Acoustic Arenas – November Bonus Scene
Scene from a laundry room Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons.
mechlabrat
New Eurorack Module Demo: Steptone & Son
Acoustic Arenas November Pack 2
Included in this release: Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons.
New DIY Eurorack Module Design: Forked
Conceptually based on the DivKid/Instruo Ochd (but with four LFOs instead of eight–get it?), Forked is a free-roaming modulation workhorse, with triangle and square outputs. Triangle out provides ample modulation opportunities, while square out can act as a gate signal for self-patching…
New Younger Us Release
Younger Us returns with the new album “A Vast and Infinite Depth”–an exploration of 80s sounds and motifs. Discover more. Album art by Kai Hope. Used with permission.
Acoustic Arenas November Pack 1
Included in this release are field recordings of: Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons
New Eurorack Design: Wah Baby
Based on a classic wah pedal design (Hint: You’re old enough to know better) the Wah Baby is fitted for Eurorack and includes CV control over the effect, with input for CV from an external source, or use the built-in…
Acoustic Arenas October Bonus Scene
Scene from a Desert Truck Stop in Biggs Junction, OR Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons.
Acoustic Arenas October Pack 2
Included in this release are field recordings of: Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons.
Acoustic Arenas October Pack 1
In this pack, field recordings of: Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons.
Acoustic Arenas September Bonus Scene
Scene from a Cuban Restaurant in Portland, OR Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons.
New Eurorack Design: SSSCM
The next time someone tells you math isn’t magical, introduce them to the Single Sideband-Suppressing Carrier Modulator–or SSSCM for short. Based on 20th century broadcast technology, the SSSCM uses a modulator signal to suppress one sideband of the carrier signal,…
Acoustic Arenas September Pack 2 Available
Included in this release: Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons.
Thunderdome Schematic Update
New v2 BOM and schematic for Thunderdome features CV input to control the modulation speed of the internal oscillator that drives the switch. Learn more.
Acoustic Arenas September Pack 1 Available
Included in this release: Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons.
Testing a New Eurorack Design
Testing out a new single sideband suppressing carrier modulator demodulator module, with CV input. It’s like magic. Input two sounds: one carrier and one modulator. Math happens. Something gets either added or subtracted, then added to something else. Out comes…
Acoustic Arenas August Bonus Scene
Scene from the Metro Route 40 in Seattle, WA Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons.
Acoustic Arenas August Pack 2 Available
Included in this release: Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons.
New Eurorack Designs – The ‘Verbs
For maximum atmosphere and relaxation. The Mechlabrat found existing online resources lacking in terms of schematics for these common reverberation components. Here are some simple starting points to build your own echoey adventures. Discover more.
Acoustic Arenas August Pack 1 Available
Included in this release: Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons.
New Eurorack Design: Inferno
How far down does the inferno go? Well… Ours isn’t as deep as Dante’s, but seven levels is still pretty deep. Inferno is a frequency divider that creates square wave outputs at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7…
Acoustic Arenas July Pack 2 Available
10 new recordings from around Portland OR Three capturing an incredibly blustery day in Pettygrove Park in Downtown Portland (serendipitously, on the same day that my new windscreen arrived) One recording of the Parks Department refilling the fountain at Pettygrove…
New Module Demos
Just added some new demos for the Thunderdome and Destructo Disc modules, further demonstrating some of the patching ideas outlined for each module. Look out next month for a series of low-effort/lo-fi reverb modules.
Acoustic Arenas July Pack 1 Available
11 recordings exploring the Rose Gardens of Portland, OR. A mixture of nature sounds, urban sounds and people sounds capturing the aural experience of the rose gardens at Peninsula Park and Washington Park. Available for Acoustic Arenas patrons.
New Younger Us Single
Hot on the heels of Beyond the Self, An Abyss, Younger Us offers up Red in Tooth and Claw as an epic, atmospheric digestif. Discover more.
