Archive for the ‘diy’ Category
Yes, yes, zillions of people have made floppy drives play music. That’s cool.
Rupert, though – six-voice single-controller system, complete with DIY printed-circuit board. Epic.
There’s video at the site of the build, and some demo footage. G’wan, it’s cool.
PS: As I’m writing this, nobody has figured out the right answer yet. Go, listen, try!
Anybody here livestreamed an Ubuntu Gnome desktop? I found this howto for justin.tv, but while I appear to have it running (albeit with a strange error that’s probably critically important) it doesn’t seem to work. I also found this tool (which was formerly on Sourceforge, which still has an older version) but haven’t tried yet.
Anybody have a preferred solution?
Forbes Magazine has noticed the return of the analogue synthesiser. I’ve seen a lot of people buying old and rebuilding; I wasn’t aware how many of the classics were back in or about to return to production.
Korg MS-20 (courtesy Wikipedia)
There seems to be some idea floating out there – and certainly in that Forbes article – that it’s a matter of rejecting digital, with it’s an implication that it’s some sort of Overdue Retreat From False Progress, and similar foolishness.
That’s not just wrong, it’s stupid. It’s the kind of derpitude written for people who don’t understand a subject and are wearing their late-middle-age everything-was-better-in-my-day nostalgia crap goggles.
Never wear those.
But something real is happening: a recognition that these were interesting and unique instruments in their own rights, and that new “versions” of the instrumental idea are not the instrumental idea. Just as the successors of the lute were not lute version 2.0, the successors of these synths are are not these instruments, version 2.0. They’re new instruments, with their own merits and flaws.
The technology model of continuous improvement doesn’t apply to everything, no matter how hard you try.
Similarly, just as MIDI violin doesn’t preempt real violin, emulations of the actual instrument – while useful, I’m a huge fan of the Animoog implementation on my iPad – do not always replace the actual instrument.
Particularly not with players. Not with the musicians. All of these things have their own physicalities, and for a lot of players – like me – that’s important. There are tens of thousands of bass guitars out there; there are a few I love. There are far fewer Irish Bouzoukis out there; and there are two, so far, I love. Part of that’s the sound; part of that is the physicality. It all matters.
I’m glad that’s finally being recognised for these classic analogue subtractive synths. The recognition that they are unique instruments, of a kind and a type, and of value not as a step to something else, but to themselves, and their unique sounds – it’s long overdue. Returning them to production is no more some kind of reactionary step backwards than is continuing to produce fiddles.
And I’m all for it. Welcome back to the fold, subtractive synths. We missed you.
The Emerald Forest Filk Society has been on the same web and mail platform for a long time, and the administrator really wants to shut down that machine, so Anna and I have agreed to take on hosting. This URL will always work, if badly, despite being non-canonical. There’s also a Twitter feed and a Facebook account, because I am dragging this into five years ago, no matter what! XD
Anna found this WordPress plug-in called Social that I’m trying out with this post. The best thing about Social is that it transfers comments back and forth too, so, say, if you comment on a replication of an EFFS post on Facebook, the comment also goes back to the home website, and that is epic.
So this is mostly an excuse to see if it works. But also I’m publicising the EFFS’s new homes. LINK ALL THE THINGS! XD
I made another one of these mic cases out of a pistol case. This one is claimed to be a two pistol case, but it holds my three M-Audio Novas nicely.
It’s a pretty good case for mics but I don’t think it’d be a great pistol case because the egg crate foam doesn’t line up the way it should, and they seem to know that, and left space to compensate. That’s fine if you’re dealing with big microphones, but not good for small mics or pistols. My other cases, the foam lines up right, so you could use them for smaller mics.
I meant to turn off free/pay-what-you-like Bandcamp downloads last week, but I didn’t warn people. Accordingly:
Today is the last day you can pull my Bandcamp albums down for free/pay-what-you-like. So grab while the grabbing’s good; I’m putting minimums back on tomorrow.
