Mikrophonie

Mikrophonie Contact Mic Module Kit

Tom Whitwell the designer of Mikrophonie describes the module thus:

“Mikrophonie is a microphone preamp with a piezo contact mic built into the panel.

It is an easy way to bring environmental noise and feedback into a modular system, inspired by the early days of electroacoustic music in Paris and Cologne, and by the contact microphone and phonograph cartridge experiments of John Cage, Gordon Mumma, Robert Ashley and Nicholas Collins. Here is a wonderful film from 1966 of Stockhausen & Co performing Mikrophonie 1.

The panel is PCB with no soldermask. The raw PCB fibreglass has quite a nice rough texture – rubbing it with a finger or a plectrum creates quite a wide range of sounds. The back of the panel is plated and grounded for shielding; the peizo microphone can either be soldered directly to the copper or stuck on with epoxy glue.”

The module will work with both DIYed contact mics made from inexpensive piezo transducers (instructions coming soon), off the shelf contact mics (often called Piezo Pickups) made for guitars and violins which you can pick up for ten bucks from Amazon or eBay or more bespoke mics like the popular Jez Riley French models (including hydrophones!) which are firmly aimed at Sound Designers.

http://musicthing.co.uk/modular/?page_id=973