The RMA drawing board/etc.

[raj007]

Whoa whoa whoa.....RMA Tourbox?!?!

[crochambeau]

Whoa whoa whoa.....RMA Tourbox?!?!

Yeah, I'm hoping to have that ready soon. I've been mired in R&D and troubleshooting, so I haven't really come up for air. I should just ready a couple runners and go for it.

Right now it's looking like a Tetanus Booster and a Monobius, and perhaps an experimental build for critique/feedback purposes. I suppose I could also throw a Crustacean brick noise source into the mix.

I had hoped to have ~something else~ ready, but it would probably just be better to cut another tourbox in the future when that/those are fully realized. If I don't start a thread in the main GEAR forum in like a week or so, let the whippings begin.

[ibarakishi]

wow! really excited for this. I don't know who you want to test things / what requirements you will have for the tour box, but if there is any way i can help with anything, please let me know and i will be happy to lend a hand. I am sure many people will be excited to do it once you have everything ready and feel comfortable with what you want to send out

[crochambeau]

I don't know who you want to test things / what requirements you will have for the tour box

I'll want people who are not me involved with just checking the stuff out and having fun with it (the builds are better at selling themselves than I am a salesman, but I admit it is not a universal taste sort of thing). I'll throw the prototype/concept object into the mix to just get a reaction on a "go|no go" level, and as a sort of experiment to see if trotting out early work will be a good or bad idea for the future. The test subject for this will be a Stone Splitter:



There will be a really big print note indicating this design does not currently meet my project criteria, but it does reach some standards I enjoy, so critical evisceration is highly encouraged. I want to hear someone describe this as garbage and then go on an absolute blow by blow tirade about every single point they hate. (this goes for the finished builds too, please)

Regarding requirements, I'll probably look at the other threads/consult Chankgeez (who has graciously offered assistance in this) before coughing up a rule book. Your location is a complication but you'd make the cut for an international run. That will, however, either be a different box or take place after the U.S. run. Again, these are details not yet hashed out.

[ibarakishi]

whatever you decide will be great, either way i will understand and be excited to see what you do and will be supporting you I will wait to see more updates soon

[DRodriguez]

Yess! I've been super keen on trying out your stuff. Good luck hashing out the deets.

[Chankgeez]

Yeah, very much looking forward to testin' out those RMA devices.

[$harkToootth]

General interest bump. Reading about 'time domain manipulation' and 'analog computing' is going WAAAYYY over my head.
Also going through the mental exercise of a 'demodulation' pedal is exhausting and funny to me (this is good).

[ibarakishi]

itching for some rust

[crochambeau]

Oh man, APOLOGIES on the delay getting the tourbox out. Inundation happened, it's in the works, like real soon.

Regarding analog computing, that statement can be construed in a less than 100% accurate manner, so I'll clarify: I have a text book published in 1963 regarding the design and construction of computers, it is discrete transistor based. So I've spent a awhile with various circuits published in this text (and others, of course, I love books). The "computer" aspect relies on submitting queries via boolean equations, and that isn't happening here. You can listen in when you play with the stone splitter prototype, which utilizes a schmitt trigger circuit and a latching flip flop circuit more or less lifted from these texts (values have been changed due to operational differences available today).

Demodulation can be considered as a specific application of a modulation source, but I think my intent with that angle is exploring some stuff based on old radio technology. I won't feel satisfied with that until I reach a bandwidth inverter (AKA phone scrambler) whereupon high frequencies translate as bass, and low frequencies translate as squeeeeak. Anyway, I'll flood my feed with rust soon.

[comesect2.0]

... it would be interesting to see if the fire and fuel controls of the crustacean could be controlled by a type of tilt-switch, housed in an industrial looking hand held cylinder..would need to have a battery snap on the side for maneuverability.

[crochambeau]

... it would be interesting to see if the fire and fuel controls of the crustacean could be controlled by a type of tilt-switch, housed in an industrial looking hand held cylinder..would need to have a battery snap on the side for maneuverability.

