Tin Can Synth Jam
37 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★ - 1 ratingI've built a radically DIY synthesizer out of electronic components and tin cans and paper bags. Listen to me wrestle mightily with it, trying to get it to make tolerable sounds!
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Episodes
TCSJ 037 talking and noise
January 31, 2022 18:37 - 1 hour - 58.4 MBWelcome to the first new episode in a WHILE! If you're thirsty for more regularly scheduled TCSJ content, check out https://www.twitch.tv/tincansynthjam/schedule which will show you when I'm going to be streaming live every week. If you're just plain thirsty, maybe get some water. In this episode, I talk about circuit design and brag about my new module, NyquistNightmare. You can hear it a lot in this episode, and I'm working on an automatic gain control circuit that will let you hear i...
TCSJ 036 Smoldering Cone Pulp
October 27, 2021 05:04 - 57 minutes - 120 MBIn which I explore my Doubleplusbass kick drum prototype and my RumbleKikBoom proto-prototype, get really into some nice grooves, find myself extracting fascinating noise textures out of a few ultra-simple modules, and have a lot of fun.
TCSJ 035 Lattice of Coincidence
September 14, 2021 17:29 - 1 hour - 56.1 MBMe talking about synthesizer stuff that's been happening, and then me doing a pretty laid back 135BPM techno jam with plenty of breaks for interesting sounds and a couple samples.
TCSJ 34 patio
August 11, 2021 02:20 - 55 minutes - 50.8 MBWithout listening to be sure, this may be my favorite episode so far. A passage in the middle even caused me to get goosebumps and tears. Much less rhythmic than almost all of my previous jams, but of COURSE in the last third that pesky kick drum sneaks in :D
TCSJ 033 Cerise Steelbarrow
July 06, 2021 19:48 - 1 hour - 61.6 MBI really like this episode. Much much much techno. And then toward the end I think I figured out what the problem is with my EasyEi8ht trigger sequencer, so I can get to fixing that.
TCSJ 032 Play Think
June 22, 2021 16:56 - 1 hour - 56.5 MBThis was recorded at PlayThink Festival 2021 while a chair-dance class was underway. Listening to your environment through headphones (and especially while being processed by a modular synthesizer) is wonderful, and highly recommended.
TCSJ 031 Squeamishness of the Hegemony
June 09, 2021 06:59 - 1 hour - 56.9 MBI built a new microphone! And I sounded so good to myself that I wound up talking for like fifteen minutes. My goal with this episode was to use my new mic to record a vocal sample onto one of my voltage-controllable ISD1820 chips (so noisy, don't know why) and pitch it into something interesting with one of my sequencers, then use that exact same sequence to control two other "quantizable" sound sources, first, my Atari Punk Console x 1.5 and then one of my Braids on a simple waveform. ...
TCSJ 030 Unrehearsed!!!
May 26, 2021 07:38 - 53 minutes - 119 MBI listened to Podular Modcast's recent interview of Captain Credible who I'm ashamed to admit was unknown to me previously, and he talked about his creative process. He builds electronic musical instruments and then, without rehearsal or plans, gets up in front of crowds and performs! The courage!!!! I don't rehearse either, which I will now pretend is on purpose (it's not)... but I will recognize the value in a raw and honest approach to improvisation. The struggle of a person to wrest s...
TCSJ 29 Mary Waters Park
May 19, 2021 01:24 - 1 hour - 59.1 MBMy first outdoor episode! I hoped to be able to talk to people and let them play my djembe, but turning on my synth's speakers created runaway feedback because my microphone is a bare elecret capsule so... Not a lot of rhythmic or tonal content in this one, but there's LOTS of WONDERFUL ambient audio.
TCSJ 028 Grumble Pillow
May 10, 2021 19:25 - 1 hour - 61.4 MBThe massive worldwide synth live-streaming event of the year was this past weekend, and I got to participate! But I wasn't as happy with the jam as I feel like I could have been, so to make up for it, I recorded a podcast episode. This is lots better LOL
TCSJ 027 twentyfourtwo
April 26, 2021 21:15 - 57 minutes - 52.8 MBThis is my first jam with my Mutable Instruments Peaks module. Still in a tin can obviously. It's a LFO/envelope generator, quite complex, quite versatile. It's going to take some time for me to figure it out! A lot of the drumming on this jam is just me mashing buttons on my (tin-can-version) EasyEi8ht trigger sequencer. I'm thrilled with how easy this sequencer is to use, and the simplicity of just spamming the keys and getting pretty cool beats out of it! Follow me at Instagram: @juan...
TCSJ 026 Waterfalls
April 06, 2021 06:16 - 46 minutes - 42.2 MBExpect to hear plenty of my Wav Trigger module playing vocal snippets, a whole lot of my noise module (white noise, shimmer, sample-and-hold weirdness), lots and lots of dynamic range, and on the right channel, you can hear my phone shouting at the cell towers. Thanks, Verizon, turns out I can hear you now dang it. Only 45 minutes! Enjoy?
