LUUURVLY LOOKIN MACHINE!
A fasinating looking instrument on sale on ebay at the moment ..Watch videos of the Micro Garden and the Luminist Garden to get a feel for what the garden series is all about.
http://youtube.com/user/benpumpkin
There are also a few user videos and more info posted on our blog:
http://folktek.blogspot.com/search?q=garden
Here is a video, shot without any external effects and no editing:
This work is an expanded version of the Micro Garden, capable of making lush choral waves and entire compositions as a standalone work.
The expanded soundboard has multiple pick ups that run into the delay - which offers time settings from extremely tight notated repeats to about 1.5 seconds with undecaying feedback that essentially acts as a looper allowing one to make beats by tapping the board and plucking or rubbing the strings.
The delay runs into a very lush and unusual reverb that has the ability to act more as a wave generator, creating waves that can endlessly extend and are based on the original note but with the ability to pitch shift the feedback, resulting in something like the NI effect called "convolution".
The result is rich electronic music from an accoustic source. Sweet ambience. Stereo out.
There are sound samples on the blog page: http://folktek.blogspot.com/2010/01/luminist-garden.html, each a single take with no editing or external effects.
here are the modifications
1. 11 switches- controls freeze/holds, pitch related effects, bizarre filters, odd synthesis, self composing random melodies, rhythmic drum varations and much more. use alone or in combination.
2. 5 switches located on the far right which cuts out all 4 voices the instrument can play at once and the drum sound kill switch
3. one reset button
4. one vintage pilot glass lens with a bright blue led underneath
5. master pitch switch enable indicated in black (with this switch you can activate a extremely stable precision oscillator circuit which replaces the original clock signal for extremely stable pitch control)
6. one overall pitch knob (approximately 3 plus octave pitch range with knob)
7. lfo rate knob (lfo activated by pulling up on this knob. activates a lfo to modulate sounds from subtle to extreme)
8. lfo depth knob
9. lfo indicator light- indicates depth and rate activity. vintage new stock soft glow dialco green LED
10. light theremin switch
11. light theremin photo cell (light sensitive wafer that responds to light, shadow, and movements from hand, body, etc)
12. 2 gold dome body contacts (super expressive control of pitch via body contact
13. 16 point patch bay to make various connections in the patch bay via rca cables for experimenting new bends
14. master power switch on/off indicated in red
15. intuitive and through interface with as much spacing as possible for all controls
16. manual and bend diagram emailed to winning bidder
a few things i'd like to address that have been asked previously. regardless of who bent your instrument every bend on an sk-1 will most likely respond differently in different settings.. for example you will get different results in sample mode then in a preset.. and from one preset to another.. i have bent the instrument to be as stable as possible in all modes of the instruments.
the pitch and lfo is fine tuned. if a pitch is allowed to go too high it will glitch and will otherwise interrupt a good sound, loop, or bent function of the instrument. where this glitch occurs is different between sk-1's..the range therfore of the pitch control will sweep approximately up to 3 octaves down and approximately an octave or so above normal pitch of the note.
the right side of the instrument is the functional side of the instrument featuring mixing, reset and power indication... the casio is capable of 4 notes/sounds at a time along with drums.. the switches on this side allow you to mix on the fly or isolate certain sounds. this is especially useful when the instrument is locked in a particular bent function or loop and doesn't respond to key information. this way you can isolate a particular sound in the lock or loop and sample that particular sound or have only that sound running.
the patch bay is setup to be as stable as possible. these are not ins or outs to other devices.. they are meant to be patched within the patchbay only and will allow you to create new bends on your own.. since it's experimental it's not as stable for live use but great for studio work. with a little planning the patch bay can also be used in live use with good stability.. they will offer new bends not available on switches along with variations to bends that are located on the switches. for example if there is a filter on a switch it is most likely you will get a variation of the filter on the patch bay.. a vocoder like sound can shift in harmonics with a little experimentation on the patch bay.
and the sk-1 will function as normal provided that all bends are not activated.. it is highly recommended that you understand how the instrument works and experiment with bends in all modes to make the best and widest use of your instrument. there are plenty of good resources on the web with manuals to download.
outputs to external amplifying, mixing or recording devices via 1/8" on back
jpeg bend diagram emailed to winner. pdf manual emailed to winner.
battery cover is missing but batteries stay in place fine without one
paypal with confirmed addresses only! 3 buisness days required to allow payment to clear to bank. sometimes paypal works quicker and i can get it out in 1 or 2 buisness days from payment. thanks for looking!
the video below is a single sample being looped on the keyboard. sample is mangled and shaped in various ways via bends, clock replacement, and lfo then brought back to the sample's original sound. the second video is a free improvisation to demonstrate the more chaotic abilities of the instrument. please understand that this is a deep instrument and that only two modes, sample and a single preset sound, are being demonstrated below in the videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeUttbGDpsE&feature=player_embedded
2
CIRCUITBENDERS.CO.UK
RECYCLING NOISE SINCE 2001
The fact that the Akai S01 exists at all is fairly baffling fact as to all intents and porposes it was obselete before it was even released. A 16 bit mono sampler with 1MB of memory as standard expandable to a massive 2MB maximum, sampling at a maximum bandwidth of 32khz, with no storage options other than a floppy drive, with only one output, with very few editing options and only a 3 figure numerical display to edit with. Even the rather odd addition of 2 MIDI in's doesn't save it from being a rather baffling addition to the Akai range. EMU and Ensoniq must have been pissing themselves laughing when Akai released the S01 for £999 in 1993 (yes you did read that right - £999), but the S01 has the last laugh as our mods have taken its sound mangling possibilities way beyond any other rackmount sampler ever produced
As you can see, the most immediate feature you'll notice about this machine is the external patchbay connected to the main unit by a 25 way D cable. The D cable connects to a 25 way socket mounted on the front of the Akai itself, and a corresponding socket on the back of the steel cased patchbay. With the external patchbay detached from the front panel the S01 functions as it normally would.
The patchbay connections consist of:
25 Way Main Patching Area: This feature enables the S01 to apply some savagely unlikely processing and effects to the any samples you have recorded. The main patchbay consists of 25 minijack sockets. Connections made between these sockets using standard minijack cables cause all kinds of sound swapping, distortion, pitching, ring modulation, envelope and odd mix effects to be applied to the sounds and patterns. This machine is very keen on producing insane sample chopping effects where sections of your sound are sliced and rearranged as if they have been through some advanced Re-Cycle session in the hands of a crazed lunatic. 90% of the time your samples are not permanently affected when you remove any patchbay cables although if you sample another sound with patchbay connections already in place you often find that the new sound is spliced into the old sound in all kinds on unexpected ways. The amount of connections you can make at any one time is limited only by the number of patch cables you have.
Patchable switches: These two switches on the right of the main patchbay are each associated with two minijack sockets each. Each switch can be patched 'in line' with any main patchbay connection allowing you to turn a connection on and off at the flick of a switch instead of having to repatch cables
1 Patchable Button: Similar to the switches but using a momentary push button instead. Allows you to make a quick non-latching connection useful for drum fills and effects etc.
2X3 way multiples: These two groups of three sockets on the top right of the main patchbay act the same as a patching multiple you would find on a modular synthesiser. Each group of three sockets is connected together internally. This means that any signal present at one socket is also available at the other two. This feature is useful for connecting one main patchbay socket to two other sockets or vice versa.
