All posts by Austin

Circuit Bending General, Events

CMKT 4 on Over the Edge Radio

CMKT 4 is currently on their West Coast Hackerspace Tour and will be joining Don Joyce of Negativland on KPFA’s (94.1fm, Berkeley, CA) airwaves this Thursday night at midnight!  On the eve of our trip to the Bar Area Maker Faire, we’ll be adding noise with a variety of our circuit-bent devices, but you’ll be determining the flow of conversation with your calls – we want you to direct the conversation and join in the noise with YOUR devices.  Is there any escape… from noise?

CMKT 4 on Over the Edge Radio:

Friday May 18 (Thursday night) 12am – 3am KPFA 94.1 Berkeley, CA

Listen live here:  http://www.kpfa.org/streams/kpfa_24k.m3u

http://www.facebook.com/events/124776497647217/

Call from a land-line if you can, don’t say “Hello,” just start making noise:

510-848-4425

Come visit CMKT 4 at our booth at the Bay Area Maker Faire!

 

Circuit Bending General

CMKT 4 West Coast Hackerspace Tour 2012

CMKT 4, the makers of Creme DeMentia Contact Microphones, are excited to announce their upcoming tour. The DeKalb, IL based Hacker-Space-Rock trio will be making their second appearance at the Bay Area Maker Faire in San Mateo, California. Along the way, they will be teaching a number of workshops at Hackerspaces, bringing their total of visited hackerspaces to 60 by the end of this tour. Notable events on this tour include a Sci-Fi Sound Workshop at The Roswell UFO Museum, a visit to the Mojave Makers at the Mojave Air and Space Port, and an appearance on Over The Edge Radio.  Visit CMKT 4‘s Facebook Events Page for individual workshop details!

5/2 Ames Makerspace – Ames, IA
5/3 Columbia Gadget Works – Columbia, MO
5/4 OHM Space – Oklahoma City, OK
5/5 Dallas Makerspace – Dallas, TX
5/6 ATX Hackerspace – Austin, TX
5/7 10-Bit Works – San Antonio, TX
5/9 Quelab – Albequeque, NM
5/10 (Flagstaff, AZ)
5/11 Heat Sync Labs – Mesa, AZ
5/12 SYN Shop – Las Vegas, NV
5/14 (San Diego, CA)
5/15 Build Shop – Los Angeles, CA
5/16 Mojave Makers – Mojave Air and Space Port, CA
5/17 Hacker Dojo – Mountain View, CA
5/18 (Thursday Night 5/17 Midnight-3am) Over The Edge radio show – Berkeley, CA
5/19 Bay Area Maker Faire – San Mateo, CA
5/20 Bay Area Maker Faire – San Mateo, CA
5/21 John Haynes Memorial Veteran’s Hall – Garberville, CA
5/22 Ink Annex – Eureka, CA
5/23 The Curious Forge – Grass Valley, CA
5/24 Bridgewire Reno – Reno, NV
5/25 The Transistor – Provo, UT
5/26 (Boulder, CO)
5/27 Lincoln Hacker League – Lincoln, NE
If you’re near to one of the cities in parentheses above, contact us if you’d like to set up a workshop or performance:
cmktfour (atlas) gmail (dot) com
Circuit Bending General, How To...

My Getlofi LTC 1799 Gameboy Mod for WOFF!

