Bless.As my experience in arduino is quite limited( though with some average knowledge of C, Basic , etc despite rusty lol) i'd like your opinion as to what would be the best way to approach my ideia.The idea is to:1st- have a use a potentiometer to control the a 555 ( much like the example of controling the blinking of a led with a POT), but display its current value to the LCD;2nd I'd need to be able to read a few more pots ( 4 at leastt) and display their cirrent value to the LCD as well.For completion of information, ill try to explain my aim, in a general way.
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KEYSThe albums previous to Go Plastic sounded altogether very warm and analog. Some of the tracks, like Cooper's World, have such a convincing feeling that you'd think they were recorded by a real jazz band. The new album has a quite different character, it's digital, cool, machine-like, very precise and quantized. How did this radical change come about?TOMThat probably comes from my new studio and the consequential change of work flow. For about a year and a half I shut myself in in order to rebuild my studio from the ground up and to have a completely new start. Up until now I had almost exclusively self-modified gear in the studio, because I got bored with banging on interfaces that other people designed. The equipment from the period between the mid 80s and the mid 90s have such incredibly bad user interfaces and give you no opportunity to leave the predetermined paths. While I was still working with analog equipment, there was no device in the studio on which I hadn't altered something. With digital gear it's just more difficult to change anything and still have it work. At some point I got annoyed with working with old equipment, even though there were some good sides to it -- like you learn how to get the maximum in sound out of a minimum of equipment. As an example, the first Hip Hop tracks that were produced on an Akai S900, with just one MB of working memory, don't sound much worse than the tracks that are being produced today with 128MB or more. Through the narrow technical possibilities you automatically focus more on the musical structures. Up until Go Plastic I have mainly produced with only 1,5MB of sample RAM. KEYSBut you still used an Atari or something similar for the sequencer?TOMNo, I have exclusively worked with a Boss DR-660, a Fostex eight track, an Octave Cat synthesizer (similar to the ARP Odyssey), a sampler and a 12 track Spirit mixer.KEYSThat's hard to imagine, the rhythms and arrangements are so complex.TOMYes, but that's all more or less recorded live and the tracks are almost infinitely bounced over eachother. Before Go Plastic I didn't even have a clue about MIDI. I only knew it had something to do with notes. In retrospect this period strikes me as a very long learning phase, through which I had to fight my way in order to arrive where I am today, musically and technically. Towards the end of this phase I sometimes borrowed a Mac from a friend, simply to be able to edit some two track masters. But I always worked on a very basic level with the Sound Edit software. When I returned the Mac to my friend I bought an analog two track machine. It might sound a bit crazy today, but I simply wanted to learn from the ground up how to edit and that's best done with analog tape. It feels better and it gives you a much greater satisfaction, since you work with material that you can touch. Even though it's unbelievably difficult at first, you confuse the snippets or cut too early and then you have to start from the very beginning again. When you look beyond your sampler, you also get an idea of how the available means influence the production, and naturally also the composition. To me, this pysical approach, being able to feel the music, is very important. I play the bass on my tracks too, and that's also a very physical instrument. You feel the deep tones more than you hear them.KEYSHow did this completely rearranging your studio come about?TOMOne day I was just fed up and said to myself, now I'm gonna buy a top sequencer and all the expensive hardware DSP crap. I threw all my old equipment out, now it's time to see what you can produce with the new crap.KEYSThe earlier albums had more melodic structures, while Go Plastic is more abstract. In your opinion, is that a development or a reduction?TOMSonically it might seem reduced. In a compositional regard it's in any case a development, since I had to make all the previous tracks in order to be able to make these tracks. The structures and sounds don't arise from a mood, rather from a development that's been going on for a long period of time. I have learnt to work with my old, limited equimpment. The new gear gave me the possibility to penetrate other sonic dimensions, which naturally influences the melodies and structures as well.KEYSWhat are you currently using in your new studio?TOMThe first software that I properly pulled apart was Reaktor from Native Instruments. That's my absolute favourite program. After I decided to rebuild my studio, the first hardware I bought was the FS1R by Yamaha, a super piece of gear. But the user interface and the MIDI implementation is completely horrible, like on most Japanese gear. It made me think now I'm gonna hack together my own FM synthesizer with direct access to all parameters and have all operatior inteconnect like I want, and perhaps throw on a filter at the end of it. Then came Reaktor as if I had called for it. Although I have to say the interface of the instruments provided with Reaktor don't exactly appeal to me. The nice thing about Reaktor is that it's so easy to operate. The hard thing is to shape the surface and the control possibilities so that you can work with it in a meaningful manner. On a well designed interface you should be able to completely pull the sound apart with eight faders or knobs, and then put it back together again. Earlier you always had to submit to the user manual. With Reaktor you can adapt the gear to your work flow, and if you still don't like the instrument you can build one that you like. That's the revolutionary part of it, in my opinion.KEYSThe FM-like sounds on Go Plastic, which sound like a sample with a too short loop point, are they also Reaktor?TOMPartly, partly. I have yet another Eventide DSP4000 and an Eventide Orville. Very expensive, but what machines! The lion's share of the alienated and really sick things that you hear on Go Plastic have been made with the DSP4000 or the Orville. But it's exactly the same thing here as with