So, Handmade Music Night was a total success.  We got about 18 Beep-its up and running, many of those assembled by people who were learning to solder for the first time.  The other projects were quite awesome, and the folks at 3rd Ward were very gracious hosts.

Big thanks to Peter @Createdigitalmusic, Eric @Etsy, and Phil & Collin @MAKE- all of you people are fantastic.

Some pics:

Greetings everyone. This is a quick note regarding two events happening this week:

Thursday, December 11:  I'll be conducting a workshop wherein you can build your own Beep-it.
It's part of Handmade Music Night, sponsored by Etsy, Make Magazine and CreateDigitalMusic.
Venue is 3rd Ward in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Details here.

Friday, December 12: My piece "Mini Octophonopod" will be showing as part of the new show
Prototype at Mini Dutch Gallery , 3111 W. Diversey in Chicago.  The opening reception will be from
7-10.  It's all about kinetic-based work in the first stages of production.

Thanks, and I hope to see you at one of these fine events.            

For future Beep-its, I’ve decided to switch the case to a different design:

I wanted to retain a similar look/feel, but make it easier to assemble.  The round case presented some issues getting the 1/4″ jack to mount properly.

Beep-it, the optical theremin synthesizer designed and built by yours truly, is now for sale at Etsy.

A short video documenting the various sounds one can obtain from this wondrous device can be seen here:

Beep-it from Michael Una on Vimeo.

If you’re interested in building your own, here’s the diagram. It’s adapted from a design by Forrest M. Mims, with further input and help from the Circuit Master over at Getlofi.com

For those who know their way around the 555, this is half of an “Atari Punk Console,” or APC as the kids call it these days. I chose to go with the single oscillator because it offers more stable control. The values in the circuit have been adjusted to obtain maximum useable range.

For those in Chicago, I will have multiple Beep-its available to demo and sell at this weekend’s Deadline Projects art show:

This post serves to collect various iterations of my “Octophonopod” piece in one place.



The first iteration debuted at ArtXposium in 2007. It consists of eight speakers and an accompanying audio-reactive LED display housed within eight paper lanterns. The speakers are fed by four CD players, i.e, eight mono channels of sound run through four car stereo amplifiers. I composed an eight-channel sound piece to run through the system, generating light and sounds in a calming, ambient fashion.



Here’s a short video documenting the creation and final installation:








A few months later, I showed it again at Motion Graphics Festival Chicago 2008. Adapting to the installation space, I spread the “pods” out around the room. The result was a much more ambient and directional sound experience, but the sea-creaturesque quaities were obscured.




Octophonopod at MGFest 2008 from Michael Una on Vimeo.



For the past year, I’ve been chipping away at miniaturizing this piece to fit two cubic feet. The task has required a completely new approach, using a microcontroller to drive flash memory modules and miniature amplifiers and speakers. I’ve made some breakthroughs lately and am now ready to produce the piece (as soon as I find the time).

I took some time to reorganize my studio and in the process I’ve cleared out my brain of all the half-finished ideas that were laying around.



The result:








Yes, that’s what it looks like when it’s organized. I like bright, stimulating encrustation.

I’ve been using the bookmarking tool Del.icio.us for a few years now, and today I dug through some of the tags I’ve been using. Some interesting patterns arise, especially in examining the language I use to describe things on the internet.



Here’s my tag cloud:








Awesome- Anything I find online that could be described as “awesome” gets filed here. A few highlights:








NOTCOT at GLOW: EX-SE-08 Shih Chieh Huang from Jean Aw on Vimeo.





Another tag I use is buildme, which is used for filing away things that I want to build or incorporate into a project, or someone else’s project that I want to crib from. Some examples:










Projectstuff has links to raw materials and suppliers for the more rare or esoteric items that I might want to use some day.










Then I have a Wishlist, which I refer to around my birthday and Christmas when people ask me what I want. It’s mostly books, dvds and t-shirts, with the occasional odd electronic item.






What does it all mean? I guess it’s interesting to see all of my interest laid out in such a specific way. There are a few personal or social items in there, but the majority of the bookmarks pertain to my art/music interests and ideas. It makes me want to somehow gather them all into a digital sketchbook of sorts, then publish it into some kind of coffee table book, just for me.

From Sept. 19-21 I’ll be participating in ArtXposium, a 3-day multimedia art experience with more than 80 participating artists. Local, national and international talent will come together from September 19th to the 21st to display a variety of art work ranging from traditional painting, sculpture, and photography to interactive, multimedia, and sound installations.

I’ll be showing two old-but-good pieces there:

Small on the outside, infinite on the inside

and This is for you

I recommend that anyone interested in music, doing things yourself, and taking control of your reality pick up this month’s copy of MAKE magazine. And if you like it, get a subscription- it’s way cheaper.

My article “Drumbot Activate!” is contained within this new issue. In it, you’ll find informative text and images that outline an easy-to-construct MIDI-controlled robot drummer.

It’s based on the HighlyLiquid MIDI Decoder kit, with some simple additional parts.

A quick demonstration video:

Robot drummer from Michael Una on Vimeo

It was my goal this year to write an article for MAKE, and I’m a little surprised how quickly it happened. I expected to toil in obscurity for a lot longer.


*Edit*

Some people have written me asking for a diagram as to how to hook up the solenoids or a similar device. Here you go:

MAKE reader Preston and I were just discussing one related problem-solving issue- namely, the relays can sometimes become “sticky” when activated and don’t release the solenoid like they should due to a initial spike in current when the relay is tripped.


This problem can be attenuated by putting a resistor in series with the solenoid. Preston was able to stop the “sticking” with a 470-ohm resistor, but that was a little too harsh for the solenoid. It’s sounding like the right range would be somewhere between 1 and 100 ohms. If anyone encounters that same problem and finds a better solution, let me know.


One other issue: If your solenoids aren’t pulling as much as they should be, remove a bit of the spring and shorten the amount of rod sticking out of the sleeve. Sometimes the solenoid’s sleeve needs a little more metal to grab onto when the EM field is activated to properly actuate. An extra cm or so should do it.


If anyone has any issues getting this project together, please feel free to write me at this blog or contact me directly via email: michael@una-love.com


Happy soldering!