The Wall of Sound Reimagines a Sampler-Sequencer for Public Space and Use #MusicMonday
If you ask a boomer, the Wall of Sound was a wildly innovative music production technique pioneered by Phil Spector that created a whole new sound for pop music. Tracks like The Crystals “Da Doo Ron Ron” and The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” overwhelmed listeners with an impenetrable wall of reverb, bass overdubs, and a crazy amount of layering. It was novel, intense, and hugely popular. Once you notice it, you’ll never forget it.
But if you’re at the Katowice Street Art festival in Poland, the Wall of Sound is something completely different – via CDM
The Wall of Sound was commissioned by the group for Katowice Street Art 2019: Urban Sound, in the south of Poland. It’s a big web of hexagonal nodes, each with small controls and description so you can record sound, then sequence its playback.
The components will be familiar to anyone working with DIY electronics – some ATmega 328 (in the nodes), some ATTiny for the links, and “some cheap sound recording / playback chips that are giving the whole thing a lo-fi vibe.” (It’s the ISD1820 voice recording module – check it in action.) Actually, maybe the independence of all those nodes is the most interesting part – a uniquely lo-fi modular.
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