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bbinkovitz
Joined: Jun 12, 2006 Posts: 338 Location: central ohio
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Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:04 pm Post subject:
toy instruments / instrument-toys Subject description: need some advice on making silly pieces of junk into better silly pieces of junk |
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so, i don't know a whole lot about electronics. i completed a physics class once a long time ago. but i can do basic things like identify pos/neg and solder and whatnot.
i want to use silly toy instruments that have crappy built-in speakers and rewire them to output sound to something i can process better.
would it be feasable to, say, wire a toy phone to the cord part of a pair of normal (like walkman) headphones so that i could plug that in my imac's audio input (as if it were a crappy microphone) and start audacity and hit the button on the toy phone to record the sample? or could i do the same thing but not record a sample, but rather play it through in realtime?
but i really want to keep the toys as part of it, not just their sounds. the whole junky toys aesthetic is a big part of it.
anyone done this or similar things? thanks! |
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M-.-n
Joined: Oct 30, 2004 Posts: 10 Location: Brussels
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 2:55 am Post subject:
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There's a huge community modding silly toys. Most of the time, rip the speaker and solder a jack to the wires, stuff it to the mixing desk and presto.
look out for "circuit bending" and u'll find an overwhelming number of pages related to the subject.
Marc. _________________ Music
Blog
Building handeld tracker for portable twekness |
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Wout Blommers
Joined: Sep 07, 2003 Posts: 4529 Location: The Hague - The Netherlands
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 3:39 am Post subject:
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You can also take toys which makes accoustic sounds and use conyact microphones attached to it and feed the sound into the system.
Wout |
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bbinkovitz
Joined: Jun 12, 2006 Posts: 338 Location: central ohio
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:35 am Post subject:
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Wout Blommers wrote: | You can also take toys which makes accoustic sounds and use conyact microphones attached to it and feed the sound into the system.
Wout |
true, but the problem is that these toys have immensely crappy speakers. i want to hear their marvelous cheesey sounds in full stereo! |
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blue hell
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Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 24075 Location: The Netherlands, Enschede
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:46 am Post subject:
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bbinkovitz wrote: | but the problem is that these toys have immensely crappy speakers |
When the interesting aspect of the sound is caused by the speaker itself (which could very well be the case for crappy speakers) you have no choice but to use a microphone to register it. Using a contact microphone here, or a nearby one might give a different perception of the sound, some experimentation will be needed.
It wouldn't be too much work to temporarily connect some shielded wire to the speaker (as was suggested above) to be able to run it into a mixer directly. So you can always try how it works out before making something that could survive a performance situation. _________________ Jan
also .. could someone please turn down the thermostat a bit.
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EdisonRex
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Joined: Mar 07, 2007 Posts: 4579 Location: London, UK
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:51 am Post subject:
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Mic input is not good. Line input would be better, or if you have a small mixer, put the speaker output into the line input of the mixer and pad it down. Cheesy is one thing, but cheesy overdrive is not so nice.
I like the idea of a mic though. Might impart the audio characteristics of the speaker more. _________________ Garret: It's so retro.
EGM: What does retro mean to you?
Parker: Like, old and outdated.
Home,My Studio,and another view |
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blue hell
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Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 24075 Location: The Netherlands, Enschede
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:53 am Post subject:
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EdisonRex wrote: | Mic input is not good. |
"Not good" is pretty strong wording, but it's a lot more messy for sure _________________ Jan
also .. could someone please turn down the thermostat a bit.
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EdisonRex
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Joined: Mar 07, 2007 Posts: 4579 Location: London, UK
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 10:10 am Post subject:
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Blue Hell wrote: | EdisonRex wrote: | Mic input is not good. |
"Not good" is pretty strong wording, but it's a lot more messy for sure |
I suppose putting over a volt P-P into a mic input could be construed by some as beauty. It wouldn't, however, be an accurate capture of the tonal quality of a small electronic toy. _________________ Garret: It's so retro.
EGM: What does retro mean to you?
Parker: Like, old and outdated.
Home,My Studio,and another view |
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blue hell
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Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 24075 Location: The Netherlands, Enschede
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 10:20 am Post subject:
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EdisonRex wrote: | I suppose putting over a volt P-P into a mic input could be construed by some as beauty. It wouldn't, however, be an accurate capture of the tonal quality of a small electronic toy. |
Sorry, I read you wrong. I thought you were against using a microphone to pick up the sound. I wouldn't want to plug the speaker signal into a mic input either. _________________ Jan
also .. could someone please turn down the thermostat a bit.
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EdisonRex
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Joined: Mar 07, 2007 Posts: 4579 Location: London, UK
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:58 am Post subject:
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Blue Hell wrote: | EdisonRex wrote: | I suppose putting over a volt P-P into a mic input could be construed by some as beauty. It wouldn't, however, be an accurate capture of the tonal quality of a small electronic toy. |
Sorry, I read you wrong. I thought you were against using a microphone to pick up the sound. I wouldn't want to plug the speaker signal into a mic input either. |
au contraire. I'd rather use a nice mic to pick up such an instrument. Remember, I'm used to micing 10th century instruments and other old stuff. Those don't generally work well with pickups, and being non electronic by a good 1000 years, require some thought about how to accurately capture a tone. _________________ Garret: It's so retro.