Acoustic Arenas June Pack 2 Release
The second half of the June release is another, older collection of street sounds taken in Seattle between 2011 and 2013. It also includes a recording of the sounds of a silverware drawer being slammed repeatedly and a trip through…
New Eurorack Design: Wocka
This module is a little fuzzy. Bears are fuzzy. My favorite bear is Fozzie the Bear. Fozzie sounds like fuzzy. Fozzie likes to tell bad jokes and celebrate his bad jokes with his trademark saying “Wocka wocka wocka”. And that’s…
Acoustic Arenas June Pack 1 Available
The first half of the June release captures some distinct ambience and reverb from the construction of the Hawk Tower, in the north lot of what is now known as the Lumen Field in Seattle. Originally recorded in 2012-2013, these…
New Sound Tools: Acoustic Arenas
Acoustic Arenas is a found sound project focused on capturing the aural architecture that surrounds us in our modern world. Urban cacophony; natural sounds; architectural ambience; auditory snippets of life in situ: captured in stereo for your sonic explorations. Enjoy…
New Release: We Boil the Sea “Faded Future”
We Boil the Sea returns with a new full-length album delving further into the synthpop and downtempo electronic styles that emerged from the Street Spirit sessions, while maintaining the lofi aesthetics that have defined their earlier works. Discover more.
New Release: Younger Us “Beyond The Self, An Abyss “
Follow up to the exciting debut of Younger Us, Beyond the Self, An Abyss embraces a lighter sound, venturing beyond darkwave and industrial, and into 80s-inspired electronic pop. Cover art “What Will Happen When You Leave” by Kai Hope. Used…
New release: We Boil the Sea “Street Spirit”
New single from We Boil the Sea, featuring a cover of the closing track from the classic Radiohead album The Bends, “Street Spirit”, along with two brand new tracks. Discover more.
New Release: Younger Us “Younger Us”
Debut album from Seattle artist Younger Us, featuring instrumental electronic, darkwave and industrial music. Cover art by Naridar Bandi, used with permission. Discover more.
New Eurorack Design: Destructo Disc
Named after the Mighty Krillin’s unstoppable sawblade of doom, the Destructo Disc is a sawtooth oscillator gone mad. Two waveshapers and an array of 555-based saw-width modulators transform a basic sawtooth waveform into a vast array of aggro sounds. Discover…
New Eurorack Design: Thunderdome
Two sounds enter; one sound leaves. That’s the basic concept of this module. Built around a DG419 analog switch, the Thunderdome uses an internal square-wave oscillator to switch between two input signals at audio rate, producing sounds ranging from atonal…
New Eurorack Design: Ambivalence Drive
Make up your mind, already. Ambivalence Drive is here to help. Ambivalence Drive uses control voltage to switch between two input signals, routing to a single output. Use the toggle to choose between a constant 5v reference or a variable…
New IR Library: The Threshold II
The Threshold II is a library of dark and twisted artificial impulse responses geared towards more aggressive and exotic forms of electronic music. This library is designed to at create dark textures, deep ambient backgrounds and harsh reverberations. Discover more.
New Release: Controlled Dissonance “Mitten Foot and the Noise Scout”
Digital reissue of a classic dark ambient/noise release from Controlled Dissonance. Previously available only through a limited-run CD release, “Mitten Foot and the Noise Scout” is a romp through light noise and harsh ambient inspired by a variety of conversational…
New Release: Controlled Dissonance “Thoughts Made of Sound; Sounds Made of Hell”
Digital reissue of a classic dark ambient/noise release from Controlled Dissonance. Previously available only through a limited-run CD release, “Thoughts Made of Sound; Sounds Made of Hell” is a treacherous exploration of harsh sounds and deep ambiance, plumbing the depths…
New Release: Zondagmorgen “Schwanenlied”
“Schwanenlied”, as the name would imply, is the last act of Zondagmorgen, an electronic/electroacoustic ambient artist of mysterious provenance. Sprawling across three full-length volumes, “Schwanenlied” revisits, reaffirms and sends off all the various subtleties and permutations of sound manipulation and…
New Release: For Gratuitous Ruin “Apocalyptic Songs for Romance”
Part 2 of a two-part adventure stitching together lofi samples from vinyl recordings from the ’50s through the ’90s. For Gratuitous Ruin has pieced together their coup de grace of off-kilter, hip hop-inspired sound collage. Cover art by Henrique Alvim…
New Release: For Gratuitous Ruin “Romantic Songs for the Apocalypse”
Part 1 of a two-part adventure stitching together lofi samples from vinyl recordings from the ’50s through the ’90s. For Gratuitous Ruin has pieced together their coup de grace of off-kilter, hip hop-inspired sound collage. Cover art by Henrique Alvim…