by Austin
I’ve had a Gameboy sitting around for a bit now, a nice, clean one I picked up at St. Vincent De Paul’s for $5.  I wanted to add an LTC module and Pro Sound Mod to the Gameboy as a gift for my friend, Gary, who is one half of the team that brings you the Podcast Watch Out For Fireballs.  I found the soldering to be simple, but met some other unexpected challenges – I hope seeing my process will help you readers out there who have a Gameboy slated for modding to better plan your project.
To get started, I had to open up the Gameboy, which ended up taking much longer than I anticipated.  When I turned it over to get at the screws, I noticed it had proprietary 3-notch screws keeping the halves together.  I would recommend either investing in a screwdriver that would fit these or you can do what I ended up doing:  drilling off the screw heads at the drill press.  Drill carefully and only as far as you must;  the screws connect to plastic posts in the front half of the Gameboy and only one screw was still long enough for me to grab it after drilling.  I backed it out with a pair of needle-nose pliers, then ground down the remaining plastic posts just enough to grab and twist out the other screw shafts.  This was tedious, but had I bit the bullet and gone straight to drilling it would have been faster.  Luckily, the Gameboy still fit together fine, even with the shortened posts.
One thing I would recommend is considering Getlofi’s specialty Gameboy LTC Pitch Modification kit which includes a space-conscious on-off switch.  That said, the inside of the Gameboy is what I refer to as a “Space Nightmare.”  No, Kthulu isn’t in there, it’s just a tight fit for putting more components inside.  There is barely a 1/2″ wide column of space to work with going up half the right side from the bottom to use.
I wanted to use a push-on/push-off latching button in the front to connect/disconnect the LTC signal for aesthetics/usability, which was the first thing I decided to tackle.  Hindsight is 20/20 and I would recommend leaving this operation for last, as it is the only thing aside from the screen ribbon cable that connects the two halves of the Gameboy, once open.  Because I did it first, I had to contend with the button wires during the rest of my wiring, which was annoying.  The ribbon cable can be carefully removed by hand.  Be gentle, because damaging the leads will affect the display.  I also had to route out some of the battery compartment for the button to be able to fit in place.  If you choose to mount the button like I did, be careful when widening your pilot hole in the front of the Gameboy, I ended up chipping the Gameboy’s case where it is slit for the (removed) speaker – opt for using your Dremel rather than your tapered reamer to widen your pilot hole.
Getting the LTC’s potentiometer to fit inside was not too hard, though I did have to grind away the side of one of the plastic screw posts for space.  The LTC module itself tucks nicely under the bottom half’s circuit board.  I decided to attach wires to the LTC board instead of directly attaching it to the potentiometer.  The LTC board tucks under the Gameboy’s board neatly, loose but blocked in place by the potentiometer.  I ran wires in parallel to the potentiometer leads to the RCA jack at the bottom to control the LTC remotely.  I did have to trim off a little bit of the RCA jack’s tip lug for the fit.  I would recommend gluing the RCA jack in place inside, they can tend to twist around.
When it came time to put the Gameboy back together, I noticed that there were threaded metal nuts embedded in the screw-holes in the back half of the Gameboy.  This is so that only screws with the correct threads can fit. I tried to find properly threaded screws at my local hardware store, but that didn’t work out – they are super small.  I carefully drilled these nuts out with a slightly larger drillbit, taking care not to damage the circuit board, then screwed the Gameboy back together using screws from my tiny screw collection. Once again my jar of tiny screws comes to the rescue – junk toys can end up yielding a lot of these helpful little guys and other handy components.  Skip the hardware store and go to the drill press, they won’t have the right screws any way.
Lastly I assembled a remote controller for the LTC in a bottle-cap.  I added a latching on/off switch for the Photocell and two body contacts, both of which are wired in parallel with the on-board potentiometer using an RCA cable to fit the jack I installed.   I ended up with a messy hot-glue job at first, because I had forgotten I had turned my glue gun to low.  I redid the hot glue finish by gingerly zapping it with a heat gun, taking care not to melt the cap – nice and smooth.
It came together over a couple of days, though there was a lot of sitting and thinking before acting.  Hasty screw-drilling can be a set-back some times, but I would highly recommend it in the case of the Gameboy.  Also, speaking of drilling, make sure you clean all of the metal and plastic dust out of your Gameboy before reassembling, especially from behind the screen.  I did so by carefully removing the front circuit board and using a little canned air.  Also, protect your screen from getting scratched while you work by putting a piece of tape or a sticky note over the front it – something I forgot to do.
I hope these tips helped you plan your project, I know I learned a few things in making it.  To help keep you entertained while soldering up your Gameboy, why not check out Watch Out For Fireballs?  WOFF is my friend Gary’s podcast which reviews retro video games for your amusement!  In other news, CMKT 4 is about to head out West for the Bay Area Maker Faire with a string of workshops, stay tuned for details!
Circuit Bending General, Events

