Randomatones

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2020

Music For Underground Drains
A video in a foot tunnel under the Central Line near Snaresbrook. A long way from the dual carriageways near some of the previous locations, this tunnel is comparatively quiet with a beautiful acoustic. The only constant sound is the water coursing from the surrounding soil into the drains. Earlier in the year those drains blocked, and the whole thing flooded. I was hoping it would stay that way so that I could make a video in it with some floating Randomatones, but before I even had time to build one, all the water was pumped out and has yet to reappear. I hope one day it does, but I probably won't be ready then either.
New shapes
Stage one of assembling some new units for placement on a sloping surface in a large area hopefully later this month. In the spirit of randomness, no two legs of these three tripods are of equal length. Will use the same Randomatone units, probably at near maximum volume, with some generally larger speakers. I have not figured out where the battery will go yet, though one idea might be to hang it from the apex, allowing it to be upright (which for lead acid batteries is best) no matter the orientation of the structure on the slope.
Music For Walking Under Trains
A lockdown exercise megawalk recently took me though this footpath underpass beneath the Liverpool St main line. Even on a cloudy day the colourful walls seemed to glow, and despite an open air section in the middle it had a reasonable acoustic. So a couple of days later I stuffed two Randomatones into my rucksack and biked over there for a quick lunchtime installation.

Having done all the shots in the last video pointing at the Randomatones, in this one I hardly did any, I was so taken by the colours and geometry of this walkway. Unlike in the previous video, the positioning of the units along the ceiling line goes some way towards explaining their shape. I had planned to put one device under each tunnel section, but the ceiling was higher in the north tunnel and I found I could not reach it. At least this time I had the volume good and loud, and the units properly sang through the walkway. A lot of the ambient audio in this video was picked up by the mic on each unit.
Old electronics
After making a video last week of three brightly coloured Randomatones in a dreary tunnel under the North Circular, the first piece of feedback I received was "Fantastic! Did you leave them there?" No way, I thought, there's £100 of gear on each one at least! But then I thought, if this is supposed to be art, I should be aiming to do exactly that. What could I change that would make me comfortable leaving something there for, say, a day?

Leaving out the expendable stuff, is what. No Raspberry Pi/HifiBerry units, no £20 speakers (though £20 for a speaker is very cheap) and no brand new batteries. Whereupon, various bits of old junk I had in the study or the shed came to mind. I have no recollection what piece of kit this amp came from, but electronics with crazy printed circuit boards like that I reckon are from the 1970s. So, naturally, it all still worked. I soldered up some power leads where I thought the 12V supply should go, plus two speakers from an old TV (15W each, surprisingly), and a 3.5mm stereo jack to the input. Then dug out an old unloved mp3 player and plugged in. Even with those puny speakers it was pretty loud, though I know loudness in the home is on a different scale to loudness in the outdoors. This will not be a true randomatone, as it will have to play a recording. But as the real units are not yet interactive, I can load an hour of sounds on an mp3 to play in a loop, and the effect will be the same. Random ambient music for dog walkers.
Music For An Excavated Forest
Not that I am a conservation activist, but the title refers to the gouging of an enormous channel though the remains of Epping Forest (actually this section is called Walthamstow Forest) in the late 1960s. Where there were once oak trees there are now seven lanes of motorway, and former paths though the forest are now carried over the road, or under it, as in this tunnel at the western end. There is very little beauty in this perfunctory subway, but it does have a great acoustic, if you can tune out the traffic noise. Sadly I could not, as even the three units in concert were nowhere near loud enough, but by now I have made them capture recordings of their output, allowing me to cheat with some echo treatments at home.
A406 tunnel #2
Making another video, this time with three Randomatones made to attach to railings in a foot tunnel under the A406 just west of South Woodford. Again I had the volume a bit quiet and could not make it louder, having had problems making the units connect automatically to portable Wifi dongle (or any Wifi they already knew about).

Visually they were somewhat dwarfed in the vast space, something to bear in mind for planned A406 tunnel #3. Also the yellow fluorescent hue is a let-down. While the red and orange blend seamlessly, the yellow is too much of a gradation.

The acoustic in this tunnel was excellent, and had the units been loud enough, and the traffic above quiet enough, the weird sounds that were still coming from the units since their Halloween update sounded entrancing in the space. As it was, the rumble of the vehicles hurtling past overhead was strong enough to make the railings vibrate, as I discovered when I tried to attach my camera.
Overcoats
Going ahead with some painting for the new frames that I postponed when constructing the uprights (in main image above). I used to make wooden assemblies for my various bits of electronic drum components and paint them all matt black so they would not be noticeable on stage. Nowadays I'm a bit of a sucker for fluorescent colours for exactly the opposite reason. Loving the Daler Rowney range, thick and creamy and a single coat is almost enough. I used a cheap one for the orange and you can see it needs daubing on at least two more layers.
Seize the night
A Randomatone in a pumpkin.

