Noizebox [irq7]

Superheros approaching...

2011-10-24T10:02:00.001+02:00

A short clip from the wicked gig in Augsburg :)

8-Bit Festival Augsburg

2011-10-08T13:37:00.003+02:00

Flyer 17.9.2011 Schwäbisch Hall

2011-09-09T08:43:00.002+02:00

irq7 - Girls 'n' Gameboys EP

2011-08-17T22:15:00.015+02:00

FREE DOWNLOAD

It's time for my next release called "Girls 'n' Gameboys".
After a lot of cover-versions on the "It's not me EP", I decided to have more own songs on the follow-up release and here you are! Well - there is at least _one_ cover-song on the EP. Sorry, but I could not resist ;)

First I have to mention the awesome cover-artwork done by Vera. This not only saved a lot of work for me - it also looks sooo much better than everything I did before.
Thanks for all Vera! :)

This EP is also featuring a song with my own vocals called "Jamie & Me". The whole thing was heavily inspired by my personal muse called Irina. She also fixed my bad English. Me like!

Another novelty is the usage of amen-breaks in some songs. Don't expect high-quality samples, but the breaks were well received on my performance at The Tank/NY :D
Of course all songs were produced with one Gameboy Classic and LSDj.

I also did a short C64-demo featuring the first song of the EP:

Tracklist:
1.) Bad Taste
2.) Terror Uschi
3.) Godmode
4.) Get Ready (cover)
5.) Jamie & Me
6.) Coma
7.) 1988

irq7 live

2011-08-17T20:20:00.007+02:00

I got a lot of request for playing some live-gigs.
So check-out irq7 playin live in your city. I will regularly update the dates here and on facebook.

31.08.2011 ARS Electronica Center, Linz
This is not a real irq7 gig, but I can play some songs as a part of the famous Gameboymusicclub at the same event where I got the first contact with this nice people from Vienna:
The ARS Electronica!

We are playing at the opening-ceremony in the ARS Electronica Quater which is in the front of the ARS Electronica Center. The Tesla Orchestra is also playing! I mean check this out:

16.09.2011 chip - nyte, Frankfurt, Stereo Bar (irq7, Sabrepulse, Stern Fucking Zeit)
Whoooooomp! I have a gig with the awesome Sabrepulse and the Gameboy hardcore legend Stern Fucking Zeit :D

17.09.2011 Planet 8Bit, Schwäbisch Hall, Club Alpha 60 (irq7, Sputnik Booster)
The free German radio-station sthoerfunk.de is celebrating a big chiptune-night also featuring Sputnik Booster and a screening of the chiptune-documentation" Reformat the Planet".
Don't miss that!

T-Shirts available now!

2011-06-18T22:36:00.010+02:00

Visit http://irq7.spreadshirt.de for more irq7 t-shirts and merchandising!

Gameboy Tronified!

2011-06-18T21:29:00.006+02:00

A few days ago I ordered some El-wire (0.9 mm) in a webshop only to try it out. I also bought a so called "inverter" which transforms the battery-voltage from 3V DC to more than 100V AC. The inverter is very small and fits perfect into the Gameboy. I soldered the power-supply of the inverter to the first two batteries in the Gameboy. Because I use this Gameboy only for live-performances, I did not add a extra switch to turn-on/off the El-wire (the wire consumes about 60mA). At the end I just glued the EL-wire around the Gameboy with superglue. Together with the blue backlight everything looks very harmonious....and now we have to enter the system and fight the MCP! :D

The inverter does not need much space.

irq7 live in NYC (I mean 'holy shit!')

2011-05-27T17:58:00.007+02:00

I had the honour to play at the open-stage in The Tank / New York during the Blip Festival 2011. The crowd was just awesome screaming and dancing like there is no tomorrow. Seven days of chiptunes, I will never forget.

Kamerakind Irina did a cool and shakin' live-footage of my unreleased song "godmode".
Thanks to her and "The Agent" for the picture above!

NES Video Mod

2011-04-17T17:51:00.010+02:00

After a few weekends of soldering, I finished together with a friend of mine the first two circuit-bended NES. The mod is based on Phillip Stearns great "NES Circuit Bent Audio Visualizer". A 4-band EQ generates many different interconnections on the PCB of the NES which leads to a wonderful 8-bit flickering video-output.