CMKT 4 SE Hackerspace Tour 2012 and New Bending Buddies

Our friends in the band CMKT 4 are headed back on the road with a “Build an EconoMIC Bottle-Cap Contact Microphone” workshop and performance tour to the South East this February. This tour is jam-packed with Build a Microphone workshops/performances as well as several not-to-be-missed, multi-act shows!  We’ve done workshops at over 30 Hackerspaces and by the end of this tour we will have done workshops at over 40 Hackerspaces!  Check out our tour dates, like us on facebook.com/cmkt4, and see our events calendar there for the full details of every show.

CMKT4: “We have also updated our Creme DeMentia Bending Buddy circuit-bending probes. Fully assembled Bending Buddies are now available with a button in a variety of colors. They are now also available as a kit, which includes a comic adventure/instructions, a circuit-bending basics overview, and a parts bag – you supply the solder and hot glue. Visit piezomodule.com/shop for all of CMKT 4’s Creme DeMentia products.”

CMKT 4 SE Workshop Tour 2012

2/17 –  Louisville, KY –

CMKT 4 w/ Ben Traughber and No Copper,

Lisa’s Oak St. Lounge,
1004 Oak Street

2/18 – Knoxville, TN –
Mic Workshop, Technology
Cooperative, 130 W. Jackson Ave., 2pm

2/18 – TBA – Knoxville, TN Area

2/19 –  Asheville, NC –
Mic Workshop, Mojo Coworking,
4 Wall Street, 2pm

2/19 – Asheville, NC – CMKT 4  w/ “Nightmare of Noise” Puppet Show,

and special guests Hellblinki,
Bobo Gallery, 22 N Lexington Ave

2/20 – Winston-Salem, NC –
Mic Workshop, Fablocker, 1020 Brookstown Ave #17, 7pm

2/21 – Raleigh-Durham, NC –
Mic Workshop, Splatspace, 331 W. Main St., Durham, 7pm

2/22 – Charleston, SC –
Mic Workshop, Makelab Charleston, 1370 Ashley River Road, 7pm

2/24 – Jacksonville, FL –
Mic Workshop, Shantytown Pub,
22 W. 6th St., 7pm

2/25 – Orlando, FL – Mic
Workshop, FamiLAB, 1355 Bennett Dr, Unit 129, Longwood, FL

2/25 – Orlando, FL – CMKT 4 w/TBA, Sip, 724 Virginia Drive, 9pm

2/26 – St. Petersburg, FL –
Mic Workshop, The Venture
Compound, 2621 Fairfield Ave. S, 2pm

2/27 – Atlanta, GA –
Mic Workshop, Freeside ATL,
675 Metropolitan Parkway
Suite 6066, 7pm

2/28 – Murfreesboro, TN –  CMKT 4 w/TBA, Boro Bar, 1211 Greenland Drive, Free

2/29 – Nashville, TN –  Mic
Workshop, Brick Factory, 209 10th Ave. S, Suite 126, 7pm

Circuit Bending General

CMKT 4 East Coast Tour 2011 + World Maker Faire

Our friends from CMKT 4 are headed to the East Coast for the first time for a string of workshop/performances and their third and final Maker Faire of 2011. CMKT 4 has won multiple awards from the Maker Faire staff for their unique products, fun demonstrations, and their impressive trail of workshops/shows! Come visit them at the Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science and say “hello.” They will have our mics and kits available as well as limited edition copies of Tim Kaiser’s “Numbers Station” Blue Vinyl LPs!

