EDRUPT - My Speakers
Special web release for an electro track by me.
The story of EDRUPT is an esoteric mystery of NASA’s Apollo moon missions. Did you know that the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was the first computer built with integrated circuits a.k.a. chips? Containing 4,100 chips strung together by hand with wire wrap and solidified inside clear epoxy, the AGC was used in all of NASA’s manned moon missions. Details of its operation have been disclosed, but one of the computer’s designers included a strange and poorly documented machine instruction called EDRUPT. It was used only once in the mission, during the phase when the Lunar Module made its descent toward the moon’s surface under digital control. Retro computing enthusiasts can simulate the AGC’s Luminary 131 software on desktop machines but its found that the system breaks unless EDRUPT is removed from the code. One understanding of EDRUPT is that it instructed the computer to send data to an unknown destination elsewhere in the spacecraft. But why is EDRUPT a missing piece of the puzzle? What was contained in the data it sent? And… what or who was the intended recipient?
cassette decks, FX procs, free mp3 downloads.
I got a sweet cassette deck recently, thanks Lisa! Its a JVC KD-10 with silver face, VU meters, and Dolby NR. Its getting harder to find a good cassette deck. The belts get old and the little wheels just stop spinning. Thats why I want to give a thumbs up to this JVC KD-10. It records crisp and loud and its super easy to use. Its working so strong that it recorded cleanly on a ’sticky’ cassette… I was re-using a TDK SA100 that was lying around. It seemed fresh and sounds great but about halfway through the tape, it got so sticky that the deck can’t even REW or FF. When I took the tape out and did the old ‘twirly twirly emergency rewind on a pencil’ trick it was really sluggish and wouldnt twirl smooth. So I can’t recommend using old TDK SA100’s. That ‘Super Avilyn’ shit in the formula is funkin’ out in 2010. My point is, this JVC cassette deck doesn’t care that the tape was sticky, it just powered thru it in REC mode and captured solid sounds. (I cleaned it afterward)
Anyway, back to the JVC KD-10. Its a solid machine. It seems like JVC made it future-proof enough to survive. The only work I did was take the top off and spray the electrical contacts with MG chemicals super contact cleaner (a.k.a. the magic spray). The deck wasnt recording on one side until I sprayed inside the MIC IN jacks on the front panel. Thats related to its AUTOMATIC INPUT SELECT feature; the line in audio from the rear panel has to travel thru the normals of the MIC IN jacks. Over time these get dirty and lose connection. So get out the long red straw and squirt it in there good then work the jack in and out fast while ur bumpin these tunes:
Here’s two live jams straight to cassette, recorded 2/5/2010. The mixer and FX (and cassette deck) are the only things that aren’t handmade. Its a trip to remember how this project started 2.5 years ago with some 808 clone modules I built, mounted in an old silverware box, and called it the Big Box o’ Techno. I got hooked and I’ve been adding pieces to the system ever since. The 808 kick, snare, and hihat are actually where I stopped cloning stuff and started designing things with more of a piecemeal approach, borrowing some ideas from classic synths, Forrest Mims III, Electronotes, Don Lancaster, Brice Ward, Barry Klein, and internet information. [more books] I guess what I’m going for is analog equipment that composes music in real time, and I get to mix what comes out.
On these recordings I was trying out another recent score, a Boss SE-70 effects processor. This thing sounds killer and its only half-rack size. The reverbs are pretty good, about as rich as the Yamaha SPX1000 that I use normally, and a million times better than my Roland SRV-3030 (a thin and crappy sounding unit…not recommended) Anyhow, I have the SE-70 set up for ambience on the kick, snare, and hihats on this tape. BTW, the pitch shifters and multitap delays in the SE-70 are insane! And it has a crazy reverse playback sampler. Thumbs up Boss. I could use another SE-70.
I’d like to add more synthetic speech to my music. I’m about to experiment with modifying a Franklin BES-1240 talking Spanish-English dictionary. It can only say one word at a time, but that’s OK. My plan is to stick it inside the BBoT, and build a trigger interface circuit thats wired into the Franklin’s enter button (or whatever), so I can sequence it automatically. A robotic voice that repeats a word every 8 bars, or 16 bars, or 32 bars, whatever. That should be easy with a CD4536 timer chip. Which words to use? Hmm wait and see. Probably “BASS” (duh!), “SCIENCE”, or maybe just “DIE”. If the Franklin BES-1240 mod isn’t too hard I’ll publish it so you can try. It could be the secret weapon for breaking into the Latin Top 40 market.
Also on the subject of trigger input mods, check out the Trigger Mouse by Gijs Gieskes. Its really smart - a simple shortcut to sequencing stuff on the computer screen with analog hardware. It might seem like a backwards thing to do, but if you dig Roland TR-x0x drums then you’ll appreciate the video demonstration of a TR-909 stuttering youtube clips. Awesome idea Gijs. Maybe this circuit will work in the Franklin?
Finally, I will pay my respects to MC Howards Electronics in Austin. It was a great place but it closed recently after 30 years in business. Picture a grocery-store sized surplus electronics store full of all kinds of components. I learned a lot by browsing the shelves. If your city has something like it, maybe its time pay them a visit.