I recorded the NES video-output with a new irq7 song with a very cheap video-to-USB converter. To do this in a clean way, I was forced to take the ground from the PCB instead of the NES video-out. Otherwise the video-quality was too bad.

The first step to the mod was the production of the PCB, which was a little disaster, but finally I fixed it. Making and bring the PCB's into service was the most time-consuming work.

Then I started to mound the PCB into the NES with a hot-melt gun, add all bending-points according to Phillips instruction and solder all the rotary-switches to them.

The Final Arduino Kitchen Timer

2011-02-27T17:39:00.017+01:00

Kitchen-Timers have a durability which is only slightly bigger than the warranty of the device. It doesn't matter if you buy a cheap one or an expensive. They initiate self-destruction after one year (IKEA, WMF, Zyliss, No-Name... I tried them all) . That's just my personal experience and this is also the reason, why I decided to build my own kitchen-timer.
...and it's name shall be "The FAKT".

I could not find a suitable solution for me on the web, so I have to engineer by myself this time.
Because I didn't want to reinvent the wheel, I choose Arduino as suitable platform. There are enough libraries and documentation and examples available. The board is cheap and very friendly for prototyping.

My requirements for the FAKT are:
- Simple to use with just one rotary-encoder and a LCD-display
- A loud beeping-tone or a melody indicates when the time is expired
- A low power-consumption
- Small dimensions
- Simple to build
- Simple to code. Reuse as much code as possible.
- Cheap hardware

The first firmware-version is working fine, but there are still some open issues. Power-saving should be implemented and my inner-voice told me to switch to an 3.3V-based Arduino-board. I think I will do so. Otherwise I have to destroy my Uno and I don't want to do that. I'm thinking about an Arduino Pro Mini. This will make it also fit in a smaller housing.

The LCD was surprisingly easy to integrate. I used an existing library called DogLcd.
The rotary-encoder is interrupt controlled based on example code from adruino.cc, but I'm still not satisfied with debouncing and step-regognition. Sound is played via two PWM-pins to get a higher volume. This is not optimal and I have to find a different solution, if I switch to 3.3V power-supply.

GORF !!!

2011-02-27T16:48:00.011+01:00

The GORF is a 8-step midi-sequencer by Vacoloco. I build this device some month ago, but never had the time to post it here. The PCB is well designed and all components are mounted on it in a very space-saving way. To polish my grey housing a little bit, I put stickers on it which showing the logo from the Austrian TV-station ORF. The "G" in the logo comes from their payment-division called GIS (yes - everyone with a TV has to pay for the public-television in Austria, even if he is just watching the private-channels). But the name of the sequencer is from an 80ies video-game.

Here is a video showing the Gorf controlling my SX-150 via the CV from the MidiVox:

It's very easy and intuitive to program the GORF. You can also change and send Midi-CC.
When you connect your MIDI-keyboard to the gorf, you can transpose the programmed patterns.

There is still a problem in the GORF-firmware when using another bank than the first. The firmware if available, but you need an AVR-programmer to change it. I installed the programming-interface and the MIDI-In and MIDI-Out.

Here is a picture of the plain PCB and some nice close-ups:

MidiVox SX-150 Mod

2011-02-27T16:20:00.005+01:00

Narbotic posted a nice mod for the Gakken SX-150. As you may already guess, I could not resist to try it out. It's a very small modification on the arduino-based MidiVox and because it worked so well, I decided to build everything in a eurobox. The MidiVox is connected to the stylus of the SX-150 and control it via CV.

Gameboy Bluetooth Mod

2011-02-27T15:45:00.008+01:00

I had the idea to enable wireless audio on the gameboy in a very simple and cheap way. For that purpose I used a pair of small a2dp-bluetooth devices.

The sender is mounted with a velcro-strip on my DMG. This is a easy way to remove the device, if not needed and you don't have to hassle with space in your Gameboy.

For the receiver I decided to remove the PCB from the original housing, because it cannot be charged during audio-streaming. So I removed the battery and add permanent power-supply and for a better handling I also exchanged the buttons with bigger-ones. With the buttons you can pair another bluetooth-device, change the volume or skip tracks (if supported on the remote side).