For those of you who can’t make it to New York, they may be coming closer to your town than you think, here are the East Coast Workshop Tour 2011 stops. :

THU SEP 15 – Studio 2091, 2091 Front St.,
Cuyahoga Falls, OH, 6:30pm, $15

FRI SEP 16 – SUN SEP 18 Maker Faire, New York
Hall of Science, 47-01 111th Street
Queens, NY – http://makerfaire.com

MON SEP 19 – CTHackerspace Inc., 30 Echo Lake
Road, Watertown, CT, 7pm, $15

TUE SEP 20 – NESIT Hackerspace, 290 Pratt St,
2nd Floor, Meriden, CT, 7pm, $15

WED SEP 21 – BoCoup Loft, 355 Congress Street,
Boston, MA, 6pm, $15

THU SEP 22 – AS220 Labs, 131 Washington Street,
Providence, RI, 7pm, $20

FRI SEP 23 – The Hour Haus, 135 W. North Ave.
Baltimore, MD, 9pm, Performing @ “Byte Nyte”

SAT SEP 24 – SUN SEP 25 Betascape @ The Hour
Haus, 135 W. North Ave., Baltimore, MD
Workshops @ 10:00am, 11:30am and 2:00pm
http://betascape.org/

MON SEP 25 – Columbus Idea Foundry, 1158
Corrugated Way, Columbus, OH, “Circuit
Bending 101 – Bending Buddy” 7pm, $25

Circuit Bending General, Community, Events, Famous People using Bent Stuff, Workshops

CMKT 4 Westward Hackerspace Tour 2011

CMKT 4 is headed to Maker Faire San Francisco.  We’ll be stopping at as many Hackerspaces as we can on the way teaching our popular EconoMIC Contact Microphone Building Class.  Of course we will include a performance at each of the workshops and we should be appearing on the Maker Faire stage!  Take a look at our tour dates to see when we’ll be near you!  Message us if you’d like to help us fill in any open days.

FACEBOOK TOUR SCHEDULE

WED MAY 4
Contact Microphone Workshop and Performance
Quad City CoLab
1033 East 53rd Street
Davenport, Iowa
7pm, $15

THU MAY 5
Contact Microphone Workshop and Performance
Ames Makerspace
328 Main Street, Suite 15
Ames, IA
7pm, $15

FRI MAY 6
Contact Microphone Workshop and Performance
Omaha Maker Group
4388 Nicholas St
Omaha, NE
7pm, $15

SAT MAY 7
Contact Microphone Workshop and Performance
Denhac
975 E. 58th Avenue, Unit N
Denver, CO
$15, 2pm

SUN MAY 8
Contact Microphone Workshop and Performance
Solid State Depot
2200 Central Ave Suite G
Boulder, CO
$15, 2pm

MON MAY 9
Contact Microphone Workshop and Performance
MakeSLC
Electroregeneration Society Warehouse 555 South 400 West
Salt Lake City, UT
$15, 7pm

TUE MAY 10
Contact Microphone Workshop and Performance
The Transistor
560 S 100 W
Provo, UT 84601
$15, 7pm

WED MAY 11
RENO – OPEN

THU MAY 12
Contact Microphone Workshop and Performance
Ace Monster Toys
6050 Lowell Street
Oakland, CA
$15, 7pm

FRI MAY 13
Contact Microphone Workshop and Performance
Noisebridge
2169 Mission
San Francisco, CA
$15, 7pm

SAT MAY 14
LA – OPEN

SUN MAY 15
CMKT 4, Push Play, Igor Amokian
Sancho Salon Gallery
1549 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA
9pm, $5?

