Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking

by Collins; Nicolas

• ISBN13: 9780415998734
• ISBN10: 0415998735
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-04-13
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking provides a long-needed, practical, and engaging introduction to the craft of making - as well as creatively cannibalizing - electronic circuits for artistic purposes. With a sense of adventure and no prior knowledge, the reader can subvert the intentions designed into devices such as radios and toys to discover a new sonic world. At a time when computers dominate music production, this book offers a rare glimpse into the core technology of early live electronic music, as well as more recent developments at the hands of emerging artists. In addition to advice on hacking found electronics, the reader learns how to make contact microphones, pickups for electromagnetic fields, oscillators, distortion boxes, and unusual signal processors cheaply and quickly. This revised and expanded second edition is extensively illustrated and includes a DVD featuring eighty-seven video clips and twenty audio tracks by over one hundred hackers, benders, musicians, artists, and inventors from around the world, as well as thirteen video tutorials demonstrating projects in the book. Further enhancements include additional projects, photographs, diagrams, and illustrations.

Table of Contents

Foreword to Second Edition

Foreword to First Edition

Acknowledgments

Starting

Introduction

Getting Started: Tools and Materials Needed

The Seven Basic Rules of Hacking: General Advice

Listening

Circuit Sniffing: Using Radios and Coils to Eavesdrop on Hidden Electromagnetic Music

Sidebar #1

In/Out (the Eighth Rule of Hacking): Speaker as Microphone, Microphone as SpeakerG++the Symmetry of it All

The Celebrated Jumping Speaker of Bowers County: Twitching Loudspeakers with Batteries

How to Solder: An Essential Skill

How to Make a Contact Mike: Using Piezo Disks to Pick Up Tiny Sounds

The Father of Invention

Piezo Music

Turn You Tiny Wall Into a Speaker (or How to Make a Piezo Driver): Resonating Objects with Piezo Disks, Transformers, and Motors

David Tudor and Rainforest

Drivers

Tape Heads: Playing Credit Cards with Hand-Held Tape Heads

Tape

A Simple Air Mike: Cheap Condenser Mike Elements Make Great Microphones

Touching

Laying of Hands I (St. VitusG++ Dance): Transforming a Portable Radio into a Synthesizer by Making Your Skin Part of the Circuit

The Cracklebox

Tickle the Clock (Laying of Hands II): Finding the Clock Circuit in Toys

Hack the Clock (Learn a New Alphabet): Changing the Clock Speed for Cool New Noises

OhmG++s Law for Dummies: How to Understand Resistors

Composing Inside Electronics

Beyond the Pot: Photocells, Pressure Pads, and Other Ways to Control and Play Your Toy

Circuit Bending

Switches: How to Understand Different Switches, and Even Make Your Own

Jack, Batt, and Pack: Finishing Touches: Powering and Packaging Your Hacked Toy

Building

WorldG++s Simplest Oscillator: Six Oscillators on a 20-Cent Chip, Guaranteed to Work

From Breadboard to Circuit Board: How to Solder Up Your First Homemade Circuit

More Oscillators: Oscillators That Modulate Each Other

Even More Oscillators: Dividers, Feedback Loops, and Instability

Using Oscillators as Clocks for Toys

On/Off: Gating, Ducking, Tremolo, and Panning

Amplification and Distortion: A Simple Circuit That Goes from Clean Preamp to Total Distortion

Analog to Digital Conversion, Sort Of: Modulating Other Audio Sources with Your Oscillators

Envelope Follower: Noise Gate, Ducker, Keyer, Compressor, Modulating Oscillator

Phase Locked Loops: Pitch Tracking & Transposition, Odd Outputs

Sequencer: Driving PLL Oscillator, Gating Signals

Looking

Video Music/Music Video: Translating Video Signals into Sound, Hacking Cheap Camera Circuits, and Extracting Sounds from Remote Controls

Visual Music

LCD Art: Making Animated Modern Daguerreotypes and Alternative Vid<$$$>

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