The system works fine for me, but as I expected, there is a audio-latency about a half second.
I can't wait to test the system on stage :D

Instant failing @ the direct toner method

2011-02-26T16:35:00.022+01:00

Today it was beautiful outside.
The first day in spring with blue sky and bright sunshine.
Today was a waste of time.
Today was a constant fail.

In the morning I was fully motivated to give it a try on etching some PCB's with the "direct toner method". I tried it so many times with my iron using different temperatures and techniques to bring the layout from the sheets of my "reichelt catalogue" to the coppered-PCB's. Even letting the PCB an hour in the water to soak the paper well, did not work. I expected that this method would not work on the first try - oh yes. So I printed many sheets with a HP-Laserprinter in advance - just to be on the save side...
It was a disaster.
Every time I reached step 3: Goto step 1. Groundhog Day.

But who's to blame?
- my cheapo electric iron from TCM?
- the laserprinter or it's bad ink?
- the author of this method who is using a modded laminator and laughing at people with an iron?
- globalisation?
- al-Qaida?
- ...or at least my two left hand's?

I have no idea and yes - I'm a "bit" frustrated :-/

UPDATE:
I got two PCB's which looked acceptable and maybe just need little corrections, so I decided to continue. They looked like this:

But before starting etching, I tried to remove the rest of the paper with boiling water and soap. This worked fine using my rubber-gloves without removing the ink to much. Then I started with the etching:

...and the result after removing the ink with Acetone looked like this:

To sum up everything I come to the following conclusions:
If the ink could be brought to the PCB in a very clean way, the etching is no big problem. Etching only works, if _all_ the paper is removed (even from the strip lines!). So the main problem in the whole method is to iron the ink to the PCB. The advantage on this method is, that you can start all over again, if that doesn't work on the first(haha) attempt (each try doesn't cost you money - just a little Acetone and time). But if you have problems in constant results you would fail like me.
I invested a whole day without satisfied results.

Live in Germany !!!

2011-01-10T22:08:00.001+01:00

irq7 - It's not me EP

2010-12-05T13:44:00.015+01:00

FREE DOWNLOAD

This is the first EP released, after my debut-album "Revenge of the Calm". Instead of own compositions, this EP features cover-versions of some of my favorite songs.

All seven Songs were written on my Gameboy(s) Classic using LSDj. Most of the original songs are coming from the Commodore C64- and Amiga - world.

The title-track "Alf" is heavily based on Zalza's brilliant "2204355 Song" which was released in the early days of the internet together with a funny animation. Of course it's also the theme of the TV-series with the same name.

Alf (Gameboy version of Zalza's "2204355 Song") by irq7

My second Track is a typically pushing forward cracktro-tune from the C64 used by Strikeforce. The same is valid for S-Express, but this song was already a cover on the C64 of a late 80ies dancefloor-act.

"Analyzer" is one of these really cewl Amiga-MOD's which consist of just a few patterns which loop to infinity. I also did a extended version of this track using a drum-machine connected to my Gameboy. Another song from the Amiga is "Lost Scrotum" which was programmed on two Gameboys to keep the complexity of this beautiful anthem.

After watching the "Silent Hill" movie, a little sad melody get stuck in my mind and I decided to try a own version. I added some drums which end up in a nice breakbeat - song.

At the end I like to say Thank you! to all the original composers for their songs which touched my soul and made me what I am.

Chiptunes 4 ever!

Gameboy Gallery

2010-09-12T21:34:00.007+02:00

DMG RCA Mod

2010-09-12T18:17:00.008+02:00

It is very annoying, if you do a liveset and the your headphone is crackling because of a defective connection (or "Wackelkontakt" in german which is maybe a good bandname for a noiseband =). Anyway - I decided to add two RCA's on the top of my gameboy. There is enough space for the RCA's without the need to remove/cut parts from the inside. I already have a Pro-Sound Modification on the bottom which can be adjusted with the volume-wheel of the Gameboy. So I decided to have a fixed output volume on the RCA's, which can be connect in parallel to the Pro-Sound.
I tried it with two different type of RCA-jacks: The bigger one in gold and the smaller you see in the picture above. It was very complicated to integrate the big gold-jacks in the Gameboy-housing (but the look a lot better =). I had to carefully remove parts of the PCB which took a lot of time, so I recommend the smaller RCA-jacks.

