Music for Sleeping vol. 1 Sketches of Noise

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DIY 2-string electric cello - from old furniture wood

Make your own DIY tape delay / tape echo from a fleamarket cassette deck (no three-head deck needed...)

Longer demonstration on how the DIY tape delay // tape echo was made. As the feedback loop is made via the RCA connectors in the back (from Left to Right) any number of pedals may be added for superior feedback control. E.g. a limiter pedal may be used for infinite feedback without overdrive.

Quite a straightforward build:

1. Two mono heads mounted side by side replace the old stereo head. The left head records (soldered to "Left"), right heads plays back (soldered to "Right")
2. The Cassette tape is modified to accomodate two heads, add some foam to ensure that the tape stays close to the heads.
3. Speed: The capstan motor speed control is moved to a potentiometer on the front.
4. You have to use an old deck with Left/Right separate REC/PLAY switches (usually the long ones on the main board). Here only the Left goes to Record when pressing record (the Right stays in playback).
5. Feedback control: I added a small audio transformer in the feedback loop to eliminate hum and galvanic direct feedback (you ONLY want the tape feedback).

The tape mike amplifier is used for input just as it is. I'm recording via the headphone jack on the front: Left side direct signal, Right side delayed signal.

When you look for a fleamarket/ebay tape deck get an older one, they're more frequently made of metal and a lot easier to work on (easier to mount the 2 mono heads on).
Mono heads may be sourced on Ebay, or e.g. in older CD-to-car-cassette adapters.
Good luck!

Stop Putin's war in Ukraine!

Stop Putin's war in Ukraine!

Ukraine needs your support: Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders

Cats vs. Progress - the world history of cats!

All of history, from sabre tooth tiger to the future - as told by the cat.

DIY electronic Tape Delay, Synthi Clone, Spring Reverb, Frippertronics

I've been building a few electronic sound machines, posting them all at once...  :D

EMS SYNTHI VCS3 copy/clone/inspired - using XR2206

Tape Echo / Tape delay

Spring reverb / played with Ebow

Varispeed / 2 x REVOX A77 / Frippertronics / Enotronics

Another version, not using a varispeed but a moveable extra tape head (necessary on machines with no motor control circuitry).
These AKAI machines make good donors as they frequently break beyond (costly) repair when the aluminum behind the turning-lever disintegrates.

Walkman / portable stereo Mellotron

Or just playing with a bunch of tape recorders looping

  Cats vs Progress - premiere at Fredrikstad Animation Film Festival

The Dinner Party ("Middagsbjudningen") - opens 2017-01-28, Capitol, Gothenburg, Sweden

 

Premiere: 28/1 2017 15:00: Göteborg Film Festival

background... tall

Jill and Jane Kill Hitler

Premiere: 25/1-2015 12:00: Göteborg Film Festival   

My new animated short film: Jill and Jane Kill Hitler. 

Time travel! Rockets! Dinosaurs! Large hats!

Synopsis, large stills, etc, here.

Superheroine takes a swing at a bunch of old guys

The Swing Whale! - opens 2014-01-24 at Gothenburg International Film Festival

My new animated film - The Swing Whale - opens this Friday 2014-01-24 17:30 at Gothenburg International Film Festival, Svenska Bilder 7. 

Here's a link to more film info, stills, teaser etc.

#giff14

PICT-O-PICT at Animation Block Party in New York!

PICT-O-PICT was shown at Animation Block Party at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) 2013-07-28 - and I flew to New York for the first time since 1997... ABP was a really nice festival, celebrating 10 years, and I saw tons of nice animations. Including some early New York Animation...

Crossing the Atlantic via Copenhagen

BAM

Animator meet and greet

Nice cinemas

PICT-O-PICT on screen

on a walk in Brooklyn

From Brooklyn Heights

Central Park, the Great Lawn

Empire State

New short - opens today - PICT-O-PICT

A complete short just with pictograms. A 6:40 long animated short. Not just a few animated scenes.

Synopsis
Adventures in picto-world! (where all pictograms live). After the history lesson the picto-class goes to the picto-studio to see a real picto-shoot. The picto-king visits, but drops his picto-crown! The picto-model takes it! Can super-picto help? Or maybe the picto-kids...


Opens today at Gothenburg International Film Festival - Hagabion 1, 19:30 sold out - but more tickets available here...

Filmfacts:

PAL, animation, color 06:30 min., 16:9.written, drawn, scored and directed by Jacob Stålhammar

Shown at:
Gothenburg International Film Festival (Gothenburg, Sweden)
Edinburgh Short Film Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Animation Block Party (New York, USA)

Trailers, hirez pix, festival showings etc: here

Pictogram poster above.

