Tumblr blogs

I started a couple of Tumblr blogs:

What’s He Building In There? is a place to house updates on what I am up to that don’t really warrant a full blog post on here. Work in progress / experiments etc.

Sounds From Outside features weird and wonderful sounds and musical instruments. A means of driving and logging my research in this area.

Halldorophone

I hope you might consider “following” them…

Creating Amplification 5

Amplification at Millennium Point

The final blog post detailing our work creating Amplification. Now on show in Millennium Point, Birmingham.

Overview

Week commencing 25th May
What a week! A bit of a blur really but we got there in the end. In fact, we had the van packed with Amplification by the end of play on Wednesday.

As ever though there was a lot of admin and surrounding stuff to sort out ahead of the installation on Saturday. OH and then within an hour of it being installed, somebody broke it…so we arrived at 7:30am on Monday to fix and reinforce it; so it opened at 9am as planned.

The early opening was because we got it installed early and thought we’d just go for it! It provided a useful phase of beta testing…

Day by Day

25th May

  • Buying parts for final tweaks – such as silver piping, plinth, polish
  • Cutting and test fitting plinth

 
26th May

  • Final work on aesthetics and strengthening
  • One last test build

 
last-studio
 
27th May

  • Packing up and loading into van

 
kit-of-parts-sm
 
in-van_sm
 
28th May

  • Project admin

 
29th May

  • Signage and paperwork
  • Final nice-to-have tweaks to headset &c

30th May

  • Installation at Millennium point, with David
  • As I arrive home I get a call to say it has been broken so make plans to come in first thing on Monday

 
start
 
end
 
1st June May

  • Fixed and reinforced piece opens to the public at 9am – BINGO!

All that remains is for people to enjoy it and for us to do the documentation and rounding off…yay! Oh and any further maintenance of course ;)

Have a look/listen at Millennium Point, as part of All Ears.

Creating Amplification 4

rush

Here is the fourth and penultimate weekly blog post detailing our progress creating Amplification.

Overview

Week commencing 18th May
Our penultimate week certainly had its ups and downs. Luckily our work on Saturday ended on a positive note.

Now we are into the phase of final tweaks – which always take ages – and nice-to-haves before pack down; ahead of installation at Millennium Point on Saturday. It’s going to be a exhilarating and tiring week. Let’s hope everything goes to plan…and then let’s hope people enjoy using it.

Day by Day

18th May

  • Day off; pondering

 
19th May

  • Plinth arrives – yay!
  • Setting out plinth and elements to go on it
  • More welding
  • More ordering of parts

 
Laying out
 
20th May

  • Drilled lots of holes in the plinth – EEK!
  • Set stuff out on the plinth
  • MORE ordering of parts

 
21st May

  • Spent all day tweaking, hacking and installing our first proper test rig – and it failed. As a test that is pretty useful; just a tad demoralising

Setting up
 
22nd May

  • Going round trading estates buying parts to fix some of the issues we were experiencing
  • Bonus: found a great local micro-brewery on a trading estate ;)

23rd May

  • Modified a few things and set up a test rig again. MUCH better. We even had it tested by some almost genuine punters; who loved it
  • Onward!

Sanding the base
Making new clamps

Knackered and exhilarated; in equal measure.

To follow: Creating Amplification 5…the final week.