drawings of sine waves, contact mics, and various electroncis related patterns in bright colours on a yellow background.

Tripping on Wires is devolving!

A whole bunch of years ago I really got into making contact mics and offered some up for sale. What was nice about selling stuff like this was actually connecting with people over the weird and wonderful projects they were involved with (like the performance artist who encased one of my mics in a frozen axe made of urine).

I also started getting involved with other bits of DIY audio electronics. Through various performance iterations, I was exploring using contact mics sort of in ‘reverse’ to act as kind of vibration speakers. I built a weird spring reverb unit from a chest expander and projector screen unit, I did a David Tudor Rainforest IV workshop/performance, and I started getting into feedback through objects (mostly drums).

I came across Peter Blasser’s paper circuits and learned a lot from them. I used the available ‘Osmond’ files to figure out how to get PCBs made and how to layout a circuit (though in a particularly quirky way not for the purists). I also got super excited by how you could make circuits with spaces designed in for play and experiment, and how component manufacturing tolerances can open these spaces up further. Basically, getting into the guts of materials.

Messing around with circuits has a tactile, material quality, much like painting, sculpture, bread-making, etc. - it’s something I can feel and connect with. It’s fun. This should be fun!

Whilst building some DIY stuff for myself, it also made sense to make small batches and offer some up for sale. I also tried Eurorack stuff, and perhaps more cynically, built some Eurorack kits specifically to sell and fund more equipment. I always intended to move on to designing my own stuff and was drawn to the idea of building a small business. A process that started to rob the fun from it. Remember how I said it should be fun earlier?

Side-hustle costs have recently exploded exponentially. Plus the pressures of trying to stay ahead of the social media algorithms. Remember how this was meant to be fun?

I still want to design some of my own stuff, and I’m still going to build stuff when I can, but I’m going to do it away from the spotlight of social media and with no business aspirations. That doesn’t mean I won’t ever try and sell anything, but I’m going to do so quitely (if and when I do).

What about if you want to learn more, or keep tabs on things? Well, I’d like to propose something radical… let’s have a chat. In person, over coffee, is always ideal (though obviously not always practical). E-mail is fine, I’m happy to set up a call, or video chat, anything really. But if you have any specific questions, I’ll try my best to answer them. If you’re curious what I’ve been making, I’d be happy to share. If you want to show me something cool, I’d be super keen to see/hear. Say hi! Let’s chat!

email murray and then @ it to the domain name of the page your reading right now (ya kno! trippingonwires innit .com)

XOXOX Murray