Building the WiiChuck

Still deep into the eurorack game over here (hell, there's still a lot of empty space in that same case I bought) but I've admittedly been adding a few tools to my arsenal that go beyond the "chaos machine drone" stuff I've been putting out.

I suppose what I mean is that I've been slowly adding the concept of "human intervention" and "human scale" to the mix by bringing out the BeatStep Pro for some really basic sequencing and clocking (nothing too fancy yet) and adding a ADDAC Intuitive Quantizer to give myself the option of quantizing to a scale – I especially like that this quantizer allows for non-standard scaling that I want to play with to keep things unique.

But those things are still a too traditional for my tastes. I like having them because of the flexibility and complexity they allow but they're making me feel too much like a musician if that makes sense.

Then one day I stumbled upon the WiiChuck by Delptronics. I don't buy a lot of things immediately after learning about them but this is an exception.

I don't know how to explain it properly but the concept of using a Wii nunchuck to generate CV and to play a synthesizer was hilarious to me. But not in a "novel" way or in an ironic or "meme"-y way –  something is just inherently silly and joyful about it. Like the feeling fucking everyone gets when blowing bubbles out of a bubble wand, but about this little piece of plastic coming back into my life in this strange way.

On top of the joy the nunchuck is also a super ergonomic controller, has gyro controls and a joystick, and is very not traditional as a musical input even when done by design.  Plus I like the idea that it has to hard-wire to the synth just like everything else. Nothing should be free of the spaghetti!

Anyway, the kit shipped and arrived quickly and once it did I got right to it. Shout out to GDQ Hotfix, specifically this OoT 3DS no logic randomizer for keeping me company this time around.

I did purposely get the white faceplate (delptronics also sells black ones) to match the OG (midnight release!!) nunchucks I have in storage but for now I am borrowing my sister's red nunchuck since it is more easily available to me for the time being -- it ended up looking pretty good when I finally got to plug everything in and test!

So far it works great, takes up little space, and has brought me much joy. Hopefully I can stream a path with it soon!