From 2003-2009, I ran a small business building electronic devices on a custom-order basis for musicians around the world. The projects ranged from adding an expression pedal jack to a completely customized synthesizer. I also designed some circuits for small effects pedal companies. All in all, there are probably a few hundred devices with my signature scribbled in Sharpie somewhere on their case. This page shows some of the more interesting projects I completed. Click on any of the thumbnails in the scrolling box below for information, images, soundclips, and videos of each project.
Digital Lo-Fi Box
"It's perfect! I found a host of various 'in-between tones' in the bitcrusher section: near ring mod, Atari glitching, dying machinery and many other sounds. The filter is fantastic, too!" -Christian baker
The Digital Lo-fi box is a bit crusher, sample rate reducer, and resonant low-pass filter. So far, I've made two of these (take a look below). This kind of effect has an obscenely large amount of sounds in it but is by no means particularly chaotic or unpredictable. The digital portion is an 8-bit ADC/DAC which you can reduce the bit depth of. One great thing about this circuit is that you can get literally any bit depth from 2^0 to 2^8 quantized values. What this means is that you get a lot more control over the bit crushing sound. The filter is raunchy, MS-20 style resonant low-pass. There are expression and CV inputs for bit depth, sample rate, and LPF frequency. I've also built one with an envelope control (with up/down switch and a depth knob) for the sample rate and a switch that selects whether the LPF goes before or after the bit crusher/sample rate reducer. There's an input gain knob (you can clip it for a raunchy analog fuzzerdrive), a mix knob, and a wet level knob. Most people become familiar with this effect because of VST plugins - this particular pedal does an incredibly large amount more than any bit crusher VST that I know of, and it's hardware! The soundclips below are from the larger Digital Lo-Fi Box with the envelope control circuit.
Soundclips
Processing SK-1 organ tone
Processing drum loop
Processing guitar
Images
"It's perfect! I found a host of various 'in-between tones' in the bitcrusher section: near ring mod, Atari glitching, dying machinery and many other sounds. The filter is fantastic, too!" -Christian baker
The Digital Lo-fi box is a bit crusher, sample rate reducer, and resonant low-pass filter. So far, I've made two of these (take a look below). This kind of effect has an obscenely large amount of sounds in it but is by no means particularly chaotic or unpredictable. The digital portion is an 8-bit ADC/DAC which you can reduce the bit depth of. One great thing about this circuit is that you can get literally any bit depth from 2^0 to 2^8 quantized values. What this means is that you get a lot more control over the bit crushing sound. The filter is raunchy, MS-20 style resonant low-pass. There are expression and CV inputs for bit depth, sample rate, and LPF frequency. I've also built one with an envelope control (with up/down switch and a depth knob) for the sample rate and a switch that selects whether the LPF goes before or after the bit crusher/sample rate reducer. There's an input gain knob (you can clip it for a raunchy analog fuzzerdrive), a mix knob, and a wet level knob. Most people become familiar with this effect because of VST plugins - this particular pedal does an incredibly large amount more than any bit crusher VST that I know of, and it's hardware! The soundclips below are from the larger Digital Lo-Fi Box with the envelope control circuit.
Soundclips
Processing SK-1 organ tone
Processing drum loop
Processing guitar
Images