Mobile Command Center

Mobile Command Center Test from Atomic Shadow on Vimeo.

I have toyed with the idea of inflicting mid 20th century style electronic sounds on a group of unsuspecting people in the wild for some time. All it would take is a truck full of rack gear and a venue willing to host the experiment. A venue (to be announced later) has presented itself.  That left me scrambling to condense the essential elements of Atomic Shadow sound design. What would be essential? What would be useful? What could stay at home? I could do it with a laptop, copy of Berna 2 and a midi knob box. But how would that be fun?

I have a pair of open back rack units that I rescued long ago from a dumpster. They have been in and out of the main Atomic Shadow Command Center for several years. So the first phase of the Mobile Command Center project was to identify the various elements that I needed and start seeing if they could fit in the two rack frames. Early on I knew that I needed two signal generators and the EMW-200 mini synth. The Roland SP-404 would stand in for tape machines, which are very heavy. And my trusty Kaoss KP2 would be there because it has a lovely theremin type sound. My Strymon El Capistan tape echo pedal is essential. I don't do anything without that little gem. It has all of the great sound of vintage tape delay units with none of the headaches.

One weekend I drug all of these things on to the dining room table and started making rack ears. That involved hack saws, drills, and lot's of sanding and filing. All done by hand. The circle for the green plasma light was cut out by a shop with the right equipment. Hammerite paint is required. I have used grey and black on various parts.

One thing that became obvious was the Mackie mixer was going to take up a lot of space. It also weighs a ton. I wrote Mackie to ask how to take off the palm rest below the volume knobs. It was taking up 1U of space. I got a letter back asking me to sign a waiver on my warranty and they would 'release service diagrams" to me. I wrote back thinking that I had not made myself understood. But it turned out, after a few increasingly snarky responses, that there is no simple way to remove that part for rack mounting. It would have saved time if the first response I received simply explained that all of the front panel knobs have to be removed and the main circuit board has to be pulled to reach the screws. Instead he went with sarcasm and condescension. 

As a result of the ill tempered customer service there I found a better alternative in the form of a Behringer RX1202fx. This compact mixer has 8 mic inputs, 2 stereo line inputs, built in effects, insert points, tape in/out and more. Very compact. Best of all, no snarky tech support guy necessary! 

After solving the mixer problem I had to figure out how to rack the Zoom G3 pedal that I bought for oscillator number two. Ideally I would have liked two POD HD500 Pro units. But at 700 bucks a piece, no way. I bought the Zoom on a whim and I am impressed with it's ease of use and sound. After making a rack mount box for the Zoom I discovered that there was just room for the Kaoss Quad to sit next to it. So The B&K generator is going through the POD HD500, The Eico goes through the Zoom G3. The EMW-200 is paired with a Lexicon Vortex effect unit. The system is rounded out with the KP2 feeding a Mooger ring mod and then through the Strymon El Capistan pedal. The SP-404 has some usable effects built in. 

I added an Alesis compressor in an empty space to process the tape out channel before going to a recorder. The blinky disco light was added later to impart some added visual interest. In the photo above you can see how it all came together before a couple of final cosmetic tweaks were added. It took a lot of work to figure all of the cable routing, wall wart management, and connector labeling. With some care I think this will break down and set up pretty well. It is heavy. Like real gear is supposed to be. In fact it is bowing the table as you can see in the photo above.