MON MAY 16
LA – OPEN

TUES MAY 17
Contact Microphone Workshop and Performance
Sancho Salon Gallery
1549 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA
$15, 7pm

WED MAY 18
SAN LUIS OBISPO – OPEN

THU MAY 19
SAN FRANCISCO – OPEN

FRI MAY 20  – SUN MAY 22
CMKT 4 @ Maker Faire San Francisco

MON MAY 23
NORTHERN CA – OPEN

TUES MAY 24
EUGENE – OPEN

WED MAY 25
PORTLAND – OPEN

THU MAY 26
OLYMPIA

FRI MAY 27
Contact Microphone Workshop and Performance
Metrix Create:Space
623 Broadway E
Seattle, Washington 98102

SAT MAY 28
WASHINGTON – OPEN

SUN MAY 29
MONTANA – OPEN

MON MAY 30
SOUTH DAKOTA – OPEN

TUE MAY 31
Twin Cities Maker – The Hackfactory
3119 E. 26th St.
Minneapolis, MN
$15, 7pm

Circuit Bending General

CMKT 4 Workshop Tour March 6 – 12 2011

Fresh off of our tour with Toydeath, CMKT 4 is back on the road with 2 different workshops!  We’ll be playing plenty of regular CMKT 4 sets, along with some purely circuit-bent CMKT 4 sets.  We’ll have plenty of circuit bent toys with us for you to check out, tons of our microphones to buy and build, new Bending Buddies, and whatever the hell this thing is:

Our Spring Workshop Tour culminates in Cincinnati with The FauxBeeA’nt Fair!

Sunday, March 6th – Contact Microphone Building Workshop & CMKT 4 Performance – I3 Detroit, 1481 Wordsworth, Ferndale, MI – 1 – 4 PM, $15

Tuesday, March 8th – Contact Microphone Building Workshop & CMKT 4 Performance – Makers Alliance, 5363 Broadway Ave, Cleveland, OH, 6 – 9 PM, $15

Wednesday, March 9th – Contact Microphone Building Workshop & CMKT 4 Performance – Hack Pittsburgh, 1936 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, PA, 6 – 9 PM, $15

Thursday, March 10th – Build a Bending Buddy / Circuit Bending Workshop and Circuit Bent CMKT 4 Performance – Collexion, 109 E. Loudon Ave., Lexington, KY, 6 – 9 PM, $20

Friday, March 11th – Build a Bending Buddy / Circuit Bending Workshop and Circuit Bent CMKT 4 Performance – LVL 1, 814 E. Broadway, Louisville, KY  6 – 9 PM, $20

Saturday, March 12th – The FauxBeeA’nt Fair!

Starts at Hive 13, 2929 Spring Grove Ave., Cincinnati, OH,

1:00-3:00 CMKT 4 Workshop

A Circuit bending workshop will be hosted by the infamous CMKT 4! The Class is $20 which includes the price of a kit called “The Bending Buddy” that CMKT 4 will help you build. http://www.facebook.com/cmkt4

3:00-6:00 OPEN BENDING!

Experienced circuit benders will be on site with toys and the electronics components you need to create authentic circuit bends. Come join us in the process of circuit bending and discover the ability to create your own sonic universe.
Alex Deepa, founder of Getlofi.com will be selling many of his kits such as The Atari Punk Console, 4017 Sequencer, the Doomsday kit, and the Lofi Fuzz kit!
http://www.getlofi.com/?page_id=1056

http://hive13.org/

Later at the Mockbee, 2260 Central Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45214, there will be a night of Installations and Circuit Bent Performances!

The FauxBeeA’nt Fair @ The Mockbee $5
Doors open at 8:00

8:00 Talking Computron
9:00 Reed Ghazala Film Screening & Odor Box Instllation
9:45 Hearts of Palm
10:30 Pelzwik & Dinger
11:00 Thriftsore Boratorium’s Drone Dome
11:30 Hardon Collider
12:00 CMKT4

Reed Ghazala: Presentation of the Film “Ant Be” by Reed Ghazala as well as his Ultra Spectacular Installation. Special appearance by Qubais Reed Ghazala, including visitor-participation installation. Reed’s first bend (1966, the vintage Odor Box circuit) will conduct electricity through your flesh! Play with yourself or others!

