Spoken Word with Electronics

SPOKEN WORD WITH ELECTRONICS #50: TOOL FIGHT! and 1970s VINYL DECAL REPAIR

Hi, everyone, welcome back to the show. This week we look back at the finest era in car design: The WOOD AND FAKE WOOD PERIOD. This is when most family cars had wood paneling – or, if you were sporting, fake wood paneling.

The transition from 1960s real world materials into the 1970s dealt with numerous synthetics, and the automobile industry felt this very directly. You'll see the interiors and outer shell of cars begin to lose many metal, wooden, and leather comforts, with a big boom in SYNTHETICS in the 1970s, with plastic everywhere. And that meant big business for VINYL DECALS. Of course, vinyl wood grain decals are far less robust than wood paneling itself – So this week, we share filmstrip audio on VINYL DECAL repair from the 1970s.

A lot of life mantras can be taken from this tutorial. Namely: Use a squeegee to iron out all those bubbles and blisters – Use a heat gun for stubborn blisters – And if life gives you bubbles, use a pin to pop them!

Additionally, the show opens this week with a police scanner report of a TOOL FIGHT at our local Home Depot in Austin TX. Reportedly customers versus employees. Stay safe out there, customers and employees! – Especially in the drill, nail gun, and hammer section.

Audio for the 1970s vinyl repair has been reconfigured into this week's Side A: "Caring for Your Domesticated Human in a Post-Covid Petting Zoo" and you'll find part 32 of Charlie Pickle continued here with "The Sunday Morning Cartoons".

Episode 50, RAW AUDIO: "Repairing Exterior Woodgrain Decals on Your Car." (Filmstrip, 1970s) by Spoken Word with Electronics

Episode 50, Side A: "Caring for Your Domesticated Human in a Post-Covid Petting Zoo" by Spoken Word with Electronics

Episode 50, Side B: "The Sunday Morning Cartoons" (Charlie Pickle, Pt 32) by Spoken Word with Electronics

This week's show. Important news on MOUSE EARS. And a Ring Modulation cage match (a Moog MF-102 vs. a Rucci RingMod vs. a Metasonix RK3)

Headline: MOUSE EARS! Does Mickey Mouse regularly use a Ring Modulator to sneak onto Air Force One?

https://boingboing.net/2021/03/16/mouse-ears-does-mickey-mouse-regularly-use-a-ring-modulator-to-sneak-onto-air-force-one.html

Hi, everyone, welcome back to the show. This week, the discussion is on ring modulators. If you have a synthesizer or a guitar, or even just a voice, you need a ring modulator. They've been around since 1934, and provide some of the most incredible sound effects imaginable.

1934 is an interesting year. Mickey Mouse had just turned six years old, being born in 1928, and most intelligence literature indicates the mouse found ring modulation to be highly addictive. A fan of music and telephones, Mickey Mouse became a ring modulation addict in 1945, and since then has been known to use the many techniques of ring modulation, which is signal processing from the combination of two signals. He uses these techniques to become invisible. Once invisible, Mickey Mouse regularly walks among us, hiding out in our business meetings. And when he can get onto Air Force One, he likes to be a fly on the wall (or a mouse you can't see) and he eavesdrops on world leaders.

The truth of this was exposed this month when it was revealed a man in "mouse ears" was found within walking distance of Air Force One itself: https://apnews.com/article/air-force-one-base-intruder-mouse-ears-88821e8a8f19b940ad0ddcaf7778825e - hiding out on the airfield for close to five hours until his distinctive "mouse hat" caught the attention of someone. So this week's show we discuss Mouse Ears and Mouse Ears Infiltration (aka M.E.M.E.I.-CKEY MOUSE)

Your communication materials include a full hour long tutorial on Ring Modulation for music purposes, making everything from wonderful science fiction laboratory noises, to turning James Cagney's into a clanking bell.

Three ring modulators are used, providing a good summary of the format: The Bob Moog designed classic MF-102, the completely passive and wonderfully unpredictable Rucci Ring Modulator, and the sound of hellfire itself, also known ad the RK3 Ringer/Shaper, from Metasonix.

P.S. The 'shenanigans' flyer listed in track two can be seen here: https://twitter.com/EthanPersoff/status/1369708013167271944

Have a good week and take it easy with the Mouse Ears!

Episode 49, Discussion: "Ring Modulators!" (Shenanigans Bluff) by Spoken Word with Electronics

Episode 49, Side A: "We Heard You Might Like Ring Modulators..." by Spoken Word with Electronics

Episode 49, Side B: "Marie, At Twilight" (Charlie Pickle, Pt 31) by Spoken Word with Electronics

SPOKEN WORD WITH ELECTRONICS #48: Fruit/Vegetable Senses and Time Travel with the SSL FX Capacitor

Hi, everyone, welcome back to the show. This week's episode is a demo on a very peculiar reverb unit called the FX Capacitor from Synthetic Sound Labs.

The SSL "FX Capacitor" is one of the oddest hardware reverb processors on the planet.

SSL is known for modifying computer chips into odd musical uses, be it a Votrax voice chip for its Scat Talker phoneme generator or a digital answering machine chip for its SampleCorder. They're all wonderful products, capable of bizarre sounds with a unique low-fidelity sound that is immediately gratifying. You've heard their modules used on a lot of different music you enjoy. (My likely guesses: Boards of Canada, Depeche Mode, others) I've been curious about the FX Modulator, as it applies the same concept to studio effects, using a Spin Semiconductor at its base.

What is compelling about the FX Modulator, however, is the patch points on the panel: There's control voltage for nearly every setting, with no menu diving, just a select dial for each effect and send any voltage or sound into three parameters and feedback inserts. What this allows for is adding a waveform to the shape of a reverb tail or other really wild noises. I've never encountered a reverb unit similar to it. You'll need a proper Moog power supply to get going with something like this, which is addressed in this week's introduction. Then, lock into your DeLorean for a complete half hour discussion of the FX Modulator itself. If you'd like to skip ahead, there's a seven minute sample of all the odd sounds in this week's Side A.

Episode 48, Demo: Synthetic Sound Labs FX Capacitor / SSL FX Capacitor (Control Voltage Reverb) by Spoken Word with Electronics