Bitumen gig in October!

Bitumen

On the move

We were heading down the majestic river Trent to the boat builder who will fit the woodburning stove this weekend. I am very excited. This will become the heart of the narrow boat.



This is how it looks before the fitting

Phantastron video

A teaser of the completed Phantastron FX pedal in action. Here we are using the CV input on the Phantastron unit controlled by a 9v battery running along the ribbon controller. The pitch tuning works wonders and the wave form selector switch works best at certain frequencies. This is a brilliant kit to learn a lot (particularly using the turret board) and a good introduction to tube effects. Overall a very unique synth.

www.electricwestern.com

Fantastic-tron

That's right, I have completed the Phantastron, the one and only tube synthesiser by Electric Western. This little gem of an art-invention works wonders when triggered using the ribbon controller supplied by said designer. Oooh! I can't wait until Leigh returns with the video to post... tbc.

One coat inside

This evening whilst the Bull was engulfed in the smoke, two wonderful folk stripped down and painted conker coloured gloss across the wooden floorboards of our narrow boat. Already they make home.

Nocto Go Go

A-Horrah! The nocto loco FX pedal is finally up and running! With the help of John at the club with his electronics knowledge, we discovered that the stomp switches I had wired up were in fact 90degrees round the wrong way. So after John patiently de-soldered and re-soldered each wire, we looked to be getting somewhere. Using a digital multimeter we were able to trace the path of current around the circuit checking for the correct voltage. So it seemed that only 9volts was required for the Voltage Regulator, and from then on the voltage is set to just under 5v through out the circuit

John came across some parts of the circuit which were not showing a decrease in value, in essence, we had 5v showing at one point but the ground (or 0v) was not appearing at all. Thus we came round to the idea that the track had a break in it. This was quickly solved with an insulated piece of wire being attached to link across the break. Then came the oh so exciting bit...

Looking at how the nocto loco acts using an oscilloscope made my heart sing! John had to do a bit of adjusting to get the waveform on the screen, brighten it up a little and make connections with the board using a couple of pointers. From the outset there was a nice small, tidy waveform flickering on the screen, however further explorations showed the curvy pattern switch to a choppy large square form (a rather sound shifting point) and then we discovered around the IC chips some very disjointed waveforms which appeared to be more like sanskrit than waveform. Oh they were brilliant!

And so knowing full well the box of tricks was working, it was time for me to pack up at the club and head for home. On arrival the soldering iron was plugged in and work began to finish off the loose ends.



The nocto loco was plugged in and given it's first test run by Leigh putting his BugBrand through it going then into the Sherman and out of the lovely sound system. It was very bendy and manic to say the least.

I was asked a question last night about what this pedal actually is, and here is some kind of explanation...

The Nocto Loco is some kind of pitch shifting FX pedal, with a jack input, you can put anything through it, though I am speculating that keys and guitars work best due to their hot sustained signal. The bypass switch means you have the ability to bypass the whole circuit to the output (so no loco) or where can switch to running through the maze of copper tracking. This then offers up the ability to move through three harmonic octaves, change waveform and the LFO (or what I believe to be LFO). There is a standard volume knob and a switch which still now I haven't quite worked out what it does. The Loco is self explanatory, it just pumps up the mania of the coarse sound.

The final result is magnificent. I am planning on getting a nifty little video on here in the near future, so keep them skins peeled!