Moon Pie Builds and Bends

I haven’t posted anything on here for a long time and I’ve actually built some music stuff too but I’ve been too busy and lazy to make the videos of them. What I have to show you today is something I’ve been meaning to make for a long time and that I finally made today and yesterday. A lot of you might not be too interested in it because it’s not a musical instrument at all. What it is is an electrified hair accessory, sort of a futuristic flapper headdress with blue, white, and purple LED’s, coque feathers, blue silk leaves and a big red flower, and I am very pleased with it:

I have gotten two separate requests for more information on the “Hysteria Drum” featured in an early post. I thought I’d post the text of the email I sent to one of the people who asked about it explaining in detail how I did the bend, for anyone else who might be interested now or in the future. The bend itself is simple, but a lot of people have had trouble finding their way around the tiny little components of the circuits. Read more »

Though housed in a dignified-looking cigar box, this instrument is capable of emitting bloodcurdling shrieks and roars reminiscent of one of the most disturbing places I’ve ever been: the medical quarantine house at the National Zoo. A friend of my parents is a zookeeper and when I was a kid he once took my sister and I to visit there for some reason. This instrument especially reminds me of the weird, angry shrieks and growls produced by a howler monkey with hepatitis, who grasped the bars of its cage, bared its teeth and spat at us. That was pretty much when I stopped wanting to be a zookeeper when I grew up.

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The Tooth and Nail Craft Fair was this weekend, and it it was kind of a weird experience. Even though it was at the Velvet Lounge, a place where people regularly use and listen to electronic noisemaking devices, the people who showed up to shop for crafts were not generally the same people who show up to use/listen to electronic noisemaking devices. Looking around the room at all the other craftspeople, our table was definitely the black sheep, by a long shot. In 8 hours, Layne and I each only sold one thing, but people were generally really curious (more like totally baffled) and I did like 100 demonstrations.

Layne with our tables

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I never really understood the appeal of twitter until I started thinking it might be a good alternative to the cumbersome old “give me your email address please” update list. So now I have a twitter page, which I will be using to highlight new posts to this blog and maybe, if I feel like it, new Moon Pie releases, Moon Pie show dates, etc. If you join our twitter, you don’t have to look at our pages when they’re being boring and not changing, and when something does change, it will flicker briefly across your field of view before being buried beneath 250 other twitter updates. So you should probably look at the actual blog/website if you want to really keep on top of things, or give me your email address please and I’ll put you on my update list.

the email update list for this blog will only announce Very Special Events like actual physical sales. don’t worry, I won’t email you every time I do a new post. moonpieinthesky(at)gmail.com

but I don’t know, join the twitter if you like: http://www.twitter.com/moonpiebuilds

Hi guys!

Hey everyone! If you live in or near DC and would like to get your hands on one of my goodies (and some other fun stuff) come check out the Tooth and Nail Craft Fair at the Velvet Lounge on March 27! I will have a table of my electronic noisemaking goodz for sale along with my friend Layne Garrett who is an even more formidable electronician than I, so check it out!

flyer by Haley Dolan

Click on the “for sale” tag to see a sampling of the items I will be selling.

When I was at the massive Value-Village/Unique Thrift bonanza store the other day, I was attracted to this toy because it looked like it was at least 15 years old, and because the noises it makes are extremely random. As promised, here’s the video of the bent version!

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Pictures are now here!

Swirly paint makes it look exciting!

This is the first part of a series I’m hoping to develop and sell at some upcoming events. The idea is that there will be a bunch of different toys and oscillators and a bunch of different “Control Modules”, all compatible with each other. These are two of the first type of “Control Module” that I have made. The blue one is the prototype and the swirly one was part of a custom order. The modular concept will allow a player to choose the noisemaking device and the interface seperately for a “more customized experience.” In addition, a person who owns more than 1 of each (that would be me, ha, ha) can mix them up in crazy ways.

Patched into one of Layne's toys

This type of module can be patched in in place of a “clock resistor” on any device. This one has 3 or 4 normally open momentary switches, each of which is connected to a potentiometer. The switches function as a little keyboard, with the twist being that each “key” is tunable using its associated potentiometer. This allows a player to toggle instantly between having the attached noisemaking device “play” at drastically different speeds/pitches and even play simple melodies while still offering the option of the swooping knobspinning effects of a basic speed/pitch-knob interface.

More modules and details to come! I have already made a prototype of the second control module, a 1-second sampler.

Nothing much to see here. Just an A/B switch to help Michael switch between instruments more quickly.

It kind of looks like a robot

There are two LED’s to indicate which input channel is active.

This toy conjures beautiful, rich -sounding progressions reminiscent of the analog synth and sequencer magic performed by Terry Riley in Poppy Nogood’s heyday. That may be somewhat hyperbolic, but it’s awesome. Here’s a video of Michael playing it:

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