Tuesday, 23 August 2016
Mini Oramics on BBC Radio 4
Thanks to the Goldsmiths press team, a BBC feature producer, Chris Vallance, became interested in my research, and he made a small web feature and a short piece for the World at One, which featured myself, James Bulley and Dr Jo Thomas all talking about Daphne Oram, Oramics and Mini-Oramics. I was able to point Chris to an old BBC sound recording of Oram herself talking about Oramics on the World at One in 1972, which made a lovely link into the piece. The audio of Oram talking about her work on the BBC is available at the Daphne Oram Archive and is audio archive number DO236.
I think the radio link has expired but you can see the web feature here.
Mini Oramics at Seeing Sound
The first public outing of the Mini-Oramics system happened at the Seeing Sound Conference at Bath Spa University in April 2016.
As I had still not had time to write any music for it, I used John Lely's score roll to demonstrate the machine. Unknown to me he had craftily put a phrase from Kraftwerk's We Are The Robots at the end which finished off the demo nicely!
Demonstrating the machine at Seeing Sound, photo courtesy of Nuno Correia
As I had still not had time to write any music for it, I used John Lely's score roll to demonstrate the machine. Unknown to me he had craftily put a phrase from Kraftwerk's We Are The Robots at the end which finished off the demo nicely!
Demonstrating the machine at Seeing Sound, photo courtesy of Nuno Correia
Some Musicians Finally Get Their Hands On Mini-Oramics
The next week I brought the new machine into Goldsmiths for some artists to start working with.
John Lely started off proceedings and also helped me get it in tune properly! John was amazing and really expolored the boundaries and parameters of the device and will hopefully be working with Mini-Oramics again soon. Unfortunately I don't have a film of his initial work.
I then also had some short visits from some other musicians and made this short video:
Mini-Oramics early trials from Tom Richards on Vimeo.John Lely started off proceedings and also helped me get it in tune properly! John was amazing and really expolored the boundaries and parameters of the device and will hopefully be working with Mini-Oramics again soon. Unfortunately I don't have a film of his initial work.
I then also had some short visits from some other musicians and made this short video:
I also worked with Ain Bailey, Jo Thomas and James Bulley and made this slightly longer video which started to appear on various other websites and blogs (mainly thanks to the Sarah and Phoenix at the Goldsmiths press team). James programmed a short version of Messiaen's Oraison which features at the end of the video. The work which was originally written for Ondes Martenot really suited Mini-Oramics.
First Tests
Mini-Oramics in my studio shortly after final assembly:
Once it was all finally assembled and connected I had to test and calibrate the unit.
It was pretty nerve racking, and even though I had tested all the circuits individually, it started out not working at all. As I was adjusting/calibrating all the graphic input comparators - which initially detect the pen strokes, it seemed as though there was a lot of interference. As I adjusted one input (of 72 in total) another one would go out of adjustment and 'detect' nothing at all. It was incredibly frustrating. It was very late at night by this point and also I had been accepted to demonstrate the unit at the Seeing Sound Conference only about a week later so I had a very tight deadline. I had also scheduled for some composers to come in and start using it in the Goldsmiths Electronic Music Studios the very next week. I had to give up and go home and sleep off the disappointment. Luckily however, the morning I had a slight hunch as to what might be causing the problem. It turned out the interference was optical rather than electronic, and I just had to move the IR LEDs closer to the sensors. It then started to function as intended. By the end of that day after some further adjustments, I managed to post this slightly amateurish demo video:
MINI-ORAMICS WORKING! from Tom Richards on Vimeo.
Once it was all finally assembled and connected I had to test and calibrate the unit.
It was pretty nerve racking, and even though I had tested all the circuits individually, it started out not working at all. As I was adjusting/calibrating all the graphic input comparators - which initially detect the pen strokes, it seemed as though there was a lot of interference. As I adjusted one input (of 72 in total) another one would go out of adjustment and 'detect' nothing at all. It was incredibly frustrating. It was very late at night by this point and also I had been accepted to demonstrate the unit at the Seeing Sound Conference only about a week later so I had a very tight deadline. I had also scheduled for some composers to come in and start using it in the Goldsmiths Electronic Music Studios the very next week. I had to give up and go home and sleep off the disappointment. Luckily however, the morning I had a slight hunch as to what might be causing the problem. It turned out the interference was optical rather than electronic, and I just had to move the IR LEDs closer to the sensors. It then started to function as intended. By the end of that day after some further adjustments, I managed to post this slightly amateurish demo video:
The final push - putting it all together.
In March 2016 I started the final assembly. I designed a front panel for the sound generator section in a standard 3u subrack type enclosure.
Also had to make some slight changes to the main framework of the machine to be able to fit a front panel to that.
Here are some pictures of that process:
Front panel made using Schaeffer AG front panel designer:
Assembling the final array of IR phototransistors:
Drilling out the other front panel:
Assembling the rear panel of the sound generator sub-rack unit. PSU / VCFs /and VCAs visible:
Starting to rebuild the programmer with circuitry inside:
The row of blue preset pots here control the 12 different volume levels available on each of the three envelope sections, the other circuit board is the motor and lightbox control circuitry:
Starting to install the graphic input modules:
Most of the circuitry connected together:
Also had to make some slight changes to the main framework of the machine to be able to fit a front panel to that.
Here are some pictures of that process:
Front panel made using Schaeffer AG front panel designer:
Assembling the final array of IR phototransistors:
Drilling out the other front panel:
Assembling the rear panel of the sound generator sub-rack unit. PSU / VCFs /and VCAs visible:
Starting to rebuild the programmer with circuitry inside:
The row of blue preset pots here control the 12 different volume levels available on each of the three envelope sections, the other circuit board is the motor and lightbox control circuitry:
Starting to install the graphic input modules:
Most of the circuitry connected together:
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