Previous to the Shows there will bee Workshops @ Hive13.org
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187251141298730

1:00 -3:00 CMKT 4 Bending Buddy Workshop $20
3:00-6:00 Open Bending & Getlofi.com Kits

CMKT 4 returns home Sunday, March 13th for a performance with Swampp Cat, at The House Cafe, 263 E. Lincoln Hwy, DeKalb, IL

http://www.facebook.com/cmkt4
http://www.twitter.com/cmkt4

Circuit Bending General

Toy Death USA Tour

by Austin.

Australian Band Toydeath is coming to tour the USA in FEB 2011!

Cartoonish Aussie performers Toydeath have been making music and touring since 1999.  They now bring their unique stage show to the US for the first time in February, 2011.  Toydeath exclusively uses a massive collection of hand-modified – or “circuit bent”- toys to create their music.  They perform original songs on these toys, fully decked in far-out costumes.

After several dates on the East Coast, Toydeath joins forces with the garage-rocking, circuit-bending trio CMKT 4 for four dates in the Midwest. CMKT 4 anoints the Holy Trinity of Rock ‘n’ Roll — Guitar, Bass, Drums– with a deluge of circuit-bent sounds, guitar effects and synthesizers.  CMKT 4 have been touring steadily since early 2010, putting on contact-microphone building workshops and playing rock shows.  Toydeath and CMKT 4  will be performing with a variety of other circuit bent, electronic and experimental performers:

THU FEB 17 –  Toydeath, CMKT 4, Mike Hancock – Milo Arts Center, 617 East Third Avenue, Columbus, OH  — $5, Doors 8pm, show 9pm

FRI FEB 18 – Toydeath, CMKT 4,  Ape Technology – Park Bar, 2040 Park Avenue, Detroit, MI 48226 — $5, 9pm

SAT FEB 19 – Toydeath, CMKT 4, Roth Mobot, Lord of the Yum Yum — The Viaduct Theater, 3111 N. Western Ave., Chicago, IL  — $7, 10pm

SUN FEB 20 – Toydeath, CMKT 4, Roth Mobot, Los Osos Voladores — Kryptonite Music Lounge, 308 W. State St, Rockford, IL — $5, 7pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziiyH0jwTTs[/youtube]

Toydeath — Cult circuit bending band Toydeath re-appropriate children’s electronic toys and wear human-sized cartoonish costumes to create a unique stage show.

Toydeath produce live music from their tortured treasure-trove of modified toys including guitars, talking dolls and alphabet apples resulting in a surreal deluge of colour and craziness.

Toydeath is part performance, part music and features hilarious toyworld pranksters: Big Judy, GiJoe and Super Dad.

Get ready for a hyperactive hootenanny as they unleash the contents of a toy box six-year-olds would kill for!

http://www.toydeath.com

East Coast Tour Dates:

MON FEB 7 – Toydeath – Pianos NYC, 158 Ludlow at Stanton, NY, NY 10000

THU FEB 10 – Toydeath – Heirloom Arts Theatre, 155 Main Street Suite #103, Danbury, CT

FRI FEB 11 – Toydeath – 51 3rd Street Troy, NY, 12180

SAT FEB 12 – Toydeath – 119 Gallery, 119 Chelmsford Street, Lowell, MA 01851

MON FEB 14 – Toydeath – 4931 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15224

CMKT 4 – The circuit-bent/garage rock trio CMKT 4 hail from DeKalb, IL.  The holy trinity of rock, Guitar-Bass-Drums, slathered with a nice dollop of synthesizer and circuit-bent toy textures.  Straight-forward anthems and crunchy, bluesy numbers bleed into electronic, semi-improvised Kraut rock.  Be sure to pick up one of their hand-made Bottle-Cap Contact Microphones at the merch table!

http://www.facebook.com/cmkt4

http://cmkt4.bandcamp.com/

Roth Mobot – Roth Mobot is the Chicago based Circut Bent musical duo of Tommy Stephenson and Patrick McCarthy. Roth Mobot’s “recursive jazz” controls the random juxtaposition of improvised dark ambient drones, languid melodies, randomly discovered rhythms, percussive accidents, the humorous language of toys, and common discarded electronic audio and video devices.

