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Warmer weather, despite the rain, is making it possible to spend more time outdoors. It’s fun to sit and watch the birds and chipmunks make full use of the wooded areas around our home. Inspiration is all around us. Flutter and I were just talking about what it was like when we were children capturing fireflies and keeping them in a jar. It satisfied our curiosity and amusement.
Looking back, it now seems a bit cruel. Around this time in the Midwest, it’s mating season for the fireflies. They fill the night sky with blinking lights in search of their soulmate.
Oh, how pretty! Let’s catch some and put them in a jar so we can watch them blink from our bed at night. Don’t forget to throw a little bit of grass in there. They like that! Oh, and poke some holes in the top so they can breathe, but not escape their new glass home.
These thoughts were innocent and naive but contained a sense of compassion for these little creatures - until the unfortunate event of waking up the next morning to a silent jar of dead bugs.
BUG JAR
The freshest way to keep bugs in a jar.
We no longer participate in this ritual, but still enjoy the beautiful light emitted from these bugs each summer.
Now a bit wiser, we’ve found a different way to collect “bugs in a jar” to satisfy our curiosity and amusement.
Several key influences led to this:
The Moffenzeef Jarmageddon (now discontinued) was a fun and inexpensive entry level kit that served one function in sound - “chaotic noise.” It was a one-off, and I wish there were more.
We’ve also found inspiration from the beautifully bizarre Baby Bot Ensemble created by Moon Armada. It’s an array of synth modules built into baby dolls and interconnected to form a musical system, so a modular synth in baby doll format.
Another key muse and unsuspecting mentor of mine is Juanito Moore, aka Modular for the Masses. Juanito introduced me to the concept of “Dead Bug” circuit building.
“Dead Bug”
is a method of circuit building without a prefabbed circuit board. Sometimes the circuit is built without any board at all and constructed through direct connections, also known as “Point to Point.” In many cases an IC chip is turned upside down with its legs in the air, resembling a dead bug.
On Juanito’s YouTube channel he builds dead bug circuits in real-time so the viewer can follow along. One of the key messages I picked up early from Juanito is that synth building does not need to be super expensive, and you can get cool results with cheap components and recycled/free materials.
Below is a video of our first Bug Jar. It is a light-sensitive drone synth based off the CD40106 chip. The original schematic was shared with me by my friend Randy. I have modified it a bit, but it’s essentially the same circuit. It has a low parts count and will be easy to assemble in a guided workshop for beginners. We’re thinking that this might be a good activity for future MOTR events. For now, this is in the prototyping phase. We’ll be making adjustments and adding some additional features with the intent that each jar could stand alone or be interconnected to form a larger musical system.
Would you be interested in attending a build workshop or purchasing a Bug Jar kit? Send us a message to let us know what you think!
-Zetsumei
ALBUM | DIY PROJECTS | GEAR | MOTR | PODCAST | VIDEO ART | VISUAL ART | PHILOSOPHY