I was very excited to get stuck into using the loop and granular pedals over the winter holiday. I was really wanting to develop my creative practice, using these pedals to divert my practice as a DJ to a more artistic direction.

However, once everything was set up and the power switched on, nothing was working. No signal of light from any devices being used, no amount of troubleshooting could bring power to the pedals.

This is the type of barrier that is most prominent to me when attempting to create art. I have always found myself to be in posession of instruments that are malfunctioning in some way. Perhaps it is my own carelessness, and I am not handling the instruments and devices I use with enough care. But I highly doubt this- I am always careful to make sure the instruments I use stay unscathed. I atrribute this malfunctioning of devices, particuarly technology, to a sort of energetic incompability between myself and the device; ever since I was young, even a brand new iPhone would malfunction and freeze, not work as it should, when it was in my hands. I experience this to this day, and have become acustomed to the fact that technology may not work as well in my presence.

I would love to reseach into this potential “phenomena”, however, I am unable to find any claims, evidence, or even anyone who agrees with my experience with technology. Perhaps this means I can use my art to pioneer a new field of knowledge.

However, rather than be disheartned by the constant malfunctioning of equiptment, it would be useful to become acquainted with the ways in which I can solve these malfunctions. Not only would I be able to troubleshoot the problems which I come across by repairing equipment, I would be able to find innovative ways of utilising any malfunctions to my advantage, which is where a basic understanding of DIY electronics becomes useful.

In the second year, we were given an introduction into DIY electronics, being taught the roles of capacitors and resistors, and how to utilise these within experimental sound creations. In the first year, we built contact microphones, utilising the skill of souldering. In the repairs I have had to have administered on instruments detailed later in this blog, the skill of souldering has been a key element.

My saxophone broke around two years ago, where the octave key had become removed from the neck of the saxophone. This meant that the instrument was disused for two years, hindering and even regressing my skills on the instrunment. I finally took it to repair in December, which cost me 300 Great British Pounds. I was informed that to re-attach the broken piece, all that was needed was a simple soulder job. Had I known this, I could have used my souldering skills I learnt in year one to fix the saxophone myself.

My housemate’s bass guitar, which I was using as part of my experiements with the loop pedals, had stopped working. We were unsure of the problem, and the bass guitar was out of use for over a month. Upon mentioning this to my engineer friend, Ricarnaye, he offered to fix it for us, and allow me to sit in on the process. What I thought was going to be at least half an hours work turned out to be a five minute job. Ricarnaye simply removed the strings and pick guard, and the problem with the bass was immediately in view; the souldering at the jack insert had come undone, and all that was needed was for Ricarnaye to re-soulder this connection, and the bass was back in full functionality.

When making art, especially using technological and / or fragile equipment, it is important to understand that complications will happen, and as an artist it is important to be able to know how to combat these complications. Whilst I have still not been able to troubleshoot the problem with the loop and granular pedals, this learning experience has taught me to familiarise myself with the technicalities of any instrument I decide to incorporate into my art. It is also not so bad that I have been unable to use the pedals, as I have purchased an SP-555, a sampler with a built in loop function.

Much to my advantage, the SP-555 works like a condensed version of the set up with the pedals, but all in one machine. I could also use the sampler aspect of the instrument to incorporate my own samples and soundscapes into the performance. I am very excited to develop my experiments using the SP-555.