Here is a view from the inside (ignore the strange resistor on the right side - it is use for the backlight-mod).

This is how I connected the Pro-Sound and the RCA's to the volume-control. Please note that the Pro-Sound is connected wrong on the headphone-socket: You have to flip the black with the red wire on the Pro-Sound socket(lower right).

irq7 live @ Chip Hits The Fan / Nuremberg

2010-08-11T09:09:00.013+02:00

What a great 8-Bit event last saturday!
Workshops, tutorials, lectures and many live-acts like Sputnik Booster, Firestarter, Agikakaluna! and Pornologic.
I also had the honour to play a liveset that evening:

Gameboy Workshop for LSDJ

Stylophone Beatbox Mod

2010-07-11T10:19:00.005+02:00

This is a Stylophone Beatbox with a small but useful modification. I simple added two push-buttons on the left side. They are in parallel with the rec/play-pads and useful to reduce the delay, when you try to record a new loop.

DMG with half-speed crystal

2010-07-11T09:12:00.009+02:00

Here you can see my "half-speed modded" Gameboy with Pro-Sound and white buttons (the simplest way to distinguish the members of my little Gameboy-family). I just replaced the original crystal-oscillator with one running at half-speed (2.097152 MHz). Just like Pro-Sound, it's a simple but very useful modification. On LSDJ you can play now one octave lower, so you can use it for bass-tracks. Surprisingly, the synchronisation with a normal DMG works also very well. The device can be master or as slave. Editing on this Gameboy is not very recommended, because the MMI is running slow as well and the screen flickers heavily. But you can write the tracks on a normal DMG and use the half-speed device just for performing the transposed track.

I tried the noise-generating software "Death Ray" from Pixelh8 on my half-speed DMG.

Gameboy with Pitch Mod

2010-07-10T19:18:00.009+02:00

This is my first pitch-modded Gameboy. It uses the GetLoFi LTC1799 Precision Oscillator and also include the Pro-Sound modification.

With the potentiometer, you can control the clock seamless.
There is also a switch include to activate the original oscillator, but sometimes LSDJ crash when you try to switch between the different clock-sources.
There is not much space for the poti and switch, so I have to twiddle around to make it fitting.
You can also synchronize the the DMG with unmodded devices.

The transparent housing was a present from a friend of mine. He want me to destroy it on a live-show to pimp-up my performance, but I don't have the heart to do it =)
On the first Video, I use LSDJ and in the second one, the noise-software "Shitwave" is bended.

Gameboy Backlight Modification

2010-07-09T21:41:00.006+02:00

This is my first backlight-modification for the Gameboy. I ordered the backlight at Project GB. The modification wasn't that easy because a didn't find a link on the product-site to a detailed description. But on the web are a some helpful sites with detailed descriptions (here and here) and also some videos about the modification on youtube.

The trickiest part is to remove the background-foil with a stanley-knife.
Here are all the needed parts including the removed foil (top middle).
The power-led and the resistor R1 is already removed (bottom left).
The big resistor is for the led-panel.

Additionally, I did a Pro Sound modification, but without destroying the original headphone-output. So I add a second headphone-socket on the left side. I also ordered some "black as the night" - buttons at Kitsch Bent plus some replacement screens saying "CHIPMUSIC IN STEREO".

And now.... Let there be light!

Retr0bright - Gameboy Bleaching

2010-06-19T22:29:00.016+02:00

I got this four "defect" Gameboy's on eBay for just 20EUR. I bought them in the hope, that I can repair them without a big effort. As you may see on the picture, the 2nd Gameboy looks not very bight. To much sunlight turned him more yellow than the others.
Luckily, I found a method to bleach the yellow-colour away. The project I found on the internet is called Retr0bright and the recipe for the bleaching-paste is based on Hydrogen Peroxide.

I bought the Hydrogen Peroxide and the other ingredients in the pharmacy. I have to left there a copy of my driving-licence, just in case that I build a bomb instead of bleaching a Gameboy =)
Later I mixed everything together using plastic-gloves and eyeglasses for protection. Then I pasted the gel on the Gameboy-housing and put it under a UV-lamp.
This is what happened...

