Seems as if the guitar might be restrung for our pal Lefty here.
In my edition of this, he’s playing through the TV set, broadcasting on the rabbit ears as well as out of the cloth grilled speaker.
The Octoplayer
via HiLoBrow
All Goofyness Shall Be Revealed #7 3/8ths - the Radio Shack Disco Amp
Arguably enough goofyness has been herein revealed for any & all to go forth and build their own sonic ark of the covenant. Still, one can never be sure.
Thus we have yet another goofy amp, the remaining item of a once proud holiday toy whatzit dealie that made it to a Disabled American Veteran thrift store in Hampton VA. Or so the keepers of the legend hath ordained.
How can one know it’s a *Disco* amp? Says so on the back panel. Meanwhile, please note the increasingly decreasing prices, 95 cents, no—55, no—a quarter. Ah, grease pencil …
The fourth pic shows it with LEDs blazing. Feedback, yay! (The blue mic here is not original stock. No mic came with the amp.)
The fifth pic, a closeup of the lit up LED grill, hopes to be the blue screen insert for many an Internet adventure. Have fun.
All Goofyness Shall Be Revealed #7 - goofy amps and speakers in general
Hate to cause anyone’s head to explode. There just may be too much goofyness here to safely comprehend. Maybe it would be best to turn back now, seek the comforts of home & algorithm. No? Very well then …
Above is what I loosely refer to as the old gray (or grey) Radio Shack mini amp. But it has a name: Realistic Micro-Sonic Speaker-Amplifier. Back when such a thing could be had, it was model 277-1008. Some say that it was the product of alien technology captured by the Allies and/or forged in the same fires as Excalibur. Uhm, possibly. I found this one years back at a some handy guy’s yard sale, with an EICO tube tester and such like. It definitely looks and sounds like a transistor radio, inspiring similar love & reverence.
Nowadays, the same model number corresponds to the also very awesome goofy mini amp here that composer/author/homebrew ‘lectronix provocateur Nicolas Collins can tell you all about.
Yes, with the el cheepo Karaoke machine and the circuit bent Spy Voice Changer, the well beloved HoneyTone and various bits of amplification I didn’t get around to photographing, these little amps are funky, flexible means of both amplitude and characterization. You can put something like a Zube Tube or a goofy toy “echo mic” on them. Wrap them up in a winter coat or lower them down a well. Or, er, um, maybe not, but generally speakering, explore.
Any of these amps that comes with a speaker output, like the newer 277-1008, or is hacked to have such an output, can also sound like whatever speaker you want. Small, large, raw or enclosed, in good shape or punctured or covered with noisy objects—player’s choice. And again if one were to sojourn to Collins’ site or read his book, there’s stuff about driving piezo discs which can make any light, compliant object (plastic cup, cardboard box and so on) into a speaker.
While many parts of this were mentioned in previous goofyness, just wanted to make sure.
These are also largely the pleasures of home recording goofyness. Except in quiet parlors of focused listeners, these sounds may prove too delicate for live venues. Yr. mileage yada & so on.
All Goofyness Shall Be Revealed #6—the Ham Radio mic
Dunno, could be intended for CBers. Or all comers. And I’ve yet to do more than guess why it has a bucket brigade delay built in. Just glad it does.
Added control for controlling delay time on the fly (originally was a set and forget trim pot). It has a VU meter (obscured by glare in this photo; over “MODUL” in upper right) to read, revel in or ignore. Used many times in not too distant past.
All Goofyness Shall Be Revealed #4—the El Cheapo Karaoke Machine
Okay, this gizmo has a specific model number and such, but a casual search will mostly yield a few of its cousins as offered on eBray.
This splendidly out of focus photo reveals the one and only as somewhat modded; left of the cassette bay doors, the delay time knob can adjust to absurdly crunchy extremes.
In general, aside from being a very handy, if informal, amplifier, its super fun whining, aliasing delay is a joy to hear. One note in becomes two notes out, the new one delayed. Plus the drone of the clock speed which is audible at any but the shortest delays. As expected, the pitch of the drone and the aliasing both depend on the delay time and are thus tunable. What more can one ask for?
Haven’t used it much very recently, but for some time before, I couldn’t not use it. Go back a ways, it’s everywhere.
All Goofyness Shall Be Revealed #3—the Crowbar 3 x 3 mix matrix
There’s an expression. Good/fast/cheap: pick any two.
In the above blurred & distorted photo is a very DIY, use whatever’s handy, quick and dirty implementation of the passive mixer matrix. It’s a simple but flexible gizmo wherein any of the inputs can be variably applied to any of the outputs.
The long casing, the potentiometers, the 1/4” inputs and outputs are scavenged from two old widgets meant for who knows what. One widget gave up its casing and both lent the rest to make this. No holes had to be drilled (two extras are covered in electrical tape), no other hardware acquired.
I wouldn’t speak to its looks/durability/reliability/ergonomics, but it works. Some of the recent things posted here have put it to use.
There is a sturdy, more classically constructed, non-goofy example of a 3 in/3 out mixer matrix here, which has found a very good home indeed.
Again the idea for this comes via Nicolas Collins’ Handmade Electronic Music. After a few years of my thinking about getting around to it, it took maybe an evening or so to make.
