit was unknown to me previously, and he talked about his creative process. He builds electronic musical instruments and then, without rehearsal or plans, gets up in front of crowds and performs! The courage!!!!
I don't rehearse either, which I will now pretend is on purpose (it's not)... but I will recognize the value in a raw and honest approach to improvisation. The struggle of a person to wrest something pleasing -- or at least artistic -- from equipment can be art, even if the product is challenging.
http://www.captaincredible.com/abc/
https://podularmodcast.fireside.fm/
My first outdoor episode! I hoped to be able to talk to people and let them play my djembe, but turning on my synth's speakers created runaway feedback because my microphone is a bare elecret capsule so... Not a lot of rhythmic or tonal content in this one, but there's LOTS of WONDERFUL ambient audio.
The massive worldwide synth live-streaming event of the year was this past weekend, and I got to participate! But I wasn't as happy with the jam as I feel like I could have been, so to make up for it, I recorded a podcast episode. This is lots better LOL
This is my first jam with my Mutable Instruments Peaks module. Still in a tin can obviously. It's a LFO/envelope generator, quite complex, quite versatile. It's going to take some time for me to figure it out!
A lot of the drumming on this jam is just me mashing buttons on my (tin-can-version) EasyEi8ht trigger sequencer. I'm thrilled with how easy this sequencer is to use, and the simplicity of just spamming the keys and getting pretty cool beats out of it!
Follow me at Instagram: @juanitohm
This session was streamed on: https://twitch.tv/tincansynthjam
Expect to hear plenty of my Wav Trigger module playing vocal snippets, a whole lot of my noise module (white noise, shimmer, sample-and-hold weirdness), lots and lots of dynamic range, and on the right channel, you can hear my phone shouting at the cell towers. Thanks, Verizon, turns out I can hear you now dang it.
Only 45 minutes! Enjoy?
There's a filter ping pattern through this entire 52 minute jam!
At about 30 minutes, a section begins that's just incredibly heavy. One of my VCO modules has three VCOs inside, plus a VCF plus an LED saturation circuit, so instead of pitching one or all of the VCOs, I turned up the resonance on the VCF and sent a CV to the cutoff of that part of the module. This gave me the heaviest growling bass drone. Strange, right? I've never gotten decent bass out of mixed VCOs plus whatever resonance was being added by the filter! But anyway, get to that section of this episode even if you ignore everything else. It's GREAT.
I'm working on a trigger sequencer module. So far it's working okay, but needs some tweaking to get it to recognize triggers when I'm playing it naturally. In this jam, I play extensively with the "freestyle" mode I programmed in, which turns out to be amazing fun. In the coming months, I expect to have this be an actual product for actual purchase. Modular for the Masses Easy Ei8ht, if you're in the market.
Very lots of drones and noise. I'm having a hard time creating beats with my new trigger sequencer (a very DIY SWT16) so you can hear me talk about my new project, an eight channel trigger sequencer that's going to be developed into an actual product you can actually buy. It'll feature fancy Cherry MX keyswitches and lots of delicious, delicious easy-to-useness.
It's my first long jam with my Sparkfun/robertsonics Wav Trigger module. Near the middle, I play with using it as a sort of granular synthesis engine, which is fun. Some of the filtered drones in the middle-end made me get feelings.
I record many more of these than I upload, and I don't remember this one at all. So here it is, without any introduction. Besides this.
A new jam! This starts weird, gets really weird, stops being quite so weird, and then gets kind of good.
The last five or seven minutes are actually pretty good. In the coming weeks, keep an eye on my Bandcamp page for an album of the best bits of the jams I wring from my modular synth.
https://electronicjuanito.bandcamp.com
This jam features a microphone that sounds really great until I plug it in all the way, seven flashing LEDs that somehow make chirping bird noises, three entire Mutable Instruments Braids modules, a WHOLE LOT of experimental rhythmless somewhat atonal sounds, and me talking. Yay!
I spend some time figuring out my new sampling module. I spend a lot of time exploring the feedback going through one of my My Favorite Reverb modules. Usually the feedback audio path on those is useless -- most of the algorithms have too much going on to make feedback make much sense. BUT it makes for some interesting breathy tones and notes.
Skip forward to minute 5 and hear gunshots just outside my house. Well, outside my neighbor's house. Fifteen shots fired. A car zooming off right after. And then? A beep. Nobody was hurt, just some holes in the front of my neighbor's house.
Be well.
Okay this one is weird. Last episode I played with my ISD1760 sample player, which is a tough module to use for rhythmic content. This episode I'm playing with my newest module, a rusty rusty rusty tin can lid with four ISD1820 chips behind it, which are 20-second voice memo chips that can only PLAY or RECORD. I figured out a way to get them to play on a trigger event even if they're already playing, check The Internet for that schematic if you want to learn how.
Anyway, the 1820 is easier to use, and it'll be a FUN module to incorporate into my jams once I really get used to it.
The dynamic range on this is large. The middle part is SLOW. There's plenty of pretty atonal or non-musical content. I'm enjoying experimenting, stretching my ears, and hopefully stretching yours too!