Illustration for the Swedish paper Fria Tidningar, the subject was food and environment = Mat och Miljö.

The Cats of Mars Meet the Toy Car - on Vimeo

My short animation The Cats of Mars Meet the Toy Car is now up on Vimeo.

... and today, also featured on Cartoon Brew. Naturally, all in celebration of Curiosity and the daring landing.



The Swedish version "Marskatterna och Leksaksbilen" will be available for libraries through Filmcentrum this fall.

MOLGER HACK

My lava lamp wouldn't fit in my improvised bedside IKEA table Molger. Solution? An additional second hand Molger, a saw and glue.

1. Get two IKEA Molger shelving units.

2. Cut both according to need.

3. Drill holes to align vertical posts with wood plugs (I first failed to center perfectly, but extra holes and nails made alignment easy again).

3.5 (optional) cut an extra piece of wood for book support.

4. Pre-align, apply glue and plugs, hammer into place. Use spare wood to protect soft wood.

5. Done: Two Molgers turned into one extra tall and two shorter. Molger & sons.

A Bat in Paris - Premiere and Trailer

My new animated short "A Bat in Paris" has its world premiere at the Gothenburg International Film Festival 2012 22/1 14:00. Tickets here.

It's a short story of how Bat went to Paris and came back with loads of pictures to show Fox. Fox has all sorts of ideas of what goes on in Paris... and then there was a surprise.

Here's a trailer, more info and stills...

For embedding - VIMEO

Duoshade in photoshop

Halftoning duoshade-style in Illustrator+Photoshop.

As per instructions here.

More on duoshade here.

penguin facebook

Saturday, had to draw this facebook penguin... after finding this on classic Penguin book covers.

FREE ANIMATED FILM - A High School Love Story (condensed) - Now watch the whole thing!

To celebrate last night's great premiere of my latest animated film - NIGHT SOUNDS - here's my very first animated film - A High School Love Story (condensed).
The whole film. For free.

But be warned, it's my first animated film, It's a typical beginner movie with "boy meets girl", sex, drugs, a bad bad priest - and a car chase. No expense spared!

Even on YOUTUBE

NIGHT SOUNDS - world premiere, trailer and stills

Here's the promo-card / mini-poster for my animated short "NIGHT SOUNDS" - and here are the TRAILER-PAGES.

Night Sounds is a friendly little spooky cartoon short, that borrows tons from Robert Wiene, Saul Bass and John Carpenter...


Film Facts:
Animated short film, color, stereo, 6 min. (friendly horror-for kids = no violence, no gore, just jumping creatures, eerie music, happy bats and a strange journey in the night...)


Written, drawn, cut, scored, directed by me, Jacob Stålhammar.

Featuring sounds from Freesound from old edgar, digifishmusic, ReWired, prosounder, sofie, Robinhood76, dobroide, acclivity, espectral, BenKoning, JamesOC - Great Thanks!

UPDATE: Night Sounds is officially selected for ANNECY FILM FESTIVAL 2011.

The iPad game I illustrated - FREE today!!!

The Ipad/iphone game I illustrated,

Free today! Merry Christmas!!! :D

Click here to get the game!

New short animation...

New film... roghly 20% left to do...

Work in progress - a new cartoon short.

Working title: "Night Sounds"

The Cats of Mars to Sydney!

This just in: My animated film "The Cats of Mars Meet the Toy Car" will be showing at Fantastic Planet - Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival

EDIT - The Cats will appear in a block of animations, here's more info!

Thu, Nov 4, 7:00pm - Dendy Newtown / SHORTS PROGRAM #4: Amazing Animations:
One Small Step (Dir: Damien Slevin/4 min/AUS)
The North Pole Deception (Dir: Joe Hitchcock/10 min/NZ)
The Cats of Mars Meet the Toy Car (Dir: Jacob Stålhammar/8 min/ Sweden)
The Adjustable Cosmos (Dir: Adam Duncan/21 min/AUS)
The Astronomers Sun (Dir: Simon Cartwright & Jessica Cope/6 min/UK )
Lifeline (Dir: Andres Salaff/6 min/USA)
Tales from the Afternow: Little Rocks (Dir: David T. Krupicz/12 min/CAN)
A Complex Villainelle (Dir: Howard Cook/8 min/USA )
SuperBattle: Episode 1 (Dir: Ethan Marak/7 mins/USA)
Yamasong (Dir: Sam K. Hale/9 min/USA)
The Painter of Skies (Dir: Jorge Morais Valle/20 min/ESP)

App illustration - Zogaj memo Gym

A game I illustrated - Zogaj Memo Gym - is now available in the App-store:

Zogaj Memo Gym LITE - (free)

Zogaj Memo Gym - iPhone/iPod touch

Zogaj Memo Gym HD - iPad

It actually features two separate games:
Pair play = a take on the classic memory game, but here you have to make your own connections.
Chain play = here you keep track on the order of falling cards.

