2DIY Hysteria

I love audio and I love visual.

For me, the two are inseparable partners in crime that will rob the bank and then invest the money in a treehouse studio space in the rainforest.

I also love DIY projects so I thought I’d list a two of my favourite audiovisual make/hack/do projects.

The Tagtool is a live drawing animation box that can be soldered together in an afternoon. It also uses the most excellent Arduino microcontroller. The Tagtool lets two people draw and then move their drawings in realtime. I have one of these and it is the bizness. Solo drawing was so 1999 -collaborative drawing is where it’s at!

It comes in three flavours. Check it!

The Atari Punk Console is a simple noise machine that can be modified and adapted to suit your tastes. It makes sounds a bit reminiscent of an old school Atari, hence the name. Half the fun is putting into some kinda hilarious enclosure so people will come up to you at a gig and ask “Dude, are you playing that ham sandwich* as a synthesiser?”

Kits are available from Get Lo-Fi.

*please refrain from putting your Atari Punk Console in a ham sandwich

The Atari Punk console and lots of other noise makers really lend themselves to circuit bending too.

If you’re not familiar with circuit bending or soldering, be sure to check out this and this.

And even though it says it everywhere, I will say it again – DO NOT circuit bend anything that can be plugged into the wall…only tinker with stuff that is powered by a battery.

So that’s a tiny taste of two projects you could do yourself, or ask someone else to do for you! There are heaps of great resources out there and zillions of kits to put together that make noise or vision.

Oh yeah, I also love sampling too…maybe I’ll do a post about it next?

Filed Under: Journalism

Tags: Andrew Gibbs, music, video, visuals, vj