Not a placement I intend to pursue, but a bit of fun that I couldn't resist, between taking the floating unit to bits and reassembling it in another setup. Also an excuse to get started on some simple pitch shifting of samples, of which I intend to make much more use later. Purely for the spooks I used a chromatic note generation scheme instead of a conventional minor or major key, and stuck to sine waves. It turned out no more scary than a 1950s B-moving where the aliens have landed, in fact I prefer it. The notes arrive too slowly to clash, and there is a sense of freedom to it.

On the soundtrack, the bangs in the background are genuine, and I have little idea where they came from. But like serendipitous moments that happen when improvising music, they work brilliantly as an impromptu percussion accompaniment to the eerie space-calls from the two bug-eye speakers.
New A-frames
Some new woodwork for three smaller units that should see some action in a few locations around South Woodford over the coming weeks. Unlike previous constructions these are more-or-less uniform, except one of them will make space for a WiFi router. White undercoats and fluorescent overcoats to follow, prior to assembly. Also each one needs a hook.
Music for a flooded subway
A video of a floating Randomatone making its way through a flooded foot tunnel.

My original aim was to capture the tunnel acoustic. But in the rush to video something before the water drained away, I was ill-prepared with mics, the unit was too quiet and there was too much traffic noise.

Instead, what came out of this opportune shoot was a unique perspective on two semi-submerged murals of tunnel graffiti that I would normally never look at, at least not while looking where I was going. The wide-angle camera gets further away than the eye ordinarily can, and its view close to the waterline as it makes its way through the tunnel is striking. While I’m not generally a fan of spray-painting Victorian brickwork in fluorescent colours, in an ugly featureless concrete people-conduit like this, I begin to see the graffiti as modern example of the way people have been expressing themselves on walls for millennia, like 21st century cave paintings.
Introducing the Randomatones
A short demonstration of the first three Randomatones positioned strategically on the stairs up to my study. Strategically in this context is another word for in the way. The Randomatone audio in this is all from the phone mic, plus the zoom recorder you can just see attached to the middle unit. I did no overdubbing afterwards.
Flooded tunnel video shoot
Never one to miss an opportunity within reach, I spent the day trying to fit a small 12V pump to the diamond unit so that it would rotate when lowered into the water. After just about getting it working, I put on my nastiest old trainers and carried the whole thing plus my inflated inner tube down to the subway. Just as I was starting, a cyclist appeared, wondering if he could get through. I warned him I had tried yesterday and it had ended badly. He asked, is that a science experiment? No, I replied, more like an art experiment. He stayed to watch me wade a little way into the tunnel with the floating Randomatone, trying not to drop my phone in the water.

I learned a few things doing this: 1) The sound was not nearly loud enough to resonate in the tunnel acoustic. The volume was not set to maximum, even then I'm wondering if it would have been enough. 2) I'm glad I used polypropylene speakers, even if they were a bit small, as they caught a lot of rain. 3) Amazingly the electronics survived, despite being completely exposed, though I will not do this again without putting them in a plastic enclosure. 4) The water felt moderately warm after I'd been in it for a few minutes.
Another flooded tunnel closer to home
Cycling to the drum room, I took a long meandering route via my favourite nearby locations for possible floating Randomatone action, keen to see the state they were in after 2 inches of rain in the last 24 hrs. Biggest surprise was the south tunnel under the Waterworks Roundabout, knee deep in water, as I found out when I tried to cycle through it. Later I wondered whether I should go straight ahead and build a Randomatone frame for the half of one of 25l bottles. Then I remembered I had bought an inner tube weeks ago exactly for this purpose, and could probably get the single diamond one up and running faster.
Stair case study
Trying all three units for the first time, after a making a remote control via wifi that can adjust the volume or shut down all three units together. Batteries lasted a good few hours despite their age, though the unit with the Model B Raspberry Pi (which consumes more power than the Model A+ versions on the other units) ran down much quicker and died. Maybe I'll need the massive golf-buggy 20Ah batteries next time, as not only are those more beefy, they are new.

The sound was fairly lush, though there were some technical issues with the audio not ramping up or panning properly, for which I have a plan B. Even just on the stairs there wasn't a lot of spacial definition, ie sounds that discernibly come from one place or another. I realise now that the nature of the sounds, which ramp up and slowly back down in volume, probably do not lend themselves to directionality, whereas more percussive sounds might. Something to try later.