I'm not 100% satisfied with the result, but the Gameboy looks a _lot_ better now. I think I will try less "Vanish OxyAction" next time. Now you can't really distinguish it from my 1st Gameboy.

irq7 on Austrian TV

2010-05-17T19:54:00.005+02:00

Last week I played a set in Villach (Austria) for the Art&Cultureclub Aktion Mutante. I was captured in a short clip on the Austrian public TV-station ORF.

New remix online!

2010-04-25T11:18:00.016+02:00

Dingoo + Skero = Turbinenparty!

I did a remix for the FM4-Soundpark of Skero's "Kabinenparty" - a hip-hop summer hit in austian slang, which may can be translated as "Kabinparty" :-P

The original version of the song is unbeatable, so I try a different approach. The whole remix was done with LGPT on my Dingoo. As my remix is far away from the original sound, and maybe remind you on a starting Concorde, I called it "Turbinenparty", which can be translated as (yes you guessed it) "Turbineparty".

You can download the song here!

Thingamagoop 2 finished!

2010-03-21T18:30:00.008+01:00

Lots of troubles during soldering this lovely sound-robot called "Thingamagoop2". I have to admit that I was very impatient this time, to get this guy working.
First the voltage regulator 78L05 was not included in the kit and I have to take a 7805 as substitute. The 7805 is much bigger and I had to fiddle around to solder it on the PCB.
Next thing was the description in the manual, how to solder the button on the PCB. There is a inconsistency between the picture and the text (the picture is correct, the text wrong). Dr. Bleep told me, that they send me the wrong instruction, so this should not happen to you. Also take care that you do not heat the button up too much when soldering, because the pins are very sensitive (I nearly ruined mine).
At the end I forgot to solder the 2 leads to the switch-pot, which was my failure (RTFM...).

Finally it is working and rocks like hell! I can just recommend this kit which comes with a pre-drilled housing what saves a lot of work. The sound is much complexer than it's forerunner.
I think there are tons of videos already online, but anyway - here is mine =)

irq7 Radio Interview

2010-03-20T20:45:00.004+01:00

(Switching to German ...initializing - los! :-)

Ich war vergangene Woche zu einem Interview in Graz eingeladen. Anlass war die Sendung bitte8bit auf Radio Helsinki, die sich in Folge 63 (shit, Folge 64 knapp verfehlt ;-) meinem Alter-Ego "irq7" widmete. Die Sendung wurde bereits am letzten Dienstag ausgestrahlt. Wer sie versäumt hat und mehr über mein Gameboy-Projekt, meine Vorliebe für den C64 oder die Entstehung der Noizebox erfahren will, kann die Folge anhören oder gleich downloaden. Ich bedanke mich jedenfalls bei "bitte8bit"-Thomas für den tollen Nachmittag in Graz!

New irq7 album "Revenge of the Calm"

2010-02-09T21:19:00.018+01:00

FREE DOWNLOAD

I'm very proud to present you the first irq7 album called "Revenge of the Calm" (download here). I never learned to play a "real" instrument - so the Gameboy is maybe my first one =) and I never liked the Gameboy nor any other Nintendo console when I was a kid. I had a C64 and I loved the sound of it's soundchip - the SID 8580 (yeah, and _not_ the SID 6581! ;-)

All tracks on the album were made with the software "Little Sound DJ" on a Gameboy Classic, except the beats on "Beast V2.0" are coming from a Korg ES1 linked via MIDI with my Arduinoboy.

The last song is not featured on the web-release, because it covers Trio's "Da Da Da" from the 80's. Track number 7 is heavily inspired from a song by Irene Grabherr of the Gameboymusicclub Vienna. Thanks for the permission Irene!

The album's name "Revenge of the Calm" is pretty old. Years ago, I decided to write a whole album with my first Hardsid. I choose the name of the album and wrote down song-names for each track. Then I started to write a first song which was pretty hard for me and then things came entirely different. The whole set-up of my equipment was too complex for writing just a "quick song". So I decided to get a more mobile and simple hardware which is easier to handle and to take with me. Then I remembered a concert of the Gameboymusicclub and I bought a Gameboy-Classic with a programmable cartridge plus the tracker-based software LSDj. This album contains songs I wrote on this, nearly 20 years old Gameboy over the last 3 years. I released only a few of them in the meantime. For the album, I re-recorded most of them while doing some live-action. Most of the tracks were not mastered at all, as I want to sound them as raw as possible.