TCSJ 025 Heavy
March 23, 2021 08:06 - 52 minutes - 48.3 MBThere's a filter ping pattern through this entire 52 minute jam! At about 30 minutes, a section begins that's just incredibly heavy. One of my VCO modules has three VCOs inside, plus a VCF plus an LED saturation circuit, so instead of pitching one or all of the VCOs, I turned up the resonance on the VCF and sent a CV to the cutoff of that part of the module. This gave me the heaviest growling bass drone. Strange, right? I've never gotten decent bass out of mixed VCOs *plus* whatever reso...
TCSJ 024 Sorcerer
March 04, 2021 11:10 - 1 hour - 55.2 MBI'm working on a trigger sequencer module. So far it's working okay, but needs some tweaking to get it to recognize triggers when I'm playing it naturally. In this jam, I play extensively with the "freestyle" mode I programmed in, which turns out to be amazing fun. In the coming months, I expect to have this be an actual product for actual purchase. Modular for the Masses Easy Ei8ht, if you're in the market.
TCSJ023 Selenium Mims
February 15, 2021 22:16 - 1 hour - 77.1 MBVery lots of drones and noise. I'm having a hard time creating beats with my new trigger sequencer (a very DIY SWT16) so you can hear me talk about my new project, an eight channel trigger sequencer that's going to be developed into an actual product you can actually buy. It'll feature fancy Cherry MX keyswitches and lots of delicious, delicious easy-to-useness.
TCSJ022 last before
January 18, 2021 21:49 - 58 minutes - 128 MBIt's my first long jam with my Sparkfun/robertsonics Wav Trigger module. Near the middle, I play with using it as a sort of granular synthesis engine, which is fun. Some of the filtered drones in the middle-end made me get feelings.
tcsj021 Soda Screen
December 15, 2020 21:52 - 51 minutes - 114 MBI record many more of these than I upload, and I don't remember this one at all. So here it is, without any introduction. Besides this.
TCSJ020 GBRBG
September 23, 2020 07:45 - 1 hour - 61.5 MBA new jam! This starts weird, gets really weird, stops being quite so weird, and then gets kind of good. The last five or seven minutes are actually pretty good. In the coming weeks, keep an eye on my Bandcamp page for an album of the best bits of the jams I wring from my modular synth. https://electronicjuanito.bandcamp.com
TCSJ019 Rinky Dink
August 27, 2020 11:34 - 1 hour - 55.9 MBThis jam features a microphone that sounds really great until I plug it in all the way, seven flashing LEDs that somehow make chirping bird noises, three entire Mutable Instruments Braids modules, a WHOLE LOT of experimental rhythmless somewhat atonal sounds, and me talking. Yay!
TCSJ018 Shots Fired
August 12, 2020 11:33 - 58 minutes - 53.4 MBI spend some time figuring out my new sampling module. I spend a lot of time exploring the feedback going through one of my My Favorite Reverb modules. Usually the feedback audio path on those is useless -- most of the algorithms have too much going on to make feedback make much sense. BUT it makes for some interesting breathy tones and notes. Skip forward to minute 5 and hear gunshots just outside my house. Well, outside my neighbor's house. Fifteen shots fired. A car zooming off right a...
TCSJ017 ISD1820
July 01, 2020 08:00 - 58 minutes - 53.1 MBOkay this one is weird. Last episode I played with my ISD1760 sample player, which is a tough module to use for rhythmic content. This episode I'm playing with my newest module, a rusty rusty rusty tin can lid with four ISD1820 chips behind it, which are 20-second voice memo chips that can only PLAY or RECORD. I figured out a way to get them to play on a trigger event even if they're already playing, check The Internet for that schematic if you want to learn how. Anyway, the 1820 is easie...
TCSJ 016
June 25, 2020 06:53 - 1 hour - 146 MBI guess I accidentally took a break from recording. I'm very pleased to be back at it. This is a difficult time. Covid cases are on the rise. Responsible pandemic behavior has become a political identity marker. Black Lives Matter protests are continuing quietly. And we're learning. In this jam, I use my brand new module, a very difficult to use sample playback module that's playing the Amen Break (thank you -- and rest in power -- Gregory Coleman, yet another Black musician whose labor ...
TCSJ 015 Jathilan
June 24, 2020 21:11 - 1 hour - 58.9 MBI have always loved the textures even the most boring field recordings can bring to synth jams. I lost the link to the Jathilan field recording.... but I hope it's enjoyable even without that link!
TCSJ 013 first twitch
May 23, 2020 09:04 - 1 hour - 59.8 MBI decided to stream a jam using the Twitch service.
