Enclosures are impotant when designing equipment. I would like my equipment to be beautiful as well as functionally curious, and that means sitting down somewhere and figuring out what I want things to look like.

A visit to the 3D workshop in LCC after class last week has lead to me being inducted into it, and I have now booked a session for next week monday. There is scrap wood there that I can use – offcuts from other people’s projects – and that appeals to me as I feel a strong sense of distress from the wastefulness that is apparent in modern living (which I firmly take part in, unfortunately). Between now and then I need a fully realised and measured/labelled diagram that shows all of the pieces of wood needed to make….. something?

I’m unsure what I’m building right now. I would like to just get familiar with wood as a medium, and design an enclosure for some of the demo circuits I’ll be making (mentioned in prev. blog post) to work up to my drum machine. I’m certainly set on the idea of wood; it seems like a relatively easy medium to work with and I enjoy the organic connotations that it brings to instruments.

I’m inspired heavilty by two companies when thinking about not only enclosures but also audio design philosophies; Ciat Lonbarde and Dewanotron. The former presents circuits in organic shapes made almost entirely of wood, doesn’t believe in labelling controls and wants each synthesiser to be a learned playing experience, similar to an acoustic instrument. He also has interesting design philosophies that I will look at in more detail within a later blog post.

The latter, and I quote, wants to make synthesisers that look “like grandfather clocks” which appeals to me greatly. Their instruments look straight out of a 1950s inventor’s garage, very quaint, beautiful works of wood with lovely large knobs and spacious, cleanly designed layouts. They also seem very scientific, reminiscent of test equipment in some ways, but without the bakelite and chrome.