Lets the the tracklist:

Each song has it's own story and I want to tell it now to you:
1 Intro7
Initially I wrote Intro7 just for live-performances but I start to like that tune and decided to put it on the album. This is the time to turn up the volume!

2 Train
This track was mainly produced riding a train and parts of it even in a plane to Helsinki.

3 Skin
A short, but funky tune with a catchy melody. With this song I started to play more instruments within one voice.

4 Break
I love appegios - the chords for "the poor". They meet a melancholic melody and build together a very dancy tune.

5 Acidboy
Instead of following the invitation to a techno-party in Italy, I produced this track. I'm not very into techno, but I like the sounds that can be made with the noise-channel of the Gameboy.

6 Beast v2.0
Beast v1.0 was shit, so Mr. Frankenstein goes back to his laboratory and create a new mutant. Three evil machines helped him to make it alive. The Gameboy, the Korg-ES1 and the Arduinoboy which connect their brains together. And now be afraid, be very afr...aarggg!

7 Rambazamba
I heard this lovely song from Irene Grabherr only two or three times. She was playing it live on a Nintendo DS. As I couldn't find it on the net, I decided to make my first cover-song just out of some memory fragments I had of the track.

8 Star
I was experimenting with basslines for a drum'n'bass song. The result was pretty different.

9 2nd Gen
One of my elder songs and an atypical rhythm too. I did some live-action during the recording to make it sound different from the original version.

10 irq7
A short try on the minimalistic speech-synthesis of LSDj. The robot say's "I R Q 7" at the beginning of this song.

11 Workshop
I was visiting a Gameboy-Workshop in Linz and ask one nice guy of the GBMC I he can tell me how to make a good bassdrum. I came back with the new bassdrum and did this teutonic techno song. Dance my puppets!

DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM NOW!

My Gakken SX-150

2009-11-22T14:42:00.004+01:00

This is my Gakken SX-150 coming directly from Japan. The SX-150 is a analog synthesizer with LFO, pitch envelope, frequency cutoff, resonance and attack/decay. The pitch is controlled by a wired pen and a resistor-strip. It has a build-in speaker and a mono 3,5mm mono-jack. The SX-150 comes as a kit and a Japanese manual. The kit is very easy to assembly. You just need a screwdriver and some patience. It also takes a little training with the slide-controller to find the correct notes which I show you in this short clip:

Arduino Punk Console

2009-11-01T22:05:00.010+01:00

Huh! ...being quite busy last month. Now I'm back in "Bastel-Business" with a 8-step tone sequencer called Arduino Punk Console (APC). It's based on a project from Beavis Audio Research and includes a Arduino-Board with an Atmel328 .
On the upper-left is the volume-knob and the 3 knobs in a row are for Duration, Frequency and Tempo of the tone-sequence. The frequency of each step can be set separatly. Just hold one of the step-buttons and adjust the frequency-knob at the same time.
The display(16 digits x 2 lines) from Sparkfun has a serial interface which is very easy to use.

Currently the only problem is, that I have to hold the start/stop-button permanently to hear the sequence. I will fix this in the software soon. There is also a small bug in the wiring-diagram on the homepage : The red-line to the "tempo" potentiometer is missing.

I also left some space for more potentiometers on the right side. A feature-merge of the Auduino would be cool.

Update: I uploaded a video showing the APC in live-action!

irq7 Live in Linz at ARS Electronica

2009-09-21T16:32:00.008+02:00

I had the honor to play as irq7 together with the Gameboy Musicclub at the ARS-Electronica 2009 in Linz. This is a picture of the crowded Stadtwerkstatt during the gig. It was really fun and the people went crazy on our Gameboy-songs. Thanks to the Gameboy Musicclub for the great evening and "Musikkreis MS20" for the fine concert afterwards.

