Anthony Bisset live at Basic Electricity

Anthony Bisset will join Franz Schuier & Lu Katavist at Basic Electricity #5 on Friday, August 31st!



See the Basic Electricity blog for more on the gig and click the 'Machine' link at Anthony's site to see his reformatted modular 'with DNA from Serge, Buchla, Ken Stone & Bisset' and other live instruments.

BE#5, 31.08.12, 21:00
Lichtblick Kino. Kastanienallee 77,
10435 Berlin (Prenzlauer Berg)

Michael Vorfeld & Ute Wassermann Live

AUXXX in Berlin presents Michael Vorfeld and Ute Wassermann at the K77 Kino this Friday, 27th July.



Promises to be a great concert. Full details at the AUXXX blog.

Turing with Bitsy

A quick jam featuring two DIY shift-register-based random sequencers, Tom Whitwell's Turing Machine and my own Bitsy.



Playing with sequencers that you can't program, only influence, is great fun. As you can hear, the two make a great team!



Just add a quantizer, and you're away. (Turing left, Bitsy right).



Tom managed to pack a lot into his sandwich design. It's tight in places, but it does all fit. My own DIY projects have been primitive by comparison, using perf-board and flying connections for the pots and jacks. The one benefit of this method is that it's more forgiving of part placement when it's time to screw the module together. I might have to revisit some of the jacks to help them sit better. I made two minor changes to Tom's design, one out of necessity, the other for aesthetic reasons: I ordered the wrong size polyboxes, so substituted ceramic caps for C10 & C11, and I went for a green LED, rather than red. I still need to paint the legends, but don't mind the look of the sticker residue for the moment.

You can find extensive information on the Music Thing Random Sequencer project here, here and here.

Thanks for a great instrument, Tom!

Basic Electricity #4 Reminder

BE#4 with live modular music from Ian Boddy, Navs & Tom takes place tomorrow at Kastanienallee 77, 10435 Berlin. Doors at 21:00, concert at 22:00 sharp. See you there!

Navs Live with modded TR-505

It's that time of year again: I'll be setting up the modular in a mate's allotment garden as part of the 48 Stunden Neukölln arts festival this Saturday, June 16th. I'll be playing live from around 15:00 at garden 20, Hand in Hand Kolonie, Rütlistrasse 8, 12045 Berlin.



I tend to do atmospheric sounds as they suit the environment. Patching drums for rhythmic pieces is module-intensive. Last year, I was lucky to be accompanied by Tom from Schneidersbuero on modular beats. This year, I want to keep the set simple, so wondered if there was another solution.

I found the answer at the burnkit2600 site, modding my old TR-505 to give me two analogue triggers from this decidedly digital drum machine. The 505 is one of the first pieces of kit I bought in the 80's. I'm not particularly fond of it's sound, but it has sentimental value, so I didn't want to wreck the Roland. Fortunately, the mod is very simple.



Here's my first quick jam, post soldering and drilling:



It's still a 505, but lots of fun. When patched, the mod seems to cut/ mute the instrument from the main mix (buffering didn't seem to help), so I chose to use sounds I could live without. Of course, you could make this a feature, adding 'kill' switches if you choose to mod yours.

This year's 48 Stunden Neukölln set could be a little more techno than usual - if you're in town, do pop in to say hello!

Basic Electricity #4 - Ian Boddy Live

We're very excited to welcome Ian Boddy to Berlin for the next Basic Electricity. The gig takes place in three weeks time on Friday June 29 at Kastanienallee 77, 10435 Berlin. Doors open at 21:00, concert starts at 22:00. More info here.



BE#3 with the lads from Koma Elektronik and Stan Stencil was a blast. Thanks to everyone who came along and made it such a special evening. Here are a few photos from the event:



See Stan's site for videos of his performance with Regolith & Wouter.

We've just released the recordings from the BE#2 studio session:



They feature Hayden Chisholm on Saxophone, Rastko on CocoQuantus and Sidrazzi, Richard Scott on Modular & Max MSP and myself on Richard's Serge. BE-EP2 is available as a 'name your price' download. Visit the Basic Electricity site for videos from the session and more information about upcoming events.

Hope you enjoy the music and look forward to seeing you at Basic Electricity #4!

Koma Nerd-Out

Koma Elektronik evening with Loud Objects, Wouter Jaspers, Stan Stencil. Thursday June 7th, 7 p.m.



If you're in Berlin this Thursday, get yourself down to O Tannenbaum in Neukölln. Loud Objects will be making music with instruments that they build live on stage, Wouter plays a DJ set & Stan will be providing visuals. There will also be a Koma Korner where you can try out their kit and special black & white Koma Koktails.

Full details of the event are here.