Hardware Hacking - Nicolas Collins

26 Nicolas Collins

This is an excellent way to replicate the old-fashioned phonograph cartridges
used by John Cage in his visionary work of live electronic music, “Cartridge
Music.”

Many metals make unusual sounds as they heat and cool. Clamp a sparkler in
the terminal block, light & listen. Or clamp steel wire and heat with a torch.
Richard Lerman has made beautiful miniature instruments consisting of short
pieces of wire affixed to piezo disks and “bowed” with small blowtorches.

Amplify the contact mike into a raw speaker. Place the speaker on its back, like a
candy dish. Rest the contact mike inside the cone and turn up the gain. The
contact mike should jump up and down as it feeds back with the speaker (a
slightly higher-tech variation on the jumping speaker in Chapter 5.)

Once waterproofed with the electrical tape and Plasti-Dip the contact mikes will
also serve as affordable hydrophones and submersible mikes.

• Fill a plastic yogurt container with water, drop in the contact mike and
  pop it in the freezer. Listen as it freezes. Once frozen, remove from
  the ice block from the container, float it in a bowl of hot water, and
  listen to it melt.


• Drop it in the water next time you go fishing and check if they’re really
  laughing at you.


• Eat the mike, but please observe safe sex practices: put an extra layer of
  protection between you and electricity by encasing the contact mike in
  a condom or balloon.