Wednesday 14 August 2013

Musical Tin Box in the Garden.

I have robbed this idea from The Forgotten Fish Memory Orchestra.

Before I go on you should watch some Forgotten Fish Memory Orchestra videos:

Forgotten Fish Memory Orchestra Videos

One of the many instruments they used fascinated me, errr, well several of the many instruments they play fascinate me, but the paper-roll driven musical box fastened to a tin fascinated me so much I bought a paper-roll driven musical box from eBay and started looking for a suitable tin to attach it to.

That was some time ago.

Having finally finished the production on BeHeld's 'Heart' CD I suddenly find I have time to do that sort of thing.

Today I found the tin box.
I'd been using it to store my hobby-electronics bits and bobs in.
I took the bits and bobs out of the desirable tin (I think I bought it at Ikea) and put them in the tool box that used to have the electric drill and assorted drill bits in.

It's only been about 6 hours now, but I can't for the life of me remember where I've put the electric drill and the assorted drill bits.
I'll probably remember at around 3 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Anyway,

I basically bolted the musical box mech to the tin.
I fitted a spring diagonally across the screw threads on the inside of the tin to find out if it would work like an old spring-line reverb.
The finished item looks like this:
The paper reel threaded through the mechanism plays a popular melody, but I turned it upside down and back-to-front so it plays a completely different melody.
Which sounds like this:
The spring seems to add a distinct buzz to the whole thing, which I find pleasing.

There are three other experiments going on here:

01) Filming using the easel iPad holder.
02) Recording the audio through the iRigPre using a Carlsbro dynamic microphone.
03) Recording sound and vision directly into iMovie on the iPad.

So, success then.

2 comments:

Banished To A Pompous Land said...

Now Thats What I Call Music! (Vol 10,000 by now I imagine). The gardens looking lush too. I'm off on my hols tomorrow up to the Shenandoah valley.

This Is What I Call Music Too. The massed Tom Waitses and Keef

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJgWaqwZml4

Le Sanglier said...

I like the way the the voice of the earth rises and speaks by blowing wind through leaves and stalks and trees and such. There are times when you cannot hear the wind, only see it's effects, and then you know the earth is speaking. I have observed that silence in the field (so to speak) but have never seen it captured on film. Does that make any bit of sense at all? Anyway, I like your delicate paper roll music box. And your garden is beautiful. And I hope Mr. Banished enjoys the Shenandoah Valley, which is quite beautiful. Although now that I have taken the pledge never to hike south of the Berkshires, I leave it to others to trod the paths in those woods. One more thing regarding this post: the Forgotten Fish Memory Orchestra is Really Something.