Last nights creative thing was thoroughly satisfying.
This Omnichord arrived at work for me yesterday. I purchased it off Ebay a little while ago. It was being sold as ‘not working’ because the previous owner had left the batteries in it and they got corroded and leaked.
They were asking $99 for it. On a random whim I decided to offer $50.00 for it and they accepted the next day.
After I made the offer I began to worry that maybe I wouldn’t be able to fix it. I am really no electronics wizard and I had read of people going to radio shack for a replacement AC adaptor and then frying the circuit.
When I opened it up at work I was somewhat relieved to see that most of the damage was only around the battery area. The circuit appeared to be clean and hopefully working. I ran by the local electronics shop and picked up the battery holder you can see above. I took out my clippers and cut out both sides of the battery holder. I cleaned it up with some smaller clippers.
After a bit of filing, the two sides fit absolutely perfectly into the slots on the Omnichord. I soldered the red to red and the black to black and powered it on. Voila! It worked!
I was so happy to see that it was working correctly. I felt incredibly relieved that I could report to Jenny that I made a deal and didn’t waste 50 bucks.
I decided to record a little of it and then play with the samples with my monome. I chopped up the sample into a few loops and played around with them in MLR. It was quite a pretty sample to play around with.
The video below is a little compilation of my mess around with the samples.
Enjoy!
Comments
11 responses to “Day 205 / Omnichord Repair And Jam”
1. your blog has inspired me to find those hidden moments and do something with them. maybe not documented every day, but pushing myself nonetheless.
2. what a deal. that is some excellent ebay scouting.
3. bend that shit! Omnichord is very bendable and this seems right in line with your work here.
thanks!
Thanks Noam! Haha! I may just bend that shit indeed. I may take a little time to enjoy it the way it is but I have heard some cool stuff from that folktek version out there.
Regarding you first comment, I’m super happy that the blog inspires you to create. The little things is really what this blog tends to be about. Like this little omnichord jam. I knew to leave the drums out because I thought the recording might live on to see future posts.
wow, I am sooo jealous right now. an omnichord? you are too cool.
Thanks RabbitEars, I have always wanted one ever since I played with a friends many many years ago. It is a funny, weird and beautiful instrument.
Great post, and you’ve made it to matrixsynth. congrats Charlie!
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2010/09/day-205-omnichord-repair-and-jam.html
/hlp
Thanks Daniel! I don’t know if you saw or not but I used one of your MCRP songs on a previous post. (http://theb-roll.com/day-176-colleens-insect-collection/) I wanted to be able to link to more of your music but I couldn’t find you out there. If you have a link I’d love to add it. :)
i really liked what you did. I also too own a omnichord, love it, and the strumplate, but as far as interfacing it with Logic or Ableton, well that has been a drag…. the thing dumps out craploads of midi on 10 channels etc, and was wondering if you had used it with midi and a DAW and had any luck?
but again, regards.
Hi, I’m not sure I understand. How does it output midi. My omnichord only has a 1/4in. audio out, AC input and a footswitch input. Did newer models output midi? Or is this a hacked one?
Nevermind. I just looked it up. I guess newer models added midi capabilities and they output chord information so that would explain the crapload of midi part. So the strumplate is the source of the midi notes? One stroke outputs craploads on 10 different channels?
Hey that’s a great video. Glad you could use the song. It fits perfect with the insects :-)
I haven’t made much music the last couple of years, but here’s a few links (non monome related). Mind you, that most of it is more than 5 years old :-)
my solo project:
http://www.myspace.com/hhhhhlllllppppp
an ep I made with a good friend/fellow med student at the time:
http://www.last.fm/music/Pinn%C3%B6+Project
I really like your project here Charlie, and it’s easy to see, that you put a lot of yourself into it (and I don’t even know you)
BTW I’m SO jealous when it comes to that omnichord!!!! :-)