Category: news

Posted on

Low-Battery as Aesthetic Practice: Voltage Starving Audio Gear

Talking about voltage starving your audio equipment with Will Klingenmeier.


I sat down for a virtual chat with Will, who has been doing some interesting experiments voltage starving his Moog DFAM and Subharmonicon. Voltage starving is when you intentionally deprive a circuit or device of the full voltage it needs to function, simulating a “dying battery”. The sounds you get are probably not what the manufacturer intended, but definitely an aesthetic worth exploring as you look for new sounds.

In this wide-ranging discussion, we talk about circuit-bending, starving stompboxes, and whether or not this is a good idea with your expensive equipment.

0:00 Introduction
0:30 What is “voltage starving”?
1:08 Voltage starving & circuit-bending
1:54 Voltage starving Moog synths
3:46 How to do it
4:33 Is this dangerous to your equipment?
6:07 Thinking about guitar pedals
8:15 Closing thoughts

Check out more videos on Will’s Channel here.

More creative electronics videos here:

Posted on

Karplus-Strong Synthesis in Pure Data Vanilla

Patching up a Karplus-Strong synth from scratch in Pure Data Vanilla from scratch.

Karplus-Strong synthesis is a digital synthesis technique that simulates the sound of plucked strings by using a feedback loop to model the behavior of a vibrating string. Developed by Kevin Karplus and Alex Strong, this method generates resonant waveforms by feeding back a short noise signal through a filtered delay line with feedback. In this video, we build a simple K-S synth from scratch in Pd, exploring what happens when we mess with the various parameters.

  • 0:00 Defining Karplus-Strong synthesis
  • 1:25 Noise “burst” to excite the string
  • 3:23 Adding the delay
  • 4:57 Setting up the feedback
  • 7:13 Controlling the rate of the delay
  • 10:21 Understanding the range of pitches
  • 12:06 Adding the low-pass filter
  • 13:21 Talking through the patch
  • 14:05 Adjusting the envelope of the noise (bowed sounds?)
  • 16:02 Closing / Next steps / Randomization

More Pd Tutorials here:

Posted on

iPad OSC Tilt Controlling Pocket Dimension (MaxMSP & Open Sound Control)

Sending OSC messages from my iPad, transformed in Max/MSP, and used to control FreakshowIndustries’ “Pocket Dimension” plugin in real time.


The plugin itself has an XY axis, and I didn’t want to just sitting down wiggling a mouse around. Luckily, Freakshow Industries included MIDI control for the plugin (as from continuous controllers), so all I had to do was create an instrument track in Logic with the plugin, and then convert OSC data to MIDI CCs in Max.

Sorry if the aesthetics here aren’t up your alley, but hopefully the ideas here can be helpful!

Gear/Software in this video (not sponsored, but a few affiliate links):
Arturia DrumBrute Impact (affiliate links)
* Perfect Circuit
* Reverb
Elektron Analog Heat Mk. II (affiliate links)
* Perfect Circuit
* Reverb
TouchOSC
Freakshow Industries Pocket Dimension

Check out more music with Max/MSP here:

Posted on

Colors of Noise (White, Pink, Red, Brown, Blue, Purple, Green Noise Explained)

I love noise. Here, I explain the different “colors” of noise (and why they have those chromatic names).

From our dear friends white noise and pink noise, to less familiar characters such as brown noise, and green noise, each type has a particular frequency spectrum and therefore different uses in synthesis and sound design.

  • 0:00 Introduction
  • 0:16 White Noise and Spectra
  • 1:03 Pink Noise
  • 1:45 Logarithmic Perception and Pitch
  • 2:53 Red/Brown Noise
  • 3:58 Blue/Azure Noise
  • 4:13 Violet/Purple Noise
  • 4:29 Grey Noise
  • 4:53 Green Noise
  • 5:20 Velvet Noise
  • 5:35 Hot Pink Noise in Kyma
  • 5:48 Black Noise

More fundamentals of synthesis and MIDI here:

Posted on

Circuit Bending Super Edit (Tinkerbell Wand to Expressive Instrument)

I’ve just posted a re-edit of my series introducing circuit-bending old toys (cutting the three-video series down into a more reasonably paced single video). Circuit-bending is the creative customization of consumer electronics with the goal of inventing new unique devices for sound-making, visuals, or other expressive goals.