This is not me but a nice guy of the GBMC performing on a Gameboy Color with Nanoloop:

Thing-a-ma robot

2009-08-30T17:59:00.014+02:00

Oooops I did it again.... No - not this time. I assembled this Thing-a-ma robot for a friend of mine who is currently very busy because of a little bit bigger project. So this robot is unfortunately not mine.
After a half a day work I finished it. The kit is neat designed and the instruction-manual is very detailed with many pictures and funny drawings.
On Thing-a-ma you can vary the sound with the knobs/switches and the two LED's mounted on the top of the antennas. The "eyes" are LDR's whichare reacting on the blinking LED's. Just checkout the video to get a better impression:

The Thing-a-ma has a build-in spreaker which is a bit small, but you can connect it also with a mono-jack on the side with a bigger sound-system. Maybe a little disadvantage is, that the 9V battery can only be changed by opening the housing with a screwdriver. But a separate battery-compartment would made the kit maybe more expensive. To sum it up: The Thing-a-ma-kit is solid, easy to build and the sound is very versatile.

Here is another video, I made today showing the Thinggama connected to with my NOIZEBOX.

GP32 MIDI Interface with Darkstar

2009-08-26T23:12:00.005+02:00

I had some little time to finish the MIDI-interface for my GP32. I can use now this little gaming-console with the LGPT-software as MIDI-sequencer together with my Darkstar XP2 you can see on the top. LGPT has no more support on GP32 and is much more advanced on the GP32 successor GP2X, which I unfortunately not own. Anyway - it works fine for me and to prove this you can checkout the video:

Of course this was only the first Test. Here are some more pictures of the whole setup:

Auduino Video and MP3

2009-08-26T22:29:00.007+02:00

As promised here is the video of my Arduino based Auduino and above the photo with the new knobs on it. I would prefer the silver knobs, but my hardware-dealer told me, that his supplier for this knobs is out of business.
I'm sorry, but the video is acoustical and optical very low-fi =)

Check-out also the MP3 of this session:
auduino session by irq7

My Auduino

2009-08-20T23:09:00.001+02:00

Here are the first pictures of my Auduino which I build yesterday immediately after I received my second Duemilanove via snail-mail. I just couldn't wait =)
Its really easy to build. Just adding some potentiometers and an audio-jack and you are done.
The sound is _amazing_. Really! I didn't expect that complexity. I think I will add a MP3 after this weekend.
As you can see, there are some missing knobs. I will get some more of them. The case is very small and compact and you can see the Led flashing on the board, while modifying the sound-parameters.
Here are some more pictures:

Italy inside ;-)

Zwitsch to English

2009-08-18T22:47:00.000+02:00

As you may have noticed, I switched the Blog from German to English to ~~let you know how bad my language skills are~~ make this readable for all my non-German speaking friends =)
If my grammar hurts too much, just add a comment with all your ....emotions.

New Gameboy track from irq7

2009-08-18T08:45:00.001+02:00

Here is a little appetizer for the Concert on the 22.8.2009 at the Klosterruine in Arnoldstein.

train by irq7

Noizebox Liveperformance!

2009-08-17T21:46:00.000+02:00

On the 22.8.2009 you have the first chance to see the NOIZEBOX live in action! Check out Disco Mutante at the Klosterruine Arnoldstein.

LIVE:
Monster Zoku Onsomb (Australien)
Nam Shub of Enki (Australien)
Eva3 feat. Riotmiloo (UK)
irq7 feat. Noizebox (A)
More Infos about the event here: www.mutante.at.

Noizebox Flyer

2009-08-16T17:03:00.000+02:00

I've done my first flyer with GIMP this afternoon.
It was a nice chance to take a closer look at this open-source tool. I have to admit, that GIMP is more user-friendly than most of the tools out there you can buy!

Cheers-Box!

2009-08-11T22:38:00.001+02:00

I take Uli's comment "very" serious and put on a cup-holder =)
So our performance last longer in hot summer days out there in the shopping-streets. (btw. it's beer-can compatible!)

The Power-Box

2009-08-11T21:36:00.001+02:00

To avoid cable spaghetti, I decided to build a individual power-supply for each electronic device within the NOIZEBOX. Two 12V outputs for the amplifiers for maximum performance and six regulated outputs with 9V for the other components.
On the top of the Power-Box should be a on/off-switch with backlit and one fan on the side to ensure that the voltage-regulators don't get overheated.
The fan is a bit loud, but hey - it's the NOIZEBOX =)

Well - at least there is the new lead-accu which also need a special charger cause it's a "maintenance-free" type. Normal chargers for car-batteries would destroy the accu. So the accu seems to stay my problem-child in this project :-P

Open the Box

2009-08-11T21:16:00.000+02:00

Here is a fist view from the inside of the NOIZEBOX.
On the left backside you can see the Power-Box which handles power-distribution and voltage-stabilization. On the left backside you can see the Power-Amp, which is connected to the car-hifi speakers.

