the pt80 is a pretty cool little keyboard. it has accompaniment and a chord section, leds that light up with the keys and a rom card slot. the card it came with has ‘thriller’, ‘karma chameleon’, ’still rock and roll to me’ and ‘dont be cruel’ on it. not sure how elvis fits in with those.. but its a sweet selection.
i added a pitch knob which takes it down pretty slow, and when used with the body contacts can drop down to sheer noise. most of the switches are bends that accentuate different drum sounds such as making the kick synthy or turning the hi hats into a snare sound. there is also a tone with a photocell that controls its pitch. in some light settings it gets this interesting filtered drum sound. you can hear it in the clip below.
Platter Sliced Bacon is the band i was in from 91 until 94 along with my brother Brendan, Chris Newberry and John Winland .
inspired by the Butthole Surfers and similar groups, PSB was a noisy and chaotic affair, with lots of feedback and effects. this was not the kind of music most people in our small college town wanted to hear. despite that we managed to play some shows to the general shock and confusion of those attending, and also spent alot of time making experimental recordings in our make shift studio.
my brother and i both played drums while Chris played guitar and John the bass. the band had also included at various times Chris Davis, Chuck Stretch, Matt Flynn and Jason Stump.
John recently setup a myspace page for PSB that has images and recordings. ‘coming down’ is a good example of the kind of studio work we were doing with the 4 track, while ‘60 miles’ is more of what we sounded like live.
i happen to have the good fortune of being in temporary possession of a Roland TR 909. it was loaned to me by my friend Aubrey, who used to run the Odic Force record label in Detroit and used this 909 on the Odic Force recordings.
when it came into my care it was in poor shape due to years of hard rockin the beats. almost all of the pots were very noisy and several of them didnt work at all. cosmetically it also pretty dirty.
i obtained a pot replacement kit from ‘chipsforbrains’ on ebay and went on to fix the 9 up.
909 before - dirty with techno funk
interior view
some pots removed.. the one with gold bases are the new ones
new pots close up
and here it is all cleaned up and with the nice new pots with everything working right again! time for some beats. next up - 909 mods?
the classic circuit bending candidate - the Texas Instruments Speak & Spell. this one has a pretty standard set of bends - pitch control, 2 short glitches, 1 long glitch, hold switch with release button, body contact, startup sound loop and a reset button. there is also a cv input with amount that controls the pitch.
this guy has been a mainstay in the studio and has been used live many times.
here are a couple of sound samples of it:
basic bends - long glitch, pitch and hold:
this is a held glitch being modulated throught the cv inpuit:
…….
Speak & Read - 2002
this was my favorite but it died. a Speak & Read that i removed the button membrane on. the Read is a little more wordy than the Spell and has some interesting glitches where it spits out weird phrases. this also has the standard bends - pitch, glitches, hold and distort. what was really cool about it was a bend that modified the hold so that it would change over time.
heres the glitch modify if you want to try it:
(i tried this recently on another read but it didnt work.. so maybe not on all revisions..)
……
Speak & Read - 2003
this one has a 555 based lfo and photo cell both to control pitch. also regular pitch knob, glitch and hold. looks pretty nice but ended up not being a playable as the others, although you can get some nifty scratching type sounds from it using the photo cell.
UpliNk’s album ‘VIVIVIX’ has just been released on the net label FutureKomp, and is available for FREE download!
VIVIVIX was written and recorded primarily in 2006 and wrapped up in 2007 with a very limited release of a couple dozen copies given out to friends. this album represents the culmination of 10 years of UpliNk, and certainly the finest music i have put out to date. it is also the most layered, subliminal, sycronistic and overtly occult work that i have done.
10 tracks created with a diverse array of synthesizers, drum machines, software, circuit bent toys, samples and home made electronics.
much thanks to FutureKomp for this release! there is also a lot of other great music there that is definitely worth checking out!
in my neighborhood if someone doesnt want something that’s usable they just put it out on the street. ive gotten lots of great ground scores this way! you can find plenty of speakers, records, books, random electronics, etc. as well as ubiquitous crt monitors.
one day i came upon this rabbit in a big cardboard box full of old clothes and junk..
in SF there are a lot of plastic owls on buildings to scare away pigeons. i wonder if the plastic rabbit is supposed to scare away something as well? perhaps carrots..
i brought it to the park with me and took some pictures. kinda like in the movie amelie, but i was inspired by someone i used to work with who had a yoda keychain that they brought wherever they traveled, and took pictures of it around the world.
