Alvin has switches to overide its sounds. We can add parent tones or destroy tones prematurely.

Inside speakers, metal powder jostles around. The magnetized powder assembles into functioning electronic components, and generates new sound by completing oscillator circuits.

A Plexiglas structure contains eight audio range oscillators based on the LM348n ic. These oscillators each output to eight independent channels, in four stereo amplifiers based on the tda1554 ic. The audio outputs go to eight speakers positioned below the oscillators. This sound causes steel powder to bounce around inside the speaker cone until it is caught in a magnetic field produced by electromagnets. The powder forms a bridge between two electrical contact points, and begins to function as a variable resistor. The resistant value that the bridge produces, from 1 megaohm to almost 0 ohms, determines the frequnecy of adjacent cells. A suspended network of wires connects these relays to each oscillator. The electromagnets are periodically turned off by a kill switch that is also assembled by the same process, which causes the powder brigdes to disassemble and the oscillator to become incomplete once again, creating the possiblity of a new orientation.
 

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