The Musical Electronics Library (or MEL) is a lending library of homemade electronic musical devices in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

and

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by m ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

, and is a worldwide leader in the Scavengetronica movement. The library contains electrolytic capacitors, rampwave oscillators, white noise generators, light theremins, sample and holds,

ring modulators In electronics, ring modulation is a signal processing function, an implementation of frequency mixing, in which two signals are combined to yield an output signal. One signal, called the carrier, is typically a sine wave or another simple ...

, preamplifiers, pitch shifters, phasers, and mixers; mostly built inside repurposed VHS cases. Highlights of the collection include the "electric bee motorcycle sound-maker box", a device which emulates the sound of meowing cats inside a Cats VHS box, and " Mad Max" which has been described as " Merzbow in a box". MEL is run by volunteers and curated by musician and device-builder Kraus. The library was inspired by the work of

Nicolas Collins Nicolas Collins (born March 26, 1954 in New York City) is a composer of mostly electronic music, a sound artist and writer. He received his BA and MA from Wesleyan University, and his PhD from the University of East Anglia. Upon graduating fr ...

and Bob Widlar. Musicians using equipment from MEL include Hermione Johnson, Kraus, Pumice, Diana Tribute, Samuel Flynn Scott, the MEL Orchestra, Piece War,

Ducklingmonster Futurians are a New Zealand sci-fi punk band formed in Dunedin in 2001. ''Foxy Digitalis'' magazine called them the "best punk band on the fucken planet." Style They have a distinctive retro-futuristic visual style. Their ''Power / Reactor'' ...

, the Biscuits, Powernap,

Herriot Row Herriot Row is the musical moniker of New Zealand songwriter Simon Comber who has also recorded and performed under his own name. The moniker references the street Heriot Row in Dunedin, which in turn references Heriot Row in Dunedin's counterpar ...

, and Chronic Fatigue Sindrome. The library has been running synthesizer-building workshops around New Zealand. MEL also co-hosts an open weekly

maker Maker(s) or The Maker(s) may refer to: Film and television * ''The Maker'' (film), a 1997 American drama film *'' Makers: Women Who Make America'', a 2013 American TV documentary, a 2014 TV series, and related media *Maker Studios, now part of D ...

night with the Auckland University of Technology where projects are developed in a collaborative environment. Kraus stated in a New Zealand Listener interview that "doing any kind of community project like this for me is a political thing - of self-organisation and encouraging people to take control of their lives, instead of just being a consumer, buying something someone else has made, or some robots in China. The kind of empowerment that comes from learning a new skill is a really powerful thing." He said in NZ musician magazine that he wants "to emphasise the idea of sharing and also reducing waste through re-using things and giving seemingly broken or out of date things a new purpose." The library started in Auckland and 2014 and opened a Wellington chapter in 2016.

Gallery

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References

External links

Musical Electronics Library blog

Musical Electronics Library Auckland microblog

Musical Electronics Library Auckland inventory

Musical Electronics Library Wellington inventory

Documentary on MEL
{{Authority control Electronic music organizations Libraries in Auckland Organisations based in Auckland Libraries in Wellington Music organisations based in New Zealand Underground culture Hackerspaces DIY culture Tool libraries Music libraries