The Box
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
Over the course of the time I’ve spent putting together my live show for Aman Amun I’ve been compiling a massive list of things that might or might not go wrong during a performance. The technicality of the show that makes it unique and interesting also makes it unstable. I don’t particularly feel like working in an unstable climate, though, and I hate having to triple check everything to make sure things will run smooth.
Midway through the development of the project I stumbled across this tutorial on building a custom stompbox. I had been wrestling with how to get around the instability of the wii whiteboard software, and didn’t like having to always run back to the projection to activate/deactivate a sample and so forth. Having a stompbox controller therefor seemed ideal. It would give me an additional layer of functionality besides whats displayed, and I could do all of it while playing an instrument or singing at stage front.
With the help of Andrew Ferrer I built this equilateral hexagonal stomp box. Its built from a blue tooth wireless keyboard I bought for $25, the sides are made from some nice extra wood Andrew had lying around, the face with some random galvanized steel thrown out in the sculpture department of UGA, and the buttons were bought online. I spent a total of about $50. Not bad for a one-of-a-kind wireless controller.
The bulk of the project actually lay in the software I wrote to accompany it. I use it for everything from setting the tempo (with a tempo tap) to triggering individual rows on my sampler to changing patterns on my sequencer.