- Sorbet Punk Console
Here is my first attempt at DIY electronic music making devices – the Sorbet Punk Console.
I ordered this wonderful kit from http://www.getlofi.com/?p=1462 bought myself a soldering iron, some solder and got to making the Sorbet Punk Console following the pretty straight forward instructions (even for a complete beginner like me). Having spent around an hour and around £20 I decided that a sorbet container was the perfect housing for my first project. This is mainly because the plastic is so easy to chop through and the plastic case I had bought really needed drilling (necessecity - the mother of invention). I decided to deviate from the original kit and purchased a mini switch so that I could generate continuous tones without having to hold down a trigger button. This cost me less than £2 from Maplins.
I’m sure you’ll agree that this certainly is an item of true beauty and capable of similarly beautiful 8bit stepped tones. I would heartily recommend buying this kit as a way into DIY electronic noise machines being as the results are impressive given the small amount of effort and money required.
Punk Console tones from GetLoFi.com
Music Technology
atari, console, diy, electronics, punk, sorbet
I have been experimenting with the recently released Acer Aspire One, using various music making applications and I can joyously report that they work incredibly well. The Intel Atom processor included in these mini marvels is not the most powerful in the world, so I had limited hopes when running Ableton Live 7. However to my delight I found that it would happily run many simultaneous loops and some effects as well before running out of steam. The photo above shows 8 loops running which is using around 30% CPU. The more processor intensive effects (such as reverb) can max out the processor quite easily, but used sparingly the netbook can be used as an ultra portable and inexpensive sketch pad. It is worth noting that to get the most out of the music software that an ASIO compliant sound card is required. I have purchased the Edirol UA-1EX to handle these duties, but have also tried my Novation X-Station with similarly impressive results. The 120Gb HDD ensures that plenty of audio content can be carried around with you and messed with when and wherever the whim takes you. Battery life is the main draw back however, being as the the Aspire One manages around two hours of use out of the supplied battery. That said there are 7800mAh battery replacements which apparently can supply up to 10 hours of sonic enjoyment!
Reason 4 appears to function well, however as before you need to keep an eye on the effects used and create your work using Subtractor rather than Thor. I need to have a bit more of a play with this but my initial impressions are that the screen restrictions make Reason less fun than Live. None the less this is possible to use and may find favour with some folk.
It is also worth noting that I have done all of this running on standard Windows XP with no tweeks or hacks. In fact I even have AVG anti-virus software running constantly in the background.
Here are some links to get you started:
Acer Aspire One A150-Aw Netbook, Linpus Linux Lite version, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 120GB HD (Seashell White)
Edirol UA1EX audio interface
Replacement Extended Battery (White 7800mAh) for Acer Aspire One
Music Technology
Ableton, Laptop, netbook, technology