The trick to remember more cards, than say five, is to create a short story about the images.
Using your imagination really helps to remember. It's like a memory training, a pocket "memo gym".

All images are available even in the LITE (free) version, only it's limited to fewer levels.

file sharing pun...

eh... even a lame pun is pun...

Ferns...

Ferns.

Cool that the curl up almost the same on every scale...

"Ralph and Jimmy" at the 2009 Arizona International Film Festival

My animated short film "Ralph and Jimmy" will be showing at the 2009 Arizona International Film Festival! :D

Here's a link to the trailer, and here's a link to the film's IMDB page.

The film "Ralph and Jimmy" is made by me. However, all the sound is cut from Sid Davis' 1961 classic Boys Beware.

This old "warn-kids-about-gay-men" film is hilarious in its own black and white self, but still... all that music. All those wonderful strings that Sid got to underscore the seriousness of the matter...
I simply felt that all this dramatic music and narration deserved - um - other pictures. So I drew and animated for months and "Ralph and Jimmy" is the result.

Still, great thanks to the late Sid Davis. Sid did 150-180 shorts where he warned kids about all kinds of things: Dangers in the home. Dangers in the street. Dangers of gangs. Dangers for girls. Apparently he took pride in the fact that he rarely exceeded budgets of USD 1000 per film. He also often shot - and acted - in his own films (well, after a while he retired to producing and mountain climbing).

What a wonderful (albeit slightly paranoid) career.

Ralph & Jimmy - Trailer page

March 18 2008, I started fiddling with the sound to Sid Davis' old Boys Beware and some crude doodles.

In November 2008 a five minute cartoon was ready to send to film festivals.

Just before Christmas I got news that my short Ralph & Jimmy was accepted at the Gothenburg International Film Festival 2009.

And now: here's the trailer! 1.5 minutes. New scenes! World premiere 2009-01-23

please, stop fighting. Try and have a happy new year 2009.

Death Toll Mounts as Israel Expands Gaza Offensive

Merry Christmas!!!

shopping madness!!!

Illustration on shopping madness, the mounting piles of garbage, and - of course - a merry christmas!

small size art...

I just finished ten tiny canvases, selected five. All for "konst i litet format" (art in small sizes) at Mimers hus, Kungälv, Sweden. Opens 2008-12-06 12:00 - 15:00

I'll post pics here too, and they're for sale online too.

The small bird here is roughly 5"x5" and somewhere around USD 40 + packaging and postage will be fine. Contact me at jacs(at)algonet.se if you're interested. I got PayPal.

my home town has a culture festival

On the opening night: Two guys eating hot dogs in the rain, an outdoor TV blinking sponsor names. And in the background a brass band. Yikes.

midnite doodle

vacation - one day, one book

Today: The Contortionist's Handbook so far it's brilliant!

Sweden passes new surveillance law

Full story in English here.

Great Coyote! - Vattenfall CEO "defends" pollution with "Indian" quotes...

Lars Josefsson, CEO of Vattenfall, the Swedish based power company who runs a number of coal-fired power plants in Germany, quotes "Indian philosophy" when interviewed by Sweden's biggest daily newspaper on wherever his environmental vision went:

Dagens Nyheter:
"How can coal-fire be defined as ecologically sustainable?"

Lars Josefsson:
"That depends on what you mean by ecologically sustainable. According to Indian philosophy you should look six generations ahead. Given that perspective, coal becomes sustainable if you take care of the pollution. There's enough coal for hundreds of years of use."

(my translation)


From the Vattenfall pages: "As a user of fossil fuels, Vattenfall is one of the owners of the climate change issue." Lars G Josefsson, President and CEO

When asked by Dagens Nyheter about the fact that Vattenfall make's a lot larger profits than they have to, and if they lowered their profit margin they'd be able to invest more in sustainable energy, Josefsson replies:

"You can never have too much money."


--- Anyone else feel like they'd rather have six generations of their future "owned" by someone other than this newspeaking "visionary"?

Greenpeace DE: Vattenfall, braunkohle und Josefsson

picture of the week (stand up comedy next week @ Big Ben, Stockholm - and you can't drink beer on tram #5)

But apparently it's OK on tram number 6, as kindly illustrated by this gentleman yesterday, Saturday.

I'm performing, 3 minutes of stand up comedy at Big Ben, Folkungagatan 97, 6/4 20:00

Happy Easter!

picture of the week (you can see Majorna)

Spring finally came to Gothenburg.

Dialogue: "You can see our house in Majorna from here!"