EGM: What does retro mean to you?
Parker: Like, old and outdated.
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smokris
Joined: May 22, 2004 Posts: 97 Location: Athens, Ohio, USA
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Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 10:09 am Post subject:
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http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=4917 --- an interview with Brian Duffy of the Modified Toy Orchestra, who talks a little about internal speakers vs. direct output and the troubles of mixing an orchestra of toys. |
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EdisonRex
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Joined: Mar 07, 2007 Posts: 4579 Location: London, UK
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Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 10:58 am Post subject:
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smokris wrote: | http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=4917 --- an interview with Brian Duffy of the Modified Toy Orchestra, who talks a little about internal speakers vs. direct output and the troubles of mixing an orchestra of toys. |
A good clip, although I hate sonicstate, if I don't put my mouse far away from that window, all sorts of "helpful" links keep popping up trying to get me to go somewhere else. It's terribly distracting. Rollover popups should be banned, in my curmudgeonly opinion.
it stands to reason the base waveforms coming out of the chip will be much more harmonically rich than what is being reproduced by a 1" speaker. Again the issue comes down to what do you want to achieve from it, do you want to reproduce the sound of the toy, or do you want to get more harmonic content (release the genie). It's a valid and fair point.
Thomas Henry's 76477 Voice module kind of shows this principle in action, take a 1980s video game chip and make a proper tracking voice module out of it. The sound is rather different than what I remember Galaga sounding like.
Well anyway. Brian Duffy does (admirably) explain the difference between orchestrating for mic input vs full-on electronic input.
Too bad he doesn't go into more about how he actually mixes the toys. I'd love to see a "knob's guide" to mixing circuit bent toys. I suppose you could just do a 50k (or 100k) pot as a voltage divider on the output and use the wiper as the signal to the line input. Practically speaking that's all you really need anyway, just a voltage divider so you aren't dog-farting the line input. _________________ Garret: It's so retro.
EGM: What does retro mean to you?
Parker: Like, old and outdated.
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bbinkovitz
Joined: Jun 12, 2006 Posts: 338 Location: central ohio
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 10:26 pm Post subject:
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he's got a pretty lofty view of circuit bending! i like it!
but yeah, in this thread at least what i was meaning to ask about was the "releasing the genie" part of it.
also in making toys into controllers. i don't really know how that would work; something like, i have this toy cell phone called "benign girl" and i want to put all of its sounds onto the computer, circutbend it to come up with some new sounds as well, and then rewire it so it's a controller for sequencing the sounds that had been gotten out of it. or something. |
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EdisonRex
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Joined: Mar 07, 2007 Posts: 4579 Location: London, UK
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 11:38 pm Post subject:
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Hmm, turning a phone into a controller of some kind. That's how they make bomb detonators over in these parts, you know. More seriously, though, the vibrate circuit on a phone, being a little motor and weight thing, has a pretty decent current capacity, so if you remove the motor you have a nice ready made trigger generator. I'm sure there are some other points to find. On my phone for example there's a backlight, a "light" function (turns on 3 really bright LEDs for either an arbitrary time, or indefinitely), alarm clock, and there's of course the speaker which one would think could be employed otherwise.
Regarding getting your toy's speaker output attenuated, really all you need is to make a voltage divider out of a potentiometer, put the two ends of a 100k pot in place of the speaker, and use the pot's center(wiper) and the ground point to go to your mixer/computer/whatever's line input. Adjust to taste. If it's too fiddly you might try a bigger potentiometer like 1M, but I think 100k should do if these things only put out like 500mV or 1V or something.
Hope this helps. _________________ Garret: It's so retro.
EGM: What does retro mean to you?
Parker: Like, old and outdated.
Home,My Studio,and another view |
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bbinkovitz
Joined: Jun 12, 2006 Posts: 338 Location: central ohio
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Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:15 am Post subject:
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EdisonRex wrote: | the vibrate circuit on a phone, being a little motor and weight thing, has a pretty decent current capacity, so if you remove the motor you have a nice ready made trigger generator.
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actually it's not really a cell phone. it's a toy that's supposed to look like a cell phone, and it just plays weird noises when you press the buttons.
also what you're suggesting is the opposite of what i want to do. i want to use the "phone" buttons as the user interface.
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Regarding getting your toy's speaker output attenuated, really all you need is to make a voltage divider out of a potentiometer, put the two ends of a 100k pot in place of the speaker, and use the pot's center(wiper) and the ground point to go to your mixer/computer/whatever's line input. Adjust to taste. If it's too fiddly you might try a bigger potentiometer like 1M, but I think 100k should do if these things only put out like 500mV or 1V or something. |
cool. i think i almost understand this, and it seems like what i'm trying to do.
i'll keep you updated. thanks! |
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EdisonRex
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Joined: Mar 07, 2007 Posts: 4579 Location: London, UK
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