07-13, 19:30–22:00 (US/Eastern), Tobin 219 (Hardware Workshop)
Participants in this workshop will all make a CascaMesa passive drum, drone, and drama machine, a music synthesizer that runs off of almost no external power - for the off-grid raver in all of us. No prior electronics or soldering experience is needed. Ever power an instrument off the microbes found in a bucket of mud? Because this guy totally does that. As a bonus, if you’re slightly more traditional in your music making, you can also hook it to the usual CV sources and drum triggers for a wide array of chirps, blips, and beats of the chip-tuney EDM variety. In short, it’s a win-win for everyone - the hippies, the ravers, and, most importantly, you.
Travis Johns is the head of VauxFlores, an audio electronics company that specializes in the design and manufacture of unusual sound-making devices. Inspired by a fascination with analog electronics, as well as a good minute spent in the trenches of experimental music, he strives to create devices that tip the hat to the unheralded relics of the past, focusing on the sounds of the underground - whether they be garage rock, tropicalia, space music, swamp blues, harsh-noise, field hollers, non-idiomatic western free-improvisation... and so on.
