Big Box o’ Techno

I’m calling this one the “Big Box o’ Techno” for now until a better name appears. How else can I sum it up… analog laptop? Wooden groovebox? Its two synths, a sequencer, and drum machine stuffed into a wooden box about the size of a medium pizza. The pieces are mostly original designs and all are hand-built on perfboard over the course of about 6 months. It consists of a mix of discrete digital logic, op amps, and transistor circuitry - basically all 1970’s technology. It is definitely a work in progress.

Its job is to make funky techno muzik!

It has no memory or storage, so each performance is a live improvisation.

BBoT 1 - “hello world”

BBoT + circuitbent delay remix: Selda - “Gine Haber Gelmis”

BBoT + “bird box” generative sequencer + circuit bent delay (electric gongs)

Everything in the box plays in synchronized rhythm. A whole-note tempo clock input drives it all. This works because its based on phase-locked loop (PLL) technology that multiplies an incoming tempo clock up to faster rhythmic divisions. Its not MIDI, and there are no microcontrollers, Arduinos, yadda yadda. (Does anybody else find the word Arduino annoying?) Someday I’ll figure that stuff out but for now I’m using the good old CD4046 phase-lock loop chip. The chief limitation of this method is that the system takes time to stabilize (lock) when the incoming tempo changes, and the results can be pretty cacophonous as the PLLs hunt for the new tempo… about 30 seconds in the worst case. Its analog technology, folks. Once they stabilize though, it is rock solid.

The Big Box o’ Techno is used extensively in the music of Operation Playmate.

Also check out the BBoT’s new sibling bass/speech generator,  Another Box o’ Techno .

 Here’s whats in the box:

Roland TR-808 clone - My favorite analog drum sound! Just a partial clone though… only kick, snare, open and closed hi-hats for now. It makes crazy sounds when I circuit-bend the 808 drums by licking two fingertips and probing around. You would too. Hott.

“Triple Polyrhythm” sequencer - Generates three streams of rhythm pulses in sync with an incoming tempo clock. User input is a set of six decimal thumbwheel switches. It basically concocts step-beats via a minimal algorithm. Its a bit tricky to use! Its built with phase-locked loops (CD4046) and binary rate multipliers (CD4089). This is triggering the 808 drums. Here’s a long exposure photo of the Triple Polyrhythm’s LEDs in action:

The basis for the patterns is a bank of CD4089 binary rate multipliers. The 4089 has a 4-bit input that controls how it chops up an incoming clock signal. It was designed in the 1970s to implement primitive digital math functions like multiplication and logartithms, but I find it interesting for musical purposes. Here’s a little insight into what it does, from the Texas Instruments data sheet:

Drone Commander - Two oscillator keyboard-less synth with two LFOs and a nasty voltage controlled filter.  This is a special version of the drone commander that is modified with a tempo-locked digital LFO so it always plays in time : ).

Light Matrix Synth - Experimental synth controlled by moving a light-sensitive stylus in 3D space over a grid of rhythmically modulated LEDs.

Synchronizer Board - Accepts an external sync signal from my circuit-bent Ibanez DM-1000 digital delay. Also contains a digital LFO for the drone commander and a 32ppq DIN sync output for slaving other machines, like a Roland TR-606. The digital LFO is based on the Texas Instruments TLC7524 8-bit DAC.

“Bird Box” generative drum sequencer - a digital pattern generator for complex, improv-like drum patterns.