@CommTechCurator

Curator of Communication Technologies @IngeniumCa // Adjunct Professor @Carleton_U // Sound, Museums, History // he/il

 Ottawa, Ontario
Joined January 2011
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Calling all electronic music researchers 🎛️🎹: @Carleton_U's School for Studies in Art and Culture and @IngeniumCa just launched a new postdoctoral fellowship in Electronic Music History. Application details in link below: ingeniumcanada.org/postdocto…
Over-the-shoulder shot of curator and conservator peering under the hood of the Electronic Sackbut synthesizer. Internal wiring and circuitry behind keyboard is exposed.

ALT Over-the-shoulder shot of curator and conservator peering under the hood of the Electronic Sackbut synthesizer. Internal wiring and circuitry behind keyboard is exposed.

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A look under the hood of the Electronic Sackbut synth reconstruction-in-progress. Keyboard and surface controls wired up. Next steps: making connections to digital sound engine and adapting physical/electronic components to best match functionality of the original 1948 instrument
Reconstruction of the Electronic Sackbut synthesizer with top control surface open revealing electronic components and circuitry underneath.

ALT Reconstruction of the Electronic Sackbut synthesizer with top control surface open revealing electronic components and circuitry underneath.

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Big day for our Electronic Sackbut reconstruction project: the physical build is done! Just need to wire it up and start experimenting with the sound. Kudos to our fabricator Denis Larouche on such a brilliant job. Virtually indistinguishable from the original (1948) artifact. 🙌
Full-scale reconstruction of the 1948 Electronic Sackbut synthesizer photographed against a neutral background.

ALT Full-scale reconstruction of the 1948 Electronic Sackbut synthesizer photographed against a neutral background.

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A few years ago my team and I at @IngeniumCa reconstructed Alexander Graham Bell's macabre 1874 ear phonautograph. We're still trying to figure out what the original mouthpiece was made of. I just wrote a blog on it 👇 Any ideas? We'd love to hear them! ingeniumcanada.org/channel/a…
Ear phonautograph reconstruction photographed against a white background. Instrument is predominantly made of brass, with a cone-shaped black rubber mouthpiece.

ALT Ear phonautograph reconstruction photographed against a white background. Instrument is predominantly made of brass, with a cone-shaped black rubber mouthpiece.

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James Mooney speaking at @nmc_canada on the tape recorder as electronic musical instrument. Note the instrument on centre stage: Hugh Le Caine's Special Purpose Tape Recorder (made in Ottawa, 1959). One of my fav artifacts at @IngeniumCa (on loan/exhibit at NMC). 🙌 – at Calgary, Alberta
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Looking forward to presenting progress on the Electronic Sackbut reconstruction project at the 2022 American Musical Instrument Society Conference at @nmc_canada this am. If you're attending, please say hello! 🎹👋
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Milestone on the Electronic Sackbut (1948) reconstruction project today: custom "janky keyboard" is finished and looking 👌👌👌. Kudos to Denis Larouche, our fabricator, for his amazing work 🙌. [Image 1: 2022 reconstruction // Image 2: 1948 original]
Reconstructed Electronic Sackbut keyboard on table in workshop.

ALT Reconstructed Electronic Sackbut keyboard on table in workshop.

Original Electronic Sackbut keyboard photographed in studio.

ALT Original Electronic Sackbut keyboard photographed in studio.

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More Sackbut: this orange mass was originally a sponge that made the lever kick back after you flicked it with your pinky finger (to adjust the attack of a note). Now it's crumbling to dust. We're measuring it to guess the original size and feel. The goal: "optimal flick."
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Trying to determine the degree of action (up and down) on the Electronic Sackbut's keys, which have been affected by shifts in the wooden keyboard frame over time.
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Sackbut surgery: investigating the design of the metal discs that would have allowed the player to adjust timbres.
Testing electronic components in the Electronic Sackbut synthesizer.

ALT Testing electronic components in the Electronic Sackbut synthesizer.

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I'll be spending a few hours with the Electronic Sackbut at the museum this afternoon, examining components with our design team. Will tweet photos. If there's anything in particular you want to see up close, just let me know! 📸🎹
Front view of the 1948 Electronic Sackbut synthesizer.

ALT Front view of the 1948 Electronic Sackbut synthesizer.

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Final meeting of 2021 for the Electronic Sackbut synthesizer reconstruction team. Today we had the opportunity to hear the sound engine's first sounds, finalized the bespoke keyboard design, and discussed next steps for integrating the physical controls. An exciting year ahead!
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We made this vid on the fly back in 2017 while selecting artifacts for the new @SciTechMuseum. We were told it was the last chance we'd get to operate the Koenig Sound Analyser (c.1890) which was aging and becoming unsafe. So we sparked it up one last time youtu.be/MVYOvDcOZEY
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For anyone interested in midcentury electronic musical instrument design, I'm very pleased to announce my latest essay (co-authored by the amazing Gayle Young) went live today. It profiles one of @IngeniumCa's most important music artifact collections🎹👇 soundandscience.de/node/2495
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