the other gear, the presets and programs are simply not suitable for the sounds that I want to make. I simply have no interest in the best 3D reverb. Honestly, I don't care. I want to compose music. Besides, I like effects better when they can be utilized in a musical context. Then the quality is really secondary. There are no effects that you can throw on top of the sound, so that it sounds purer or better. The effect must influence and then change the musical idea in itself, like with a rhythmic multitap delay, and you get that very well with the Eventides. The fun thing about the gizmos is that you can edit the algorithms and programs very easily yourself, you don't even need a PC or Mac editor. But even the most expensive Eventide gear has a few bugs. Probably nobody noticed, since everybody just use the factory supplied algroithms. I called Eventide to complain, but somehow nobody there wanted to believe me. For Go Plastic I started by building a synthesizer with on the Orville. A lot of the FM sounds were actually generated with that. Then I built a quite special FM/additive synthesizer. The boring thing is, you can't exchange programs with anyone, because almost nobody owns an Orville or a DSP4000. And those that can afford one, have no interest in using it as a synthesizer.KEYSHow can we imagine this kind of synthesizer?TOMOn the Orville I built a synthesizer which permanently changes its signal flow, and partially also the modules, depending on logic circuits, levels or modulation sources. For instance, the tones that sound like a mix between delay and extreme time stretching were realised with a peak detector circuit. As soon as a loop falls between a threshold, the last segment of the loop is repeated, until the threshold is exceeded again. The length of the segment is decided by an average between level drop over time and the modulation sources. It would be too much to explain the algorithms and the logic elements, but you can hear it all on the album.KEYSWhich sequencer did you use on Glo Plastic?TOMI used a QY700 from Yamaha. Years ago I tried Cubase, but that didn't appeal to me at all. I prefer the numeric pattern oriented approach of step sequencers. The QY700 really only has edit lists, that's what I like the most. Anyway, I'm in the process of hacking up my own sequencer. That's naturally always the best solution for me. I think step sequencers or even tracker programs are much better for electronic music than the established sequencers that are oriented towards the traditional concept of the tape machine. In Reaktor I have already combined a step sequencer, a sampler and some sick circuits, but you quite quickly use up the available processing power. But at the moment I am completely satisfied.KEYSWhy do you like to use FM-like sounds so much? TOMThat might have something to do with my hobby from childhood. As a little boy I often sat for hours in front of the radio listening to the short wave band. You felt the effect when you slowly travelled through the frequencies, yielding insane frequency modulations between whistling noises, the carrier wave and speech fragments. To me this music from the ether, if you like, had an eerie fascination already as a child. By not hearing the thing exactly, or hearing it very distorted or modulated, the imagination was animated creepily. With frequency modulation I am able to generate these ether waves in their purest form. As with the radio waves, you don't know what will come out of the complex FM algorithms. Small changes can tilt the entire sound. That's what I like so much about it. On Music is Rotted One Note I mixed in some radio signals in the background, on the very edge of perception. You have to listen very carefully to be able to recognize it. You can probably only hear it on really good monitor speakers. That's also a very fascinating aspect that can be realised with music -- timbres, melodies or sounds can be mixed with the main piece bordering on the audible, so that you think you hear something, a tone, but you can't recognize what it is. This leads to an uncannily subtle effect, that completely changes or mystifies the character of a piece of music.KEYSDo you use virtual analog synthesizers?TOMNo, for the simple reason that most of the gear doesn't appeal to my aesthetic preferences, I simply find them ugly. I have to work with the gear every day and therefore want to surround myself with gear that also appeals to me visually. That probably sounds completely insane, it's just the way it is. When I get to my studio and switch on the Eventides, it gives me a warm feeling in my stomach. Another point is those instruments try to imitate something that they are not, that's how I feel. Besides, the album sounds so digital. Many producers try by all means to make their music that they produced digitally to sound like it was produced on analog equipment. That's really a lie. Go Plastic is produced digitally and sounds that way too. You don't have to be ashamed that you live today or that equipment changes and is improved. I also think that's got a lot to do with listening habits. We have to get used to the digital esthetic first, for the pure joy of noise.KEYSYour tracks sound very constructed. Are you still composing or do you rather program?TOMIt's not like I plan in advance what I'm going to make. That's what you do when you want to write a program. Then you have to have some precise vision of what you want to achieve with the program. The process of the composer is rather the discovery of structures and ideas that are already there. I venture into these virtual sounds spaces and uncover ideas and wipe rhythms free. It's a realtime process in which you never know where the next element might lead. I used to play in bands, and the rules of song writing are so common to me. But that's something completely different. With the machines and the possibilities of today you should simply let yourself be guided by the equipment. Naturally, that's not to say you sit in front of the computer and try out whatever things. You should know your equipment in and out, simply start with a small idea and the rest is a flow, a creative current which you're virtually drawn into. Naturally, that doesn't work when you constantly have to look up in the user manual, or when the interface of a piece of gear delays you unnecessarily. I rarely have the feeling that I'm composing a piece of music. It's a track that constucts itself piece by piece, the music writes itself. I am just a kind of catalyst. 2ff7e9595c
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