TCMJ 012 Hey Burt Hey Burt Hey Burt
May 22, 2020 06:03 - 1 hour - 60.5 MBBONUS EPISODE! This is the first synth jam I did that I was really happy with. It was recorded right after Burt Lancaster passed away, RIP Burt. I finished this jam, and felt instantly that I had created something I could listen to again and enjoy it. My favorite moments are the lazer sounds about 16 minutes in, and the melancholy sound of the resonating filter over the simple oscillator sound about 34 minutes in. That sound can make me well up with tears. Email me here: tincansynthjam...
TCSJ 011 OMG 425
May 22, 2020 05:19 - 1 hour - 55.9 MBI built a microphone pre-amp! So I use that just a little bit. I focused more on one of my diode ladder filters and what sounds it can being to a wandering bassline. Things get really quiet and atmospheric there in the second half of the jam. Email me here: [email protected] I'm Ozerik over on Youtube and Instructables Follow me on Instagram
TCSJ 010 Teasing Gabber
May 22, 2020 05:11 - 56 minutes - 51.9 MBThis is much faster than my usual stuff. Gabber is this weird super-fast dance music with crazy overclipped kicks and aggression all over the place. I'm trying my hand at some faster stuff! Email me here: [email protected] I'm Ozerik over on Youtube and Instructables Follow me on Instagram
TCSJ 009 Lysol
May 22, 2020 04:57 - 1 hour - 56.1 MBGood luck listening to this one! I tried to stay away from anything rhythmic, or at least with a kick drum. I may have succeeded. But it may be unlistenable. This jam features some noises generated by my reverb circuits fed back into themselves. Email me here: [email protected] I'm Ozerik over on Youtube and Instructables Follow me on Instagram
TCSJ 008 Beckstrom
May 22, 2020 04:36 - 1 hour - 75.9 MBI'm really excited about this jam! My friend and DIY mentor Chris Beckstrom has been building synths and writing about it for at least two years before I started on this journey. One of his strengths is live-coding audio and visual effects. We collaborated on this, with me sending audio and a seed-visual to him via Twitch, and he took the audio and created amazing visuals to go along with it. Watch the performance here. Email me here: [email protected] I'm Ozerik over on Youtube...
TCSJ 007 Sub Sub
May 22, 2020 04:20 - 58 minutes - 53.9 MBI built a suboctavizer that I play with a lot in this jam. What the circuit does is count the incoming wave peaks, and output a square wave signal that's half, a fourth or an eighth of the original frequency.
TCSJ 006 Everything is Broken
May 22, 2020 04:07 - 50 minutes - 46.5 MBThis one heavily features my new diode ladder filter. Roland's famous TB-303 synthesizer gets a great deal of its iconic sound from a diode ladder filter that I thought of a lot while I was building this diode ladder. 303 filters are NOISY, though, and this one is very very quiet. The resonance is high, and ends up being fatiguing. Also, my sound recorder had bad connections somewhere, that's why the sound keeps being bad. Email me! [email protected] Find me on Youtube or Instru...
Tin Can Synth Jam 005
May 22, 2020 02:37 - 1 hour - 56.5 MBThis one starts out at 97.1 beats per minute. Same as my temperature. The pandemic has us all taking our temperatures much more often than normal. This journey starts out hypnotic. Gets faster. Gets a bit noisy, and I feel like ends pretty weak.
Tin Can Synth Jam 004
May 21, 2020 09:50 - 1 hour - 55.9 MBThis one's rough. I have lots of fun with my MI Braids module, set to VOWL. Getting vowel sounds out of a modular synthesizer is a challenge. You need a waveform with plenty of harmonics -- a sawtooth, for instance. Then you need several bandpass and low-pass and high-pass filters, with their resonances and cutoffs cleverly adjusted just right to get vowel sounds. And the human brain can just create those resonant filters with our larynxes and faces with hardly even the slightest thought....
Tin Can Synth Jam 003
May 21, 2020 09:28 - 1 hour - 58.3 MBMmmmm, lots of ambient vibes from this one. Randomly generated sequences! Very wobbly sounds from a cheap "100 Kinds of DSP Reverberation" circuit with the clock crystal replaced with a voltage-controllable clock, and plenty of lush, lush reverb.
Tin Can Synth Jam 002
May 21, 2020 09:20 - 32 minutes - 30.1 MBThis jam starts out with the sound of an Atari Punk Console. The iconic circuit was designed by Forrest Mims, who named it the Stepped Tone Generator and who was... a Young Earth Creationist (sigh). You'll hear my 909 hat, both my 808 kids, and most musically, my extremely DIY Mutable Instruments Braids module.
Introducing Tin Can Synth Jam
May 21, 2020 09:12 - 21 minutes - 19.4 MBFor the past three years I've been building a synthesizer out of electronic bits, usually without any circuit board of any kind, just soldering the parts to each other, and enclosing the circuits into tin cans. I wrap the cans in strips of brown paper from shopping bags, using wood glue, and stick the cans together in a frame made of wood from old pallets. It may be the world's most sophisticated and cheaply made synthesizer. There's no way to know for sure. Each week I plug it in and w...