Most Saturdays from noon-3pm you can find me at Lizard’s Liquid Lounge, 3058 W. Irving Park Rd. in Chicago.  That’s the meeting point for an open, informal group of folks who like to tinker with music and electronics, called the eSymposium, which is the brainchild of Patrick McCarthy of Roth Mobot.
Lately, we’ve been setting up [...]

Here’s a video of a new device available at Transistor: The Stepped Siren Box.  If I can keep up with demand, variations of this item will be available online soon as well.

Stepped Siren Box from Michael Una on Vimeo.

I’ve been working on creating a 16-step sequencer using the 4017 decade counter chip.  So far, my efforts have not succeeded and I’ve been limited to 10 steps.  I had been using a flip-flop to try and switch the clock signal from one 4017 to another and it just wasn’t working.
However, I just read this [...]

Here’s a few short videos highlighting devices I’ll have for sale at the Experimental Garage Sale tomorrow:

Yoshimi battles the pink guitar from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Canadian keyboard from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Lofi looping device from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Cigar box 3-osc synth from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Dr. Rek has finished assembling his documentary masterpiece and hot damn! It looks pretty.
A little preview is available online, including the section containing my interview and performance with Memory Selector:

Memory Selector – Bent 2008 mpls from Derek Sajbel on Vimeo.
I highly recommend ordering the DVD for anyone who’s interested in circuit bending- the interviews coupled [...]

I’ve been working on my sequencer-synth a bit more.  In fact, I’m stopping development of this little box to start over again from scratch, but I wanted to document it first.  So here’s my first stab at a sequence-driven synthesizer:
Seq-it prototype v2 from Michael Una on Vimeo.

In preparation for my upcoming workshop at BENT Fest Minneapolis, I’ve been assembling and implementing the HighlyLiquid MSA-R MIDI decoder kit.
A preview of the results:

Robot drummer from Michael Una on Vimeo.

I just completed this little device and it’s working pretty well.
It switches incoming AC power on and off in a cyclical pattern, about 1.5 times per second.

A battery powers a small worm-gear motor, which pushes a levered switch with its’ eccentric cylinder. The switch completes the AC circuit.
Simple, I know, but I get kind [...]

I’m cross-posting this here and on createdigitalmusic.com, because I’m pretty happy with the results.
We’ve all seen newspeople interviewing the “average guy on the street” with this sort of device affixed to the handle of their mic:

Ever wanted to add a veneer of professionalism to your otherwise ameteurish audio/video production? It’s easy! Here’s how:

The Circuitmaster over at Getlofi.com and I were talking the other day and came up with a fun idea:

More info can be found here.