http://www.rothmobot.com

Apetechnology – Larger-than-life robots built to make larger-than-life clangs, thud-thud-thuds, sproings and blams that are pleasing to the eye and ear.  You must see and hear these contraptions in person for maximum appreciation of their beauty, construction and performance.

http://www.myspace.com/apetechnology

Lord of the Yum Yum –  The Lord (aka Paul Velat) is a Chicago staple, providing more smiles per gallon of free waters than any other comedic/experimental performer who scat/throat-sings classical and popular melodies, in the greater Midwestern area.  The Lord has traveled the country with his loyal roadie since 1991 for hundreds of performances live, on TV, at Birthdays.  He will leave your Happy Dial turned to Maximum for the week.

http://www.lordoftheyumyum.com/YumYum.html

los osos voladores – los osos voladores is from Rockford Illinois. It enjoys performing live onstage for people. It enjoys it when the crowd grabs things and bangs on them. los osos voladores brings things for you to grab and bang on. los osos voladores looks forward to performing for you.los osos voladores is a grown up band and we talk about grown up things. Thank you.

http://www.myspace.com/poxchexproductions

Michael Duane Hancock- a self-described “sound sculptor” who performs improvisational electronic music with circuit-bent instruments. His music has been described as a mix of abstract electronica with freestyle percussion and exploratory guitar and saxophone, with strong hints of freestyle jazz, musique concrete, and motorik rhythms along with a touch of blues.

http://www.myspace.com/palmofhearts

Check back for updates as the tour grows closer!

Circuit Bending General

New Creme DeMentia Products and CMKT 4 Contact Microphone Building Workshop Mini-Tour

by Austin.

Workshop Comic, photo by Nebulagirl

We are excited to announce the addition of several new Creme DeMentia Bottle-Cap products now available in the GetLoFi.com shop. First, we have our new EconoMIC Bottle-Cap Contact Microphones (see below); they are made from reused plastic soda caps and are significantly easier to build than our original Creme DeMentia Bottle-Cap Contact Mics.

The New EconoMIC

Using this design, we are now able to produce one of these from start to finish in about an hour and a half; this enables us to teach the construction of these microphones in a workshop format and we are doing just that!  CMKT 4 have already taught several successful workshops on building microphones this way at the hacker spaces Omnicrop Detroit, LVL-1 Louisville, and Hive13 Cincinnati.

CMKT4 teaching a Contact Microphone Building Workshop at LVL-1 Louisville

At our workshops everyone learns to properly wire up a piezo-electric disc to a 1/4” jack. They will also work with hot glue, zip ties, shielded cable, tool-handle dip and pre-drilled bottle-caps to make a sturdy and fully functioning EconoMIC Bottle-Cap Contact Microphone. These microphones pick up physical vibrations and change the vibrations into an electrical audio signal. Students are encouraged to bring instruments and found objects to listen to through the microphones.

Drying Time = Rocking Time, photo by Nebulagirl

There is a dry-time involved in the materials we use and during that time we play a CMKT 4 rock set for the attendees. For performances, we require the use of a PA.


CMKT4 at Hive13, photo by Nebulagirl

We are about to embark on a fall mini-tour of workshop/performances this October, here is the line-up so far:

WED OCT 20 Sector67?, 2100 Winnebago St., Madison, WI  7pm  Contact Microphone Building Workshop/Performance

THU OCT 21

FRI OCT 22 Makerspace Urbana, Independent Media Center, Suite 15, 202 S. Broadway, Urbana, IL – Contact Microphone Building Workshop 6:30pm.

SAT OCT 23 Circuit Benders Ball, Open Lot, 1307 Jewell Street, Nashville, TN Contact Microphone Building Workshop/Performance – Full Day Event with HUGE line-up, including Thriftsore Boratorium, Tim Kaiser, and many others.  Check the link.

