Featured Maker: Sonodrome

Music Technology
Featured Maker: Sonodrome
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British indy kit-makers Sonodrome produce hardware and software for electronic music. We hit their Posc audio oscillator last Saturday, but since then Kat and Jim have added a bunch of stuff to their Makers Market store.

Shown above is their latest addition, Mr Kogawa’s Micro FM Transmitter:

This is a short range FM radio transmission kit, it can be tuned to broadcast on any part of the FM range and is amazingly clean and stable. A connection for an optional external antenna means that you can boost the range if you wish to do so. The original design of this transmitter circuit was created by Mr Tetsuo Kogawa, he is an artist, teacher and all round guru of Micro FM. For more information on Micro FM and the origin of this transmitter please refer to Mr Kogawa’s site Polymorphous Space…Laws on radio transmission vary across the world – Sonodrome takes no responsibility for any unlawful use of our products.


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And here’s their “Tubby” mono amp kit, which is featured in the Boing Boing Bazaar:

This kit is a compact, battery powered, mono speaker/amplifier combo. The whole kit including a 9v battery (not supplied) is small enough to fit into an 8oz tub. The Tubby works well as a speaker for the Posc, it can also be used with an mp3 player or a computer, or if used with a pre amp – a guitar. The two inch Mylar speaker offers good quality sound, is stronger than a regular paper speaker and is resistant to rain and water.


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If you like to build your own FX boxes, check out their Straight Edge Distortion Kit:

Perfect for that crunchy clippy guitar distortion effect. This battery operated unit features both volume and distortion control, and comes with a chunky latching power switch. The distortion unit can be used with various other inputs, like dynamic microphones and piezoelectic pickups – but it works really well with an electric bass guitar.

Kat and Jim run Sonodrome from Tynesmouth, UK, on the northeast Channel coast. Besides the hardware featured here and in the Makers Market, they also write and distribute music software, including a digital effects rack designed for their Posc kit.

4 thoughts on “Featured Maker: Sonodrome

  1. s0crates82 says:

    price is a bit dear. 30 bucks for pre-assembly components with no enclosure?

    it had better sound fantastic.

    if you’re ponying up for it, i’d say make sure to include a diode, switch, and socket for a 9v wallwart transformer so you could use it at a desk, or throw the switch to the 9v battery power supply for portability.

    with all that said, you could probably use one of the tiny 8oz water bottles as an enclosure, with the plugs going into the cap, and the speaker at the base.

  2. sonodrome says:

    Thanks for your comments – The price reflects the cost of materials for us here in the UK and also the time taken to produce the hand made PCBs. For an example of the audio quality please visit our hardware page to hear a sample –

    http://www.sonodrome.co.uk/hardware.html

    If you’d like to make some suggestions about the kit contents and the circuit design we’d love to hear your thoughts on our community forum –

    http://forum.sonodrome.co.uk/

    Jim

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