One week ago I attended a one day DIY synth building course with Phantom Chips in Bristol, UK. By the end of the day, and admittedly with a littler help, I came away with a single oscillator synth embedded inside a cuddly toy where I could adjust modulation of the square wave by pulling the ears the fluffly dog (the toy, not a real dog!)
Sounds cutesy? Well, it was/is educational and fun. The teacher, Phantom Chips, aka. Tara Pattenden, is no stranger to making interesting synths, controllers, and noise machines that encourage interaction. Her latest DIY synth box is aptly called Noisy Bstrd... because... well, it is just that. But there's plenty of tweaking potential to get some interesting textures and tones and a light controlled osicllator for more hands on/hands off fun. Tara has now made these enticing machines available for sale too.
If you're into making mega harsh noises and layering noise upon noise, then NOISY BSTRD is going to be right up your street. It features three frequency mixed oscillators that clash and swell. A fauxcoder adds an extra noise layer.
Noisy Bstrd is well constructed. I had the chance to play with one last week and was enthralled. It runs on 9v power, centre negative (common guitar pedal power). Power supply not included.
If you have custom requests or want a mod you can drop her a line as these can often be accommodated.
Price: £65 GBP + £5 shipping (UK)
Web: https://reverb.com/item/4179918-phantom-chips-noisy-bstrd-2017-blue
Phantom Chips on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fantomchips/
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