SUN OCT 24

MON OCT 25 Collexion, 111 1/2 E. Loudon Ave, Lexington, KY  – Contact Microphone Building Workshop/Performance

TUE OCT 26

WED OCT 27 Columbus Idea Foundry, 1158 Corrugated Way, Columbus, OH Contact Microphone Building Workshop/Performance – to register, follow link.

We would love to fill in these dates more thoroughly with workshops and/or shows, especially on THU OCT 21 (Southern IL area),  FRI OCT 22 (Memphis, TN Area), and TUE OCT 26 (Cincinnati/Dayton/Columbus area). Contact us at cmktfour (at) gmail *dot* com if you’d like us to come to your town!

Creme DeMentia Bending Buddies, never circuit-bend alone again!

We are also pleased to announce our new Bending Buddies.  These handy little patchable body contacts allow you to experiment more easily with your body’s own resistance. They are intended for use in circuit bending: Hold the body of the Bending Buddy in one hand and operate the body contacts. Then, with one clip-lead attached to one spot the circuit board, probe with the other clip lead. Soon enough, you’ll be able to hear controllable changes as you investigate battery-operated circuits with your body’s resistance. You can then further test out and wire up your discoveries. Also now available in the GetLoFI.com shop, along with our Original Bottle-Cap Contact Microphones.

Original Creme DeMentia Bottle-Cap Contact Microphones
Circuit Bending General, Community, Events, Good Ideas, Robots, Workshops

Maker Faire Detroit 2010 Wrap-Up

by Austin.

Detroit Maker Faire 2010 was quite a blast.  CMKT4 headed up to Dearborn, Michigan with Michael Una and Tomer Gal for a busy weekend of demonstrating and performing.  CMKT4 played the main stage both days and Michael Una played the second day. Our Bottle-Cap Contact Microphones won an Editor’s Choice Ribbon and got written up on Boing-Boing by Make Editor Mark Frauenfelder.  Mike Una also won an Editor’s Choice Ribbon for his live performance.  Here he is setting up on the main-stage:

I’m so glad we went, it was a fantastic experience.  We got to meet so many interesting people who are doing interesting things.  I was able to sneak away for an hour on the second day and shoot some photos, here is some of what I saw:

Here are Nina and Jeff from Omnicorp, Detroit, a relatively young hacker-space.  Nina and Jeff were demonstrating circuit-bending at their booth to Maker Faire attendees.  CMKT4 will be headed up to Omnicorp to present a workshop on building contact microphones Saturday, August 28th.  Details here.

Another group of makers were controlling these huge robots, which were playing some very loud noise music.

This roving skull robot “greeted” onlookers with gnashing jaw and Mars-Attacks-like gibberish.  Pretty frightening:

Here someone made a jug organ, I thought this was really neat:

CdS cells were inventively used to read data from player-piano scrolls and control an array of solenoids that play the keys of a modern keyboard at this exhibit:

An interesting by-product is the MIDI code being generated from the scroll by the keyboard being physically played.  Next to the main stage was this bicycle-driven guitar wind-mill called the The Axe Grinder.

There were of course plenty of vehicles at the Maker Faire, but my favorite had to be the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir.  I’m glad that somebody figured out something to do with Big Mouth Billy Bass and all his pals other than hang it over the back of the toilet.   All the fish and lobsters are made to dance and lip-sync to popular favorites, such as Bohemian Rhapsody.  I actually got to sit in the driver’s seat for a little while and operate the Lobster Conductor;  the control was two two-way switches, one to rotate the lobster, one to extend and retract the arm, and a push-button to bounce the lobster and “conduct” the marine choir.

Some of the crew from Life-Size Mouse-Trap taking a break from a long, hot day of repeatedly crushing a Chevy Mini Van under a giant safe.   More Robots!


Various doo-dads made with a Cupcake CNC machine:

Tomer sports some CNC-made goggles.  I felt like I was wearing some crazy goggles, because Maker Faire was one awesome, surreal experience after the other.  See you there next year?