About

Open Hardware

Creative Commons

Multi Master Micronoise Mixer

This is my Multi Master Micro Noise Mixer. A turn table producing real 1 bit music. I like it so much. It is so simple and so much fun to play around with. It's actually simply built form four micro noise circuits played by a printed sequencer disc. The four light sensors of the micro noises are aligned in a row and modulated by the black squares printed on the transparent disc. This makes it a four track 16 (or more) step sequencer. The signals of the four micro noises are then mixed together.

The lower eight potentiometers control the four micro noise circuits. Then there is one knob for the volume and one to trim the motor speed. On the top right side there are to switches, one to switch the whole mixer on and the other one to only turn the motor on and off.

Multi Master Micronoise Mixer
Building

Building the Mixer was fun since I only used existing parts and pieces and put it all together. The hardest part was to cut the middle part out from the turn table and putting a plexiglas in place. Then I soldered the four micro noise circuits together and fixed them with hot glue. I built a little board with the four LDRs of the micro noises to arrange them in a row. Finally I wired all together with the potentiometers and the switches.

The first version of the mixer (1G) used a simple XOR gate to mix the four micro noise square signals together.

Then I introduced the four transistors (2G) to get clean digital signals out of the micro noises (remember the micro noise circuit is bended with a potentiometer on the supply).

Finally I decided to add an other mixer type using four resistors to mix the four 1bit signals of the micro noises into a 4bit signal (3G). So the output signal is not really 1bit but it sounds a little less nasty. Anyway, I can switch between the real 1bit and the 4bit using a button on the front of the device.

Multi Master Micronoise Mixer
Inside

Here you see the mixer when turned on. The four LEDs mounted on a movable arm light through the transparent disc with the sequencer pattern.

On the picture below there are some discs with different patterns I made. The contrast is better and the rhythms crispier when I put to discs one upon the other

Multi Master Micronoise Mixer
Playing on diy*night 2009

For the first time the Multi Master Micro Noise Mixer was played in public on the SGMK diy*night 2009. Since I was a little shy after all the talented artist that played that night, gery gave it a try.