Category: Live

  • Braziers Park

    Had a lovely weekend returning to Braziers Park for the International Film Festival, playing with Amy Cutler as RAVINE/MACHINE, after only playing there a few weeks ago for SUPERNORMAL (which was also brilliant, albeit exceptionally hot). We had some technical difficulties with the 16mm projector (bulb not working), but we were still able to incorporate the soundtrack from it, and it allowed us to put the projector centre stage (complete with my LED augments!).
    Braziers is such an enchanting space. It’s been run as a commune, or ‘Intentional Community’ since the 50s. The neo-gothic house is gorgeous, as was the vegan food they fed us. Great to meet some exciting film makers and artists and generally have a great time!

  • Cutlasses and R.Dyer live in the Lockdown Lounge

    Thanks to all of that ‘attended’ our performance last night. Combining a fairly involved audio setup with a 2 camera visual setup was quite tricky, and I was a little nervous about it all, but it all seemed to go down ok.

     

     

    Gear:

    Everything in this case is DIY (including the case itself). It all starts with the Befaco Instrument Interface, that’s the pre-amp for my guitar, and all the other instruments. After that, everything is going through an effects loop of guitar pedals (DOD volume pedal, Devi Ever Shoe Gazer, EHX Memory Man with Hazarai, Digitech Hardwire Reverb) via a Syinsi pedal i/o 1U tile. I was originally using my Khronos module for the delay->reverb, but actually the Teensy DAC was just too noisy, and seems to be noiser now than ever, possibly because I’m running a lot of modules from a cheap power supply board. I will make something similar using a module with an external audio codec at some point. After that the sound is routed to the modules I’ve designed, Glitch Delay, Audio Freeze, and 2 Looper modules. These form the core of my sound. I have the Foxfield Gearbox as the master clock. The Music Thing Turing Machine with Pulses is sending triggers to the looper to randomly cut up the loop. My alternate RadioDrum firmware for the RadioMusic, is providing all the drum sounds. The Befaco ADSR is responsible for that pulsing distortions at the end of the set. Everything is then routed to my 2 mixers, a passive one that I designed, and the Rakit 5 mixer. Ideally I’d like to get a eurorack mixer with some EQ, I’ve got my eye on the Befaco Hex Mix, but it looks like quite an involved build, so need to find the time. See here for more details on the modules I’ve designed and the piezo noise boxes.

     

    Live stream setup

  • Live stream

    R.Dyer and myself were supposed to do a live show last month at the Rose Hill, but it was cancelled for obvious reasons. Why not watch us from the comfort of your own sofa instead, perhaps with a warming glass of Brandy? Playing Saturday 23rd May 8:30 UK time.

    https://www.youtube.com/cutlasses/live

  • First workshop done

    Thanks to everyone who came to my ‘Digital Audio with Microcontrollers Workshop’ last weekend. I hope everyone had as much fun as I did! The first workshop sold out pretty quickly, so we ended up running another one back to back. A pretty exhausting day, but definitely a rewarding one. I was pleasantly surprised how far the groups got in 3 hours. Everyone got the Teensy to make sounds, and some people created some amazing noise-scapes! For anyone interested in what we covered, the workshop is on GitHub here. Thanks to Brighton Digital Festival and Platf9rm for making it happen!

     

    Teensy Workshop

  • BERLIN!

    Just back from visiting Berlin. Went to Superbooth, met some lovely people, played the Koma Elektronik afterparty, and generally had a wonderful time. As you can see in the photo below, I finished my eurorack case off. I’ll add more details about the new modules soon. Airport security were slightly baffled by the objects in my suitcase. I was a little concerned when I got taken to an interview booth, but only some minor swabbing of case and clothes transpired.

    Berlin is quickly raising up my favourite city rankings, and must be close to toppling New York from the top spot. I love the fact that you never struggle to find somewhere cool, unusual, and interesting to eat, drink or hangout. Thanks Berlin, I miss you already x

     

     

  • Thee Saturday Sonics 2019

    I’m going to be in Hastings this weekend, for Thee Saturday Sonics. I’ll be doing a talk about DIY instruments and also an improvised performance to show off some of the devices I’ve been building recently. It’s totally free, and on all day. I’ll be on at 2pm. Hopefully see you there!

     

  • CV Freqs

    On Saturday (1st December) I was up in London at the House of Vans, speaking about getting started in digital module design for Eurorack. It was a really fun day. My talk was fairly well attended and I got some positive comments and questions which is always a bonus. The venue itself doubles as a skate park, so there were lots of confused looking skaters kids wandering around, bemused by the sheer quantity of wires I expect. Thanks to Tom Whitwell and all involved for inviting me.

    I found it inspiring to see everyone’s modular systems. Although it mainly inspired me to build more modules, whereas I need to start making music with my current ones! More on that later.

     

  • Electromagnetic Field Festival 2018

    By the time I was made aware of Electromagnetic Field earlier in the year it had already sold out. My cunning plan to secure a ticket by proposing a talk worked though, and this weekend I got to go and do it. It was absolutely unlike any festival I’ve ever attended. In equal parts inspiring, astonishing and just really good fun. For the uninformed, Electromagnetic Field is a non-profit UK camping festival for those with an inquisitive mind or an interest in making things: hackers, artists, geeks, crafters, scientists, and engineers. Basically, my people!

     

    EMF has many talks and workshops which I attended a bunch of, and were all pretty great. As well as that, the site is full of various installations, a cyber punk village, called the NullZone with flame throwers and smoke machines, and cardboard arcade. If that wasn’t enough, every attendee gets their own ‘badge’, a PCB with a microprocessor, screen, wi-fi and mobile connectivity. The festival even had their own mobile network setup for the weekend! As I said, unlike anything I’ve been to before. The badge is open-source and can be hacked. I may have a go at hacking its audio capabilities soon. Apparently they had a huge amount of problems prior to the event, the main big-top tent only got delivered the day before it started, so they did an incredible job making everything run pretty smoothly. I’m already looking forward to the next one in 2020.

     

    My talk went well I think, several people found me afterwards to chat. I also got the opportunity to do a performance using only sound generators and effects I’d built myself. I’ve not done a set like this before and was really pleased with how it turned out, so thanks to everyone at EMF that made that possible, and thanks to all the organisers and volunteers for the festival itself, it was something very, very special.

    Slides can be found here in Keynote and PowerPoint (prefer the keynote one if you have a mac, the PowerPoint export isn’t perfect).

    Here’s the video stream of the talk:

     

     

  • Speaking at EMF 2018

    I’m really excited to announce I’m going to be speaking, and possibly performing at Electromagnetic Field festival. I’ll be doing a talk about DIY electronic instruments. Electromagnetic Field https://www.emfcamp.org/ is a non-profit festival for hackers, artists, geeks, crafters, scientists, and engineers. Sounds amazing! Every camper gets electricity and broadband piped directly to their tent! I’ve been working on a new module specifically for this, more information soon!