ChordBird

 Sound examples (mp3):

  "The ChordBird Dances"
  "Boguslavian Madness"
  "Messin' with Michaels Boat"

 

ChordBird

A kind of larger brother to the BuzzBird. Salvaged from a dumpster at the local recycling centre. 4-note polyphony, 6 rhythms with tempo +/–, 8 instruments, autochords with rhythmsynch, pitchbend wheel (ca. ½ tone), volume wheel, demotune and a microphone input.

Circuit bends:

Tempo/pitch potentiometers
: coarse and fine, adjustable from fast to ultra slow.

Bodycontacts: speed- and pitchbend downwards when touched one at a time, one moderate the other variable with max. range at lowest speed. When touched together you get speed- and pithbend upwards, or to the average of the two, according to the current setting of speed/pitch.

LDR (photoresistor):
placed in parallel with the speed/pitch potentiometres. Gives speed- and pitchbend. Modulationdepth depends on the setting of the pitch/speed potentiometers.

Tone control: three position selector for normal or distorted sound with two different levels of crunchy lo-fi distortion.

Glitch buttons
:
the four yellow buttons gives an arpeggio-like effect in different toneheights. One of them only works when autochords are not synched with rhythm. One blue button makes arpeggio only when rhythm is running. The last two blue buttons makes glitches when held down, and affects rhythmspeed and demotune when pressed briefly.

Line out: added a line-out mini-jack with a speaker/line-out select switch.