Archives: 2007 April

  • pulse width modulator

    April 22nd, 2007

    I built an effect pedal tonight. It’s a “pulse width modulator,” it’s supposed to make your guitar sound kind of like an analog synth, I believe. Actually I haven’t done much with it other than verify it works because I got done with it so late/early. This is the schematic I followed.

    Since I lack the means to drill holes in things, a metal enclosure is out, so I went with a plastic vhs tape case, and instead of drilling holes I had the wonderful idea to melt through the plastic with a soldering iron. The acrid smoke pouring out of the case’s wounds kind of worried me, though, so I spent like an hour holding the iron out the window and trying to breathe as little as possible. Look, holes!

    pwm-001.jpg

    Here’s the circuit board, I guess this is the boring side, but I didn’t want to show off my awesome soldering. There’s two ICs and some caps and a diode, nothing too exciting.

    pwm-002.jpg

    Everything’s hooked up and stuffed inside, brilliant.

    pwm-004.jpg

    Besides that I made this picture and listened to “More Than This” on youtube all night, basically a pretty productive time. Blood Waterfall has been more of a hardware purchasing and photoshopping centered project lately, as opposed to a musical project, but that’s ok.

    update: Ok I played around with this thing for a while and it’s amazing. The pulse waves that it puts out can get really piercing and lo-fi sounding, and there are cool rhythmic clickings and modulations in a feedback loop. I’m so pleased.

    stopmakingsteve Posted indiy, music, saying swears | 2 Comments »

  • go to this

    April 21st, 2007

    rainbo.jpg

    stopmakingsteve Posted inmusic | No Comments »

  • doin’ it real big

    April 20th, 2007

    BOOYA look what someone left on the curb

    reel-to-reel-001.jpg

    Thanks to Ned, who called me and told me someone left a bunch of cool stuff on the corner, I am now the proud owner of a Eico RP100 reel to reel tape machine. I’m not what I’m going to do with it, and I don’t really have room for it, but I’m so excited to have it. They also dumped a box of tapes.

    reel-to-reel-004.jpg

    In other news, I found this video a few days ago and it blew my mind, I want to do this

    -izmQQrgmsQ

    ps happy birthday, Hitler

    weedondog.jpg

    stopmakingsteve Posted inmusic, pictures of animals, saying swears | No Comments »

  • somebody got shot

    April 18th, 2007

    who cares

    stopmakingsteve Posted insaying swears | No Comments »

  • gotta get up and be somebody

    April 16th, 2007

    I saw like a million shows this weekend, so I made a list to keep them straight in my head and also kind of to brag about how many shows I saw this weekend. It’s not just the sheer number of acts, though, pretty much everything was really high quality, interesting music. I guess to single out one in particular, I’m really impressed with Binges, I don’t know what I was expecting but they totally blew me away. Be on the lookout for lots of exciting Binges releases in the near future, folks.

    Thursday, April 12
    Mr City

    • Indian Jewelry
    • Clip’d Beaks
    • Pink Reason
    • Eyes Ears Nose

    Friday, April 13
    South Union Arts

    • Gowns
    • Loversrock
    • Thin Hymns
    • Vertonen

    Saturday, April 14
    Cafe Mud

    • Ken Vandermark and Tim Daisy
    • Zing!
    • Accent of the Future

    Boris Kar-loft

    • Panicsville
    • Traum
    • Binges
    • some Norwegian noise dudes
    stopmakingsteve Posted inmusic, saying swears | No Comments »

  • the difference between you and me is

    April 14th, 2007

    If you’re a savvy Chicago music fan you might remember a site called CRash (savagesound), your one-stop shop for live jazz/improv/experimental listings and anti-war links. I used to check that sire like every day, but it stopped getting updated last fall when I guess the guy that ran it set himself on fire. I don’t know anything about Malachi, I knew his face but that’s about it, but the loss of his website hit me pretty hard.

    Anyway, I just discovered another calendar that will hopefully fill about the same role that CRash did. It’s mostly noise and not much jazz at this point, but anything that keeps people from having to clunk around myspace is definitely welcome. The more people that use it and know about it and contribute to it the better, so tell your friends.

    edit: ok here’s another one: click

    leprechaun.jpg

    stopmakingsteve Posted inmusic, saying swears | No Comments »

  • a waterfall of blood

    April 8th, 2007

    One of the guys I live with was practicing drums for a long time today in our basement and it’s very audible in my room so I stuck my crappy vocal mic in the heating vent and recorded like an hour of it on cassette. The resulting recording doesn’t sound very much like drumming, my mic only picked up the toms I think, and they just sound like these pleasant rhythmic tones. The tape on its own is actually kind of nice to listen to, but anyway I made some noisy music with it and some feedback loops and a walkman distortion box.

    http://brokenpants.com/bloodwaterfall/mp3s/040807-drums.mp3

    http://brokenpants.com/bloodwaterfall/

    bloodwaterfalll.jpg

    boombox.gif

    stopmakingsteve Posted inmusic, saying swears | No Comments »

  • ಠ_ಠ

    April 5th, 2007

    On Tuesday I visited Expansion Experiment and ripped some cool cds, check them out if you like noise music.

    aufgehoben_messidor_color_thumb.jpg
    Aufgehoben - Messidor
    http://www.holymountain.com/aufgehoben.html

    tarantism.jpg
    Tarantism - Stuck to the Bottom
    http://resipiscent.com/

    g96978avu17.jpg
    Heathen Shame - Speed the Parting Guest
    http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/2315
    http://aquariusrecords.org/bin/search.cgi/popup=heatspeecd

    The first two are new and the Heathen Shame cd is a from like 2005 I think. Annecdote alert: I really liked Speed the Parting Guest when we got it at the station but then I forgot what it was called for like two years, I could just remember the cover and that it was cool, and then on Tuesday we were talking about Heathen Shame and I was like oh yeah that’s probably that one cd, and it was. Anyway I’m not sure why I’m blogging about this, but I really like the title of this post and wanted to post something with that title.

    stopmakingsteve Posted inmusic, radio | No Comments »

  • *Ì¡ÍŒlÌ¡*Ì¡Ì¡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ Ì¡Ì¡Í¡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|Ì¡Ì¡Ì¡ Ì¡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ *Ì¡ÍŒlÌ¡*

    April 3rd, 2007

    amy&jordan.png

    I bought this comic book the other day, Amy and Jordan by Mark Beyer, and it’s pretty amazing. (sample) These two neurotic, self-absorbed characters slant their way through a nightmarish urban scenes and moan and whine and get hurt/killed a lot. It’s hilarious and has a great visual style where the cartoon panels are irregular geometric shapes and the ‘action’ is pushed into the corner by oppressive patterns. Basically it’s better than anything I can think to say about it.

    stopmakingsteve Posted incomics and books | 6 Comments »