Weevils were the first designs I made as BugBrand and, between 2005 & 2015 I made a whole slew of them – you can see some on the Weevil Archive page. So it seemed apt to make a special one to mark 20 years – the first regular production for 10 years and the first ‘housed’ one since perhaps 2008!
The core is a simple little circuit I found in a library book – a cymbal sound synthesiser made of some CMOS 4000 series logic gates to make squarewaves that are quasi-ringmodulated together. Back in my early days I was doing a lot of circuit bending, so I tried out adding power starvation and body contacts and discovered a deep & chaotic sonic world. This Weevil Heart has stayed pretty constant over the years while I’ve played extensively both with the surrounding circuitry and how to present an instrument. For example, the STEIM Cracklebox was always an inspiration as an almost acousitc electronic instrument that had to be played in a truly experimental manner. It has really been a case of iterative refinement and the developments nicely highlight how my build techniques have evolved.
The 20/25 Weevil is really quite similar to the last BoardWeevil of 2015 – we’ve got the 3 Oscillators, 2 RingMods and State-Variable Filter – but I wanted something cased so took the existing modular boxes and fashioned a new PCB frontpanel with accompanying side-cheeks that could hold a speaker, battery box and line output. Smart!
For further details, have a read of the Instruction Sheet & refer to the Block Diagram – but really the best way to learn is to dive in and experiment!
Addition: as I was approaching the 20 year mark, I did a call out for Weevil Memories. I had such lovely responses – pictures and rememberings. This one from Chris really captures so much of the spirit, means a lot to me and, I think, feels apt to include here…
The BugBrand Weevil was my first introduction to an electronic instrument created with potential for “noise” and timbre exploration alongside a physically expressive interface beyond the traditional keyboard / knobs / sliders of synths of the past. I had read a lot about Reed Ghazala and circuit bending in general as a cheap alternative to expensive vintage synths (analog revival market was yet to happen!) which at some point led me to the electro music forums and Tom’s own website. Toms devices were immediately astounding and intriguing to me, I spent years refreshing his site, scoping out the pics, re-listening to the short demo recordings and imagining what I’d do with a weevil of my own. Through lack of funds at the various stages of release, my first weevil wasn’t until the Boardweevil 2012, which to this day has still been my favourite. The alien control panel – esque touchplates and deep blue board colour made it such an inviting instrument aesthetically before even playing it. I spent many months playing it completely dry into a pair of headphones and figuring out each potential connection and knob position combination. Oscillator drone, ring mod wackyness, coloured noise, filter sweeps, straight or wonky rhythms and the ever mystical “starve” function meant it could always turn up something new, and it possessed a versatility you’d never guess upon looking.
So I became obsessed with augmenting my Boardweevil, and being quite into the VCS3 /MS20 slanted enclosure aesthetic decided to build it out into a large enclosure. With many many (probably irritating) inquisitive emails to Tom I taught myself how to etch PCBs with press n peel and designed my own large touchplate, along with an MDF cabinet with big knobs and a big speaker to house it. I built two delptronics bender sequencers to try with It too which worked quite nicely. The big cased weevil never really worked quite right and I ended up abandoning it eventually, but Tom’s own posts/interviews and encouragement sent me on a journey with that weevil that I’m really pleased I went on, and set me off on various other DIY audio electronics adventures.
Particularly fun is syncing a drum machine to osc1 at a slower rate while using it to modulate the weevil filter cutoff and manipulate the pads to send the “clock” into meltdown momentarily, something I employed on a few recordings for the 0PR label back in 2018. I also love sticking capacitors between touchplates to get a kind of wonky slewed modulation instead of the usual squareave angularness.
Over the years I ended up owning many weevils – Boardweevil 2015, Travel weevil 2014, AudioWeevil08, Cube Weevil, a red WOM, SYN1 OG old blue weevil module, and each had fheir own quirks and character. The performative aspect of “interrupting” a circuit with flesh gives a uniquely expressive and interesting results I find, especially compared to touchplates that generate CV for control for example.
Anyways, Tom’s Weevils were a hugely formative part of my musical history, and have fuelled so much imagination and inspiration when considering the possibilities of my own musical practice, as well as providing a much need expressive squawk when electronic music starts feeling too inhuman for me. I will always havd a huge fondness for the weevil.
