About
Synth bike 3.0 was built for The Science Gallery Dublin, its more like synth bike 1.0 than synth bike 2.0 because it is a static piece. and a very similar bike. Its built with the user in mind, and it is sort of easy to understand.
The controls. a little daunting, but its a lot more friendly than synth bike 2.0 i can tell you that!
Everything is broken out. so no multi button pushes to get a hidden function or whatever, its all on the panel! with a bass line with a 16 step 303 style sequencer with slide and what not, all broken out into knobs.
The drum sequencer is 6 independent 16 step sequencers, the reason i made them independent of each other is so you can have them at different step lengths and speeds. allowing some mega polyrhythms whilst your biking down to the shops!
Switchezzzz Switcheszzzzz
Spaghetti junction 12 Arduino NANOS, 4 Frequency Central Boards, 1 Sparkfun WAV trigger and a whole load of stripboard circuits.
Wires Neatly going from the front panel to the back, they all go down one side, so you can open it up and get to the insides with no problem. The most time consuming part of the 4 day (and all night!) build was the panel wiring, it took all in all probably 24 hours to do it, i was seriously hating every choice id ever made even just a quarter of the way through, it was TEDIOUS. each row of switches has 20 wires coming off it, and another 20 in and around the row. along with Dioes and resistors all mounted on the back. once the drum sequencer was wired up, the rest took only a few hours. But in hindsight i wish i didnt make it polyrhythmic, because it was a fucking ballache, having 6 seperate sequencers!
I got it back this week from the SCIENCE GALLERY in DUBLIN. and apparently over 100,000 people rode it. No wonder the back wheels bearings are now sand and sludge! and the saddles leather is... welll.... now paper thin
for most of 2019 it has been sat on by another 300,000 people over in stockholm at the sound check exhibition https://scenkonstmuseet.se/exhibitions/sound-check/?lang=en .