I guess I accidentally took a break from recording.
I'm very pleased to be back at it. This is a difficult time. Covid cases are on the rise. Responsible pandemic behavior has become a political identity marker. Black Lives Matter protests are continuing quietly. And we're learning.
In this jam, I use my brand new module, a very difficult to use sample playback module that's playing the Amen Break (thank you -- and rest in power -- Gregory Coleman, yet another Black musician whose labor was exploited for decades without compensation). There's a whole section, a LONG section, in the middle where the jam takes a very droney attitude. I'll be listening to this several times through, I think it's got some depth.
I have always loved the textures even the most boring field recordings can bring to synth jams. I lost the link to the Jathilan field recording.... but I hope it's enjoyable even without that link!
BONUS EPISODE!
This is the first synth jam I did that I was really happy with. It was recorded right after Burt Lancaster passed away, RIP Burt.
I finished this jam, and felt instantly that I had created something I could listen to again and enjoy it.
My favorite moments are the lazer sounds about 16 minutes in, and the melancholy sound of the resonating filter over the simple oscillator sound about 34 minutes in. That sound can make me well up with tears.
Email me here: tincansynthjam@gmail.com
I'm Ozerik over on Youtube and Instructables
Follow me on Instagram
I built a microphone pre-amp! So I use that just a little bit. I focused more on one of my diode ladder filters and what sounds it can being to a wandering bassline.
Things get really quiet and atmospheric there in the second half of the jam.
Email me here: tincansynthjam@gmail.com
I'm Ozerik over on Youtube and Instructables
Follow me on Instagram
This is much faster than my usual stuff.
Gabber is this weird super-fast dance music with crazy overclipped kicks and aggression all over the place. I'm trying my hand at some faster stuff!
Email me here: tincansynthjam@gmail.com
I'm Ozerik over on Youtube and Instructables
Follow me on Instagram
Good luck listening to this one!
I tried to stay away from anything rhythmic, or at least with a kick drum. I may have succeeded. But it may be unlistenable.
This jam features some noises generated by my reverb circuits fed back into themselves.
Email me here: tincansynthjam@gmail.com
I'm Ozerik over on Youtube and Instructables
Follow me on Instagram
I'm really excited about this jam! My friend and DIY mentor Chris Beckstrom has been building synths and writing about it for at least two years before I started on this journey. One of his strengths is live-coding audio and visual effects.
We collaborated on this, with me sending audio and a seed-visual to him via Twitch, and he took the audio and created amazing visuals to go along with it.
Watch the performance here.
Email me here: tincansynthjam@gmail.com
I'm Ozerik over on Youtube and Instructables
Follow me on Instagram
I built a suboctavizer that I play with a lot in this jam.
What the circuit does is count the incoming wave peaks, and output a square wave signal that's half, a fourth or an eighth of the original frequency.
This one heavily features my new diode ladder filter. Roland's famous TB-303 synthesizer gets a great deal of its iconic sound from a diode ladder filter that I thought of a lot while I was building this diode ladder. 303 filters are NOISY, though, and this one is very very quiet.
The resonance is high, and ends up being fatiguing.
Also, my sound recorder had bad connections somewhere, that's why the sound keeps being bad.
Email me! tincansynthjam@gmail.com
Find me on Youtube or Instructables! ozerik
Follow me on Instagram! @juanitohm
This one starts out at 97.1 beats per minute. Same as my temperature. The pandemic has us all taking our temperatures much more often than normal.
This journey starts out hypnotic. Gets faster. Gets a bit noisy, and I feel like ends pretty weak.
This one's rough. I have lots of fun with my MI Braids module, set to VOWL. Getting vowel sounds out of a modular synthesizer is a challenge. You need a waveform with plenty of harmonics -- a sawtooth, for instance. Then you need several bandpass and low-pass and high-pass filters, with their resonances and cutoffs cleverly adjusted just right to get vowel sounds.
And the human brain can just create those resonant filters with our larynxes and faces with hardly even the slightest thought. Mind boggling.
The MI Braids can do all that too in one module.
Mmmmm, lots of ambient vibes from this one. Randomly generated sequences! Very wobbly sounds from a cheap "100 Kinds of DSP Reverberation" circuit with the clock crystal replaced with a voltage-controllable clock, and plenty of lush, lush reverb.
This jam starts out with the sound of an Atari Punk Console. The iconic circuit was designed by Forrest Mims, who named it the Stepped Tone Generator and who was... a Young Earth Creationist (sigh).
You'll hear my 909 hat, both my 808 kids, and most musically, my extremely DIY Mutable Instruments Braids module.
For the past three years I've been building a synthesizer out of electronic bits, usually without any circuit board of any kind, just soldering the parts to each other, and enclosing the circuits into tin cans. I wrap the cans in strips of brown paper from shopping bags, using wood glue, and stick the cans together in a frame made of wood from old pallets.
It may be the world's most sophisticated and cheaply made synthesizer. There's no way to know for sure.
Each week I plug it in and wrangle it to try to get interesting sounds out of it. Join me on my journey!