In this series, now edited into a single video, I take you through my process with some toys from the start, including explorations, experiments, and, importantly, failures. I continue work through transforming this Tinkerbell wand, testing out different resistors and switches to see what I might add to increase its glitchy expressive range.

I’m a composer and sound-designer, not an electrical engineer, so my goal is to find fun sounds that I can use in creative ways (rather than any kind of serious circuit design).

0:00 Intro
0:22 Selecting toys to bend
0:52 Testing with new batteries
1:52 Opening up the Tinkerbell wand
4:42 Opening up the whack-a-mole
7:20 Poking around with test leads
10:40 Recap, equipment
11:11 Examining the components
12:20 Speeding up the clock
14:17 Slowing down the clock
15:19 Varying the clock
18:58 Switches
22:17 The “glitch switch”
24:40 Considering packaging (instrument morphology)
25:19 Tools & equipment
26:15 Updates/Plan
28:32 Installing the “Glitch Switch”
30:48 Installing the Toggle
31:47 Changing the LED
32:47 Installing the Potentiometer
34:17 Adding RCA audio out
35:18 Putting it back together
36:08 Esoteric Etude
38:31 Closing


More circuit-bending and handmade electronic music here:

Posted on

Pure Data Mid/Side Ring Modulation: Patch from Scratch (no talking)

Having some fun using mid/side stereo for sound design in Pure Data vanilla.

Here, we encode our stereo signal into mid/side with some simple math, then ring-modulate and delay the side material before decoding back into left-right stereo.

0:00 Bleep bloops in left-right stereo
1:12 Creating a mid/side encoder & decoder
2:19 Adding ring modulation to only the sides
3:23 Adding a delay to the sides
4:49 Expanding the range of ring modulation

Click here for a deeper explanation of mid/side stereo and synthesis:

More no-talking Pure Data videos here:

Subscribe on YouTube for more videos.

Posted on

Random*Source Serge Resonant EQ (ResEQ) & Stereo Processing (Mid/Side)

Exploring some ideas of using mono effects for stereo processing with the Eurorack Random*Source Serge Resonant EQ.

The Serge Resonant EQ is mono, so, usually, if you want to do stereo processing, you would need two of this (expensive) module to process your signal. With just a single module, though, if we mess with the two “comb” outputs, and consider mid/side processing, we can create some compelling stereo outputs.

0:00 Introduction, I/O overview
0:47 Mono signal in, mono signal out
1:10 Using the “comb” outputs to stereoize the signal
2:01 Mid/side processing the “comb” outs of a mono signal
3:14 Processing a stereo signal, side only
5:10 Processing a stereo signal, mid only
6:20 Changing the source material, side-only processing
9:16 Closing, next steps, mid-only processing

More on mid/side processing for synthesis here:

Gear in this video (affiliate links):

Posted on

Matrix Mixing with Computer and Outboard Gear

Running audio out from the DAW and feeding back through outboard gear.

The main idea here is a feedback loop starting with output from my computer, running into a compressor, then to a reverb, then back to the compressor, then back to the reverb, etc.

0:00 Intro: The Plan
0:39 Digital Setup
1:18 Analog (Outboard) Setup
1:44 Demonstration
3:55 Next Steps and Considerations
4:31 Take 2

Check out more videos on audio cybernetics and feedback:

Posted on

Artificial Neurons for Music and Sound Design (5-minute lecture video)

Video presentation I made for the 2024 “Explainable AI for the Arts” (XAIxArts) Workshop, part of the ACM Creativity and Cognition Conference 2024.

A lot of these points I’ve discussed elsewhere (see playlist below), but this quickie presentation brings together these ideas, focusing on the aesthetic potential of this approach.

Check out the complete playlist for more hands-on creation of neurons and neural networks: