Solar Sounders

Peter Blasser of Ciat-Lonbarde is known for making an array of bewildering analogue circuits. Among them are three solar sounders: circuits that respond to light and produce a variety of animal sounds. The solar sounders not only produce pleasing environmentally dependent installations, they also help us think of the potential of solar energy. Taking some of these concepts, I have designed two solar sounders (with more to come). These can be customized with another Ciat-Lonbarde concept that I have made use of in the past: the "hairy” capacitor. Different capacitors can be swapped into the circuit to create different effects. PCBs for these designs and the occasional completed build can be found on my reverb page: https://reverb.com/shop/grahams-gear-bazaar-63

The Cicada is a series of cascaded multivibrators run through a bandpass filter.

The Tweeter uses an astable multivibrator pulse brain. A multivibrator with an extra capacitor/transistor pair produces an improvisational element. A phase shift sine-wave oscillator provides the voice of the bird.