Oscar Niemeyer - International Fair, Tripoli

Famed Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer left behind a dream in Lebanon’s Tripoli which soon became impossible: a massive, unrealised fairground that had to give way to the vestiges of war. Bespoke revisits this forlorn site, replete with Niemeyer’s  grand and modernist vision. (read more here)

Contact microphone pre-amp

Collin's Lab: DIY Contact Microphone

It’s amazing what a little disk can do … when it’s layered with piezoelectric crystals. Piezo disks are impressively sensitive to vibration and can easily be adapted to work as a contact microphones. The trick is the preamp – a basic circuit used to match the piezo’s signal to levels compatible with modern audio gear inputs. The resulting piezo/preamp combo can be used for electrifying an acoustic guitar or simply exploring the lesser-heard world of small sound around us.

Or try the original...

(J201 Transistor is not as easy to obtain but, if you can manage to source it, is definitely worth it for its superior sound.) 

I've been performing experiments with guitar preamps and on-board electronics since, oh, the Nixon administration or thereabouts.  Sometime around 1990 I designed this preamp circuit, and have been using it mostly unchanged ever since.  In 1992 I posted a schematic of the preamp to one of the Usenet groups and the circuit became somewhat popular.
The goals of the preamp are:

• Sounds great.  Of course.
• Discrete FET (Field Effect Transistor) design.  Discrete because I don't like the sound of opamps, and FETs because the devices operate in a manner somewhat analogous to vacuum tubes.
• Runs off a 9v battery.  In practice a decaying 9V battery, possibly as low as 8.0 volts.
• Very high (3.0 Mohm) input impedance.  1.0 Mohm is the minimal acceptable input impedance for a guitar device.
• Medium (6.0 Kohm) output impedance.  There's no need for an especially low output impedance as we're only using the preamp to counter the effects of cable capacitance and loading.
• 3 dB gain.  You don't need much gain, and given the guitar signal level and the 9v supply voltage, there isn't room for much gain.
• Low noise.
• Graceful overload.  Overload happens; the circuit should clip gracefully and recover gracefully.

The preamp can also be phantom powered and mounted in a phone plug.  See my article "An FET Preamp Cable".

International Table Squennis Association

The Game of the Gods - Official Trading Card Game!!!

The long awaited official International Table Squennis Association trading cards are finally here. Negotiations with Pannini are ongoing so keep an eye out at your local newsagent for sticker packs and that all important sticker album in the near future. Maybe. Remember, a complete set of stickers safely cradled in an album will be a thing to treasure forever. An heirloom for future generations to covet and probably fall out over upon your demise. Fortunately you will be unaware when it is torn from your lifeless fingers as you lie on you deathbed, surrounded by violently bickering progeny.a grieving wife and several mistresses. Whilst you are in the newsagents, remember to watch out also for the I.T.S.A. Top Trumps game, available soon!

Reel to Reel Track Positions

In order to make the best possible use of the storage capacity of a magnetic tape, its width is divided up into two or four tracks. This is known as half or quarter track recording. Halving track width will give double the recording time for the same length of tape.
The division into several tracks has no influence an the frequency response. The dynamic range, however, i.e. the region between the maximum recording level and the tape background noise is reduced. Quarter track recording is also more critical regarding the cleanliness of the heads and the tape.
For mono recording two independent tracks are therefore available with a half track machine, and four with a quarter track machine.
Stereo recording requires a track each for the left and right hand channels. Two tracks are therefore used simultaneously. With half track stereo recording the tape is therefore fully recorded in one go. In the case of quarter track machines only two of the four tracks are recorded when the tape is run through for first time.

Hacker Farm

Make-do and mend. Broken music for a Broken Britain.

A celebration of the home-made, the salvaged and the hand-soldered.  DIY electronics performed on obsolete tech and discarded, post-consumerist debris.  Make-do and mend. Broken music for a Broken Britain.

Expect: circuit-bent mayhem, cassettemulch and modified-toy noise. A bit like Punk, but without the three chords or the riff borrowed from The Kinks. A beta-release of a better way of living.

Genre / File Under:  Outsider Music, Carboot Electronics, Open-Source Sound.

“Before Punk, there was Noise. Before Rock n Roll, there was Noise. Noise has always been there, buzz-buzz-buzzing in our eardrums. It is part of a proud artistic lineage that can be tracked back through the Dadaists, the Futurists and beyond. Noise is eternal. It is the soundtrack to our industry and our cities, our anger and our dreams. ”

La Grande Bouffe

A superb film about debauchery in all its forms:

La Grande Bouffe

(a.k.a. The Big Feast)

France/Italy, 1973

Comedy/Drama, 130 min.

Director: Marco Ferreri

With: Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli

Twisting tool.VOB

http://www.youtube.com/v/Ggx2CmsNf60?autohide=1&version=3&showinfo=1&attribution_tag=YpUvcruymVnvgKzaxMH1Pw&autoplay=1&autohide=1&feature=share