On this picture you can see various components I've already introduced in this blog. I just have to connect the to different audio-sources.

The Noizebox is finished!

2009-08-10T20:29:00.000+02:00

I completed the NOIZEBOX during my vacation. No it has the radioactive-like recycling-logo and it's own name on it. The yellow paint is usually used for marking trees in the forest!

The cover can be used as seat and is made of speaker-drapery(?).

Now you can sit down on the NOIZEBOX and e.g. play some tunes with your Gameboy like the following video shows:

An here is a picture of the first Sit-In ...ahem Sit-On:

How do you like the T-Shirt? =)

On the backside NOIZEBOX I made a hole for audio-cables used during the performance. Inside the NOIZEBOX there is the Power-Amp(hehe, 2x12Watt!), the lead-accu and the Power-Box. The Power-Box provide power for al components within the NOIZEBOX. I will show it to you on another post.

Arduino + Gameboy + MIDI = Arduinoboy !!!

2009-07-28T00:21:00.000+02:00

How can you plug your Gameboy to a drummachine?
Can you play your Gameboy with a MIDI-keyboard?
Is it possible to control your Gameboy with a MIDI-software?

The answer is easy: Arduinoboy.

Arduino is a widespread open-hardware platform and there are countless projects around which only need to be downloaded to your Arduino-board. You only have to solder the peripherals you need.
I is late but I'm finished my first Arduino-project.
It took about 6-8 hours of work including housing, soldering and bringing it into service.

Here are the first pictures of my Arduinoboy:

At least a picture with the Arduino and my Korg ES1 sampler.

The "Tiny Boxes" concept

2009-07-25T23:11:00.000+02:00

To keep all electronic components inside the NOIZEBOX modular, I go and get some empty plastic-cases and start soldering/assembling.
Now I like to present you an overview of all finished components:

The "Power"-Amp
Consists of two amplifier kits with 2 x 12 Watt (if the weather is fine =). The PCB's are mounted inside an amplifier-case from a defect car-amp. The stress-test is still not passed.

The "Little Brother"
This is a small amp compared to The Power-Amp but powerful enough to drive the car front-speaker in the middle of the NOIZEBOX.

The Preamp
For adding audio-sources with weak output I have this mono-preamp. On the Picture there is a piezo-microphone attached which works fine and really sounds lo-fi =)

The Equalizer
Consists of a old Kit from Conrad-Elektronik bought before the millennium. The Equalizer has fantastic features like treble, bass, volume and pan. Everything in full stereo of course. Wow. I can't keep my hands off. =)

The Condensator-Mic-Preamp and the Isolating Transformer
This tiny boxes are also very useful. The Preamp(on the left side)has a big microphone-jack.
The Isolating Transformer (on the right side) is passive (without any power-supply). He avoid ground-loop humming which should not occour on this battery-powered system - but anyway.

Recycle, Reuse, Repair, Retro

2009-07-25T22:44:00.000+02:00

I had the idea while cleaning-up my room filled with car-hifi, defect amplifier-kits, unused preamps with loose wires around empty speaker-cases.
Why throw everything away? Why not build something new out of this "teenage electronic waste"? There were this big speaker-cases with rolls on the bottom and the car-hifi-speakers which inspired me to build a new, portable speaker-system. Roll's makes you mobile either car-amplifiers. Just a small lead-accumulator and there it is: The little NOIZEBOX.

Everything can be build quick & dirty and without additional cost.

On another day I cut-down the big empty speaker-case to a transportable size.
Enough space for the battery, amplifier and some additional electronic devices.
For easier transportation I've bought some small handles at my local building center.
Take a look a the first pictures of my NOIZEBOX:

A view from above shows where to put all the electronic devices inside the NOIZEBOX:

Behind the speakers, there is enough space for the accu and car-amplifier.

And the the trouble begins. I had to buy a lead-accu and I did. But I did a mistake and took the 6V accu which is not suitable for a 12V amp(Remember: Accu with 3 cells = 6V - see the picture above). The store won't take it back, so I have to buy another one *argl*.