early experiments...

My playing around with extremely dangerous explosive compounds had served me well. From the concept of triggering visual events with an instrument, it was easy for me to take it further and envisage an instrument that electronically triggered different sounds. The idea was I’d press different switches with my left hand (like shaping chords on a guitar) and provide the rhythm with my right hand by pressing a switch in time (a bit like striking the strings of a guitar or playing slap-bass style).

My curiosity led me to rig up a plank of wood with a calculator keyboard, a switch and the innards of a Stylophone (which is a really, really old, tiny hand-held ‘electronic organ’ made ‘famous’ by Rolf Harris). I rigged up the calculator keypad at the top of the plank so that I could press the different calculator buttons with my left hand and trigger different notes on the Stylophone .

I remember it well, the calculator I ripped up to experiment with was a Cambridge Scientific – a brilliant little white calculator that took a few second to work out certain complicated formulas (yeah seriously!) and made a really cool buzzing sound while it did it! At the other end of the plank I rigged a push switch so that once I’d selected the note I wanted to play with my left hand via the calculator keypad; I could trigger it with my right hand by pushing the switch.

The Stylophone: hold it in your hand and choose the notes with the stylus!

Very quickly I ended up being able to play electronically generated rhythmic patterns that you just couldn’t play any other way. It seemed obvious to me that percussive sounds like a drum kit, would work best with this new way of triggering.: but hey, I was into punk and electronics, and I loved it… Thinking about it now I guess I was one of the first geeks…

It worked so well that I spent hours working out how my plank could trigger drum machines – which at the time were an emerging technology and very basic... Bear in mind that samplers were only just invented, they were huge and crude and at several thousands pounds each (for a few seconds of sampling time!), they were well out of the reach of anyone but professional studios and the idle rich.

Nah, we’re talking seminal analogue sound generators here, things like the ‘Syndrum’ and the ‘Synare 3’: all white noise and Booo Boooooo frequency sweeps!

For confirmation of how basic things were back then, take a look at the photo below of one of the first ever ‘drum machines’ - “The Kit” (the idea was you played it with your finger tips)... this is one of the things I ripped apart in my early experiments (note the missing ‘Bass Drum’). For some strange reason I’ve dragged this piece of kit (no pun intended) around with me for 25 years! It’s one of the rare early prototypes from a company called MPC Electronics who went on to make a much sexier version that did quite well.

It was no mean feat to find out where to tap into the noise gates and sweep generators on these early drum machines, but I needed to find out how I could trigger the sounds in them. I spent weeks pulling them apart, cutting PCB tracks and soldering-in remote triggering capabilities: but hey, I was into punk and electronics, and I loved it…

Thinking about it now I guess I was one of the first geeks…

And… the Rhythm Stick was born.
 
I played around with my 'high tech' plank of wood for ages (that by now I was calling 'the stick’, 'the plank' somehow did'nt quite have the same ring!) and I became convinced that the idea could become a great new instrument.
 
Full of enthusiasm, I set about approaching some of the companies who made the drum machines I’d been ripping apart and tried to explain my idea. My excitement and enthusiasm was met with indifference and open amusement.
 
I was only 20 and I’d naively thought that other people would be able to see what was in my head. It was a harsh lesson. I learnt quickly that enthusiasm will only get you so far... people need to see a real product.

So, as is my way, I said “fuk them” and set about building my vision.

I knew it would work, and anyway, how hard could it be?

This was the beginning of a journey that I could not have predicted.