SWM tracks for Transition finished!

---------- Rear View ---------- ----------- Front View -----------


------------ Snare closeup ------------

* Click on images to enlarge

Above are screenshots from the finished SWM Combinator instrument for the Transition exhibition. I've finished choosing the sounds, I've rehearsed the tracks and I'm happy with the results. The 3 patches are 'Industrial', 'Original' and 'Beep'. The Get-in starts tommorow so I'll have to de-rig this evening.

The 'Hexakick'

The 'Hexakick' is based on a Roland KD-8 electronic kick pad. This one really is to save money as it only has a single trigger. However I do really like the fact that we made it hexagon shape at it matches the Hexapad.

Seems to stand up to a good beating, it happily accomodates a double kick pedal, easy to carry. I can't fault it really, could possibly do with a coat of paint.

The 'Hexapad'

The Hexapad will be the main percussive controller for the Sonic Washing Machine. The initial reason for constructing something 'homemade' was to reduce the risk of expensive equipment being stolen. However, the design has led to something quite revolutionary as it no longer compares to the traditional design of an electronic drumpad.

Electronic drumkits such as Roland V-Drums use a separate pad for each component (e.g. snare, toms, kick), they isolate individual sounds and try to prevent 'crosstalk'. The Heaxapad is different because it encourages blending sounds together, creating hybrids. It can even be played like a primitive mixer.


Construction process

• 11 transducer mics are embedded into cylindrical indents in the surface of the face.
• Holes are drilled to allow the mics to be connected to phono sockets on the rear.
• The mics are secured with a strong glue before a sheet of adhesive foam is added for protection. Then the shotblast rubber is fused with the foam to give the required bounce.
• Finally the sides are added, creating a shell to give it increased depth.

I'm very pleased with the result. It completely changes my way of playing and will be a huge asset to the instrument.

Sonic Racing Car begins

I had an opportunity to visit Donington racetrack on 19th April to record some racing car sounds for the forthcoming instrument 'Sonic Racing Car'. Special thanks to Lindsay Jelly and her son Stephen who made this happen during a very busy Formula 3 test day .

There was lots of action both on the track and in the pits. Lindsay focused on capturing some video footage on a HDV camcorder whilst I did some recording using the Edirol R09. Tried a number of mics including the Beyerdynamic MCE86.2 which was incredibly sensitive.

Got some really good sounds of cars pulling into the pits and lots of whirrs and bangs and clanking. I didn't attempt a full multi-track recording as there wasn't really time and I need more preparation. Eventually I'm hoping to do a similar style recording to the washing machine using multiple mics recording specific areas.

Despite being in the middle of finishing the washing machine I felt this was an opportunity not to be missed.

Percussive controllers

There was always the option of just having a keyboard to trigger sounds, but having discussed ideas with Andy Love we formed a team including Phil Young to help design and build a percussive controller.

We discussed numerous designs and looked at how it would be played. Some were very elaborate and may be revisited in the future.

I've discovered that there are only so many triggers that can be accessed on the TD-6 without using Roland hardware. This has had an impact on the final design which will probably be a single hexagon shaped pad with 11 embedded triggers. This allows the maximum number of different sounds available from a single surface.

It's all about the sound

I'm building a patch which is sounding very industrial. There's big low thumps for the kick drum and some good sharp hits for the snare. It's great that you can just keep layering sounds and adjusting levels till you get the tone you want.

The Roland TD-6 has 11 availble triggers, but I've worked out that if I can access both head and rim shots I could have up to 20 different sounds available. With a wide variation in velocity sensitivity that should add up to a good choice of audio material.

Patch Development

I'm constructing the sonic washing machine in Reason 3 as a Combinator instrument. This is a great tool as it allows you to build complex sounds using multiple devices.

It's probably best if I layer samples using the NN-XT sampler and include a mixer to give me control over the different elements. I can also assign various effect units to give me more choices.

There are so many different controls for the sampler and I've found out how to create layer alternate sounds and use multiple velocites.

Because I want to focus on creating patches for the live set I will concentrate on sounds that will work when played as a percussive instrument. This means ensure that the 'release' values must be high in order to give the desired sound from a single hit.

Moving forward

There's been some good progress recently. Started designing the custom controller with friends who are helping with the construction. Nothing's final yet, but it's looking percussive. Bought some shotblast rubber for the pad areas.

Sunday: Did a full technical test today by connecting up all the equipment in the chain:

Controller
(Currently drumkit)
\/
Roland TD-6
Drum module
\/
MIDISport 2x2
USB MIDI Interface
\/
PC Laptop
Running 'Reason 3'

After a rather scary half hour of not knowing why it wasn't working at all, I solved a few problems and eventually got a result (big relief). Had some great fun triggering low pitch 'drum spin' sounds using the CY12 C/R cymbal.

Now I just need to develop some really good 'combinator' patches.