Yesterday. Studiology. I returned to circuit bending the Stylophone, establishing switchable circuits on top of the existing scheme. Is this ‘glazing’, of sorts? I want to move the potentiometer governing the tuning control from the base to the face of the device. This will require an additional potentiometer and some drilling. The movement of the control (which either adds or removes resistance to the signal) introduces some quite unexpected results in the context of a circuit mash-up. I was reminded of the sounds produced by Keith Emerson’s ‘intervention’ with a Hammond L100 organ:

I had a very helpful email from a respondent regarding a quest to purchase my first ever effects pedal. I’d thought that it had been manufactured by Jim Dunlop. Apparently not:

I never ran into any Dunlop made pedal of the 1970s [,] since Jim Dunlop only got in the effects pedal business in the mid 1980s by acquiring the Cry Baby wah-wah brand. There was a Cry Baby based fuzz-wah by the name of Jen Double Sound (also available under different brand name such as Arbiter and FBT – these were Italian made) in the early 1970s.

The interior of the Jen looks like this and very familiar:

It sells at over £225 on eBay, and is rare. Not the sort of things you buy in order to gradually debilitate by circuit bending. Sacrilege.

In the evening, I prepared intercessions for Sunday’s service of Morning Prayer at Holy Trinity Church.

Today. Before continuing to find new and compelling circuits on the Stylophone board, I took stock of, and mapped, what I’d achieved yesterday. It’s unclear what mileage I can get out of rerouting two interacting (in vibrato mode) rudimentary square and sine wave oscillators. But uncertainty is compelling. 10.50 pm: A pelt into town for a hairdressing appointment (which, I was convinced, was an hour later).

11.30 am: Back at homebase, teacup in hand, the mapping continued beyond lunchtime. I was determined to explore all possible combination and establish all useable connections by the close of the afternoon. Squeals and hoots abound. But I wanted sounds that could still be modified by the keyboard. By 2.30 pm, the end of this process was in sight/hearing. Two alternatives remains. The creation of new circuits, wherein: 1. an external and additional voltage is added; and, 2. the internal voltage is permitted to pass through my body, which would act as a massive resistor. By the close of the day, I’d resurrected the sounds that I associated with my experiments back in the early 1970s.

The map:

5.20 pm: Close circuit! 6.30 pm: An evening with my wife.