Tilt switches are an on-off component, the fuel control is a variable potential. The function could be employed in a hand held device such as you describe, but (to my knowledge) not with off the shelf parts. The engineering alone would probably veer into the thousands, and unless I've read my market wrong, no one wants to shoulder the cost of the end result (even with development costs not included, at least, in my initial solution to the problem).

The suggestion is bouncing around in my brain now though, so who knows.

[$harkToootth]

It's funny you mention Boolean strings. My first thought when I dove into analog computing was "there is no way it would be efficient to have analog relational databases". Low and behold the first article I find is just about using analog processors for those. Shows what I know! I'll link the article in a minute.

1 minute later: https://www.google.com/patents/US8032474 I did not read the whole thing cause it would literally take me the rest of my life.

BTW, loving the sounds of those malformed Crustaceans!

[comesect2.0]

Hmmm, iiiidk....there's this guy who uses them in his noise act...multiple mercury switches controlling his hnw circuits in these tin cans....
Dan Greenwood is the dudes name, hard to get ahold of but his project was Diagram A
viewtopic.php?f=150&t=57870&hilit=noise&start=15
videos there show the device i question..he said he used tilt switches so

[crochambeau]

It's funny you mention Boolean strings. My first thought when I dove into analog computing was "there is no way it would be efficient to have analog relational databases". Low and behold the first article I find is just about using analog processors for those. Shows what I know! I'll link the article in a minute.

1 minute later: https://www.google.com/patents/US8032474 I did not read the whole thing cause it would literally take me the rest of my life.

BTW, loving the sounds of those malformed Crustaceans!

Yeah, the *hardware* aspect of computing is a huge rabbit hole that can get overlooked in our fixation on software. There's a really big disparity between the two domains though, and it can be measured by the operational region of a transistor. There are four regions:

1) cut-off
2) normal (or as close to linear response you can get with the part)
3) saturation
4) inversion

With an operable computer, you want everything in either region 1 or region 3, and you want the transition between those two regions (that rips us through region 2) as close to instantaneous as possible. BJTs are colossally slow on this front because they move current through direct contact with PN junctions (a fascinating subject in itself), so from our modern computing standpoint it's a lot like literally turning on and off faucets of water, the shit is sloppy and slow. We do things (in computers) that are physically impossible on 1960s tech, but abandoning that wealth of knowledge as obsolete is foolish (it put us on the fucking moon, after all).

Reading up on magnetic core memory is another fun one.. anyway, back to regions, because this has a big fucking foot in everything we do (around here).

Sputtery but fast fuzz straddles the transition point between region 1 and 2.
Anything transparent or clean is going to be confined in region 2.
Blown out or saggy sound is exposing us to region 3.
Region 4 is a breakdown mode I do not feel qualified in talking about at this point.

So aping old logic circuits and stretching out the travel between region 1 & 3 so it remains musically interesting (and not merely clinical like an unfiltered CMOS device) is fun, and certainly a pool from which I draw inspiration. I just have no intent to apply the circuits in originally designed for ways.

Hmmm, iiiidk....there's this guy who uses them in his noise act...multiple mercury switches controlling his hnw circuits in these tin cans....
Dan Greenwood is the dudes name, hard to get ahold of but his project was Diagram A
viewtopic.php?f=150&t=57870&hilit=noise&start=15
videos there show the device i question..he said he used tilt switches so

Make no mistake, I'm not disputing that tilt switches cannot be employed in devices, I'm just stating that the system you speak of (fuel control on a crustacean specifically) does not lend itself to switching. It's a purely analog construction, and the best "caveman" approximation that could be grabbed at is multiple switches referencing multiple pots, but that's cumbersome. Now the *application* of a twitch and wiggle switch to the crustacean could take numerous other forms, but controlling the depth of crackle via tilting a stick goes far beyond exploiting a mercury or (preferably, since I like to export) magnetic leaf switch. That user interface CAN be designed, but it's a really deep hole from where I'm standing..