As a listening experience it was soothing and not at all irksome even after having it playing round the house for many hours. After turning it all off, I still heard the sounds playing in my head, like seeing residual auras of colour when the lights go out. Just as unsingable, too.
Saving for later
These from the car mending work shop on the industrial estate where my drum practice room is. They were about to chuck them out. At 25 litres, each would provide easily the buoyancy I need for a Randomatone, even cut in half into miniature barges. These are by no means ideal, as I really want something round, or with a high degree of rotational symmetry, as I want to rotate them in the water while keeping them tethered.
Will it float? Nope.
Test assembly already weighing in excess of 4Kg. The plan was to attach large bottles perpendicularly to the three joists just before they converge at the base. Utter failure. The flimsy 2l milk bottles buckled as soon as they hit the water and the centre of gravity was far too high. I should probably be learning some fluid mechanics if I really want a go at this. My first thought was to seat the unit in an inner tube of a car tyre. I have one ready to try. However, I am still clinging to the idea of using bottles, this time facing downwards and running along the lower joists rather than perpendicular to them. Plus I have a fallback plan if I really want to make floating Randomatones, but it will involve a different frame.
Undercoats
After the nth coat of white paint. The plan was next to daub them each with a fluorescent pigment, but right now I'm enjoying them just in plain white. Up close, with my imperfect woodwork and rough sanding, they look like miniature adobe towers. I'm thinking I will wire them all up as they are and make a first video somewhere, before considering colours.
Assembly
Three units taking shape now. First task for each one is to position the speakers. The middle-sized one is the prototype, so I had already done this. The other two are similar, but each unit has a different combination of speaker sizes for individuality. The plan is to position the multiple units in separate parts of the room, but I actually quite like the way these units look clustered together. It makes me thing the speaker positioning should be random, rather than regular and predictable as they are here. Next task is to take the speakers off, put other bits of wood on for mounting the electronics later, then sand and paint in bright colours. Because why not.
Next vertical unit
Back to the dry land idea, having enjoyed listening to one of these, time to start putting together more of them. Target is three for now, for which I will see if I can arrange some kind of showing in London. Maybe get a video together first. It strikes me the audio should be a field recording. It will be almost impossible to capture the ambient sound distribution from having three (never mind several) of these positioned around a room, and a normal stereo recording is going to sound too perfect an impression of the wrong thing. One idea I had is to mount a couple of tiny mics onto each unit and let each make its own room/field recording from its perspective, then mix those in the stereo image depending on where the camera is pointing.
Mental notes
This looks like a nice spot for it. The acoustics under the first bridge are sweet, and the traffic noise from above might even complement the sounds. What to call it though - Water Music For Randomatones? Randomaquatones? Also somehow I have to get these things to float. My heaviest 12V batteries are 5.5Kg. That's going to need a big tyre.
Floating an idea
An eventful week of blowing up a Raspberry Pi and an amp. Tried a new smaller RPi (model A+) and found it had some glitches, but these could be reproduced simply by adjusting the system volume, so I'm not confident about the analogue output. Needing a replacement amp as well I went for a HifiBerry Pi "hat", which is entirely digital and will thus bypass all the RPi audio bits which I think are the issue. Also, brilliantly, it takes 12V but will do the step down to 5V itself for the RPi. This will save me having to have an extra unit with wiring issues. Tried it all out after the necessary config changes in the RPi to tell it where its audio has to go. Not only does everything work, the audio is basically clean. Needs a volume control though, without a keyboard or a mouse. Hmm! In a totally unrelated flight of consciousness, I have begun pursuing the crazy idea of making a set of these units that will float. This would be the basic chassis, and one way of making it float might be to use the inner tube of a car tyre. So I've ordered one. I might work on this frame idea a bit more. I'm pleased with my elementary woodworking skills to have made this item, which at least looks like it fits together.
Subway flooding
A long walk to the drum practice room for exercise, made even longer on discovering a strategic footway under the Central Line at Snaresbrook was flooded. This little-used subway has a terrific acoustic and would otherwise be a prime candidate for recording some Randomatones. Sigh.
Trying out the prototype
The prototype again, reconstructed with only three vertical posts, as I realised the fourth was unnecessary and in the way. Tried the sound generator, essentially everything works, with some issues. Audio playback has glitches, and there is a lot of interference noise. One issue might be the 12V-5V converter, as I've heard this kind of noise before when combining audio signals from things with different switch mode PSUs. Anyway I tried a USB audio interface just to rule out the RPi onboard DAC. Slightly quieter. Reduced noise significantly by not using 12v-5v stepdown, instead powering the RPi from a regular mains PSU. Got noise at all running it from two separate batteries. Joining the battery grounds made a load of noise reappear. Joining the +ves also made noise appear. Tried a different 12V-5V converter from the car, same result.
Randomatone One
Assembled prototype. You can just see that behind the circuit boards is a massive 12V 20Ah battery, the kind you find in a mobility scooter. This powers the Raspberry Pi via a step-down to 5V, and a 2x20W amp, currently driving two cheap speakers from Halfords. I've been preparing the software for this for some time now and had it working on a regular linux machine, and have tried it out on the RPi by itself over Wifi, not in this assembly yet.
Visionary, programmer and amateur carpenter:
Andrew Booker
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