A couple of singles – Kaiju Meat and The S-100 Bus being notable examples – will stay free/pay-what-you-like permanently, but the rest? Not so much.
I got up into the attic above my studio this weekend, because I have this leftover rock wool sound insulation, and wanted to see whether I could further dampen the occasional airplane noise that makes it through everything.
I’ve never lived in a new-construction house before. This thing was built in 1998-2000. (Why such a wide date range? Because this.) I’ve always lived in old buildings. Attics are dark spaces with 2×12 joists and random boards lying about and forgotten storage and knob and tube writing (sometimes just remnants) and hopefully bare-bulb light-fixtures and places where they took out the pull-down staircase and probably spiders and possibly livestock and almost certainly not ghosts.
This attic? Basically, this attic has no goddamn floor at all. Turns out the top floor ceiling is just wallboard held up by 2x4s, which are in turn hidden and drowning in an ocean of blow-in insulation. And while blow-in insulation is awesome – I’m all for insulation – having literally no visible places to step is not awesome. It’s like the end of the world in Skyrim. LOL NO FLOOR ANYMORE HAVE FUN WITH THE OCEAN.
I’m not walking around up there, much less putting in rock wool. And while, okay, 2x4s, they can hold up wallboard, and hopefully me at least briefly, and hopefully all that blow-in insulation but I’m not convinced, I’m mostly in the category of whose idea is this?! Can wallboard ceilings hold up rock wool? I would think so, but I don’t even know! Hell, I’m not even enamoured of it holding up that much blow-in thermal insulation because that is a lot of insulation up there.
Basically what I’m saying is that compared to what I’m used to, this attic “floor” is made up of assurances which are made up of lies. So I’m not remotely surprised I hear airplanes through it.
What do I do here? Continue to live with it? I mean, it’s only occasional, and it’s at -60db when I do hear it at my normal recording levels, so even if it happens during recording it’s not that big a deal. Do I tack up another layer of wallboard to absorb low-frequency airplane noise, maybe on floaters of some kind? Do I make rock wool pillows and hang them from the existing ceiling and try to compensate for the brightness loss by taking out other baffles? Will this all literally come tumbling down on my head if I do any of it?
I’ve no idea. And really, I suppose it’s not that important. But it tasks me. It does, it does.
Okay, so I mentioned the big project? Well, a bunch of bands, including us, SJ Tucker, Heather Dale, and lots more, got together for a truly massive free mega-music download package. Seriously, there are like 39 artists in this thing:
If the download link there doesn’t work for you for some reason – it’s been a bit swamped! – here’s a direct link to the .zip file with all songs:
In addition to the previous, there’s Betsy Tinney, Talis Kimberly, Pandora Celtica, Julia Ecklar, Ginger Doss, Whisky Bards, Tom Smith, us – so many different bands.
GO GET IT. And if you like what you hear, a lot of us are doing specials right now on our own download pages, like us, where everything of ours on Bandcamp is currently pay-what-you-like. That won’t last forever, so GO. NOW.
And a happy new year to everyone!
eta: Okay, maybe having everybody involved tell all their people at the same time wasn’t the best idea. XD If you’re seeing an XML error, it’s a result of server overload; try again in 15 minutes to an hour. But my Bandcamp downloads are working fine – Bandcamp is more robust. 😀
Through the holidays, all my Bandcamp downloads are free/pay-what-you-like. That’s not a permanent condition, so grab while the grabbing is good! And if you feel like hitting the tip jar on the way out: awesome, but optional.
CDs are also still discounted, for any last-second physical gift-giving, but you can buy for other people through Bandcamp, too.
Cheap-pistol-case-as-microphone-case also works well for ribbon microphones and their pre-amps, which is actually more important than for the small-can condenser mic I showed before. Ribbons need extra protection! Plus, this keeps the preamp and the mic in the same place.
THE NEW SINGLE
 |
