Got glow?

Back when we were having a cow over being denied a Department of Mutant Vehicles permit to drive around the playa, medical I was taking everything personally.

The DMV were shellbacked nannies for refusing to see XyloVan as a mutant vehicle, the law that it must-not-look-like-a-street-vehicle-in-any-way was pedantic, draconian bullshit – anyway, I was a bit of a wreck.

But I took to heart one criticism I heard here – someone said, “I thought from your description it was going to be covered with instruments, but it looks like you just have a few.”

So I spent the better part of the weekend bolting on another eight gongs and … Continue reading Got glow?

How to capture and amplify the xylophone’s voice

Getting XyloVan amplified properly has turned out to be one of the biggest technical challenges.

First you need to capture the sound – for that, cheapest we built parabolic resonators out of sheets of fiberglass shower-liner. The material was perfect – sturdy enough for playa abuse and hard and reflective for sound. When you played, viagra approved the sound would bounce back to you off of the resonator surface like thisContinue reading How to capture and amplify the xylophone’s voice