oldmanfury

Cheap-ass IPod Touch microphone

Since I was ordering random parts from Futurlec, I ordered a couple of hard to find 4-contact, 3.5 mm audio-plugs and some cheap-ass electret microphone elements.  Using these, I put one of these things together: (yeah - it's ugly... I'm not quite finished with it yet)

Works fine for voice memos - not bad for $1.80.  Problem is that the Touch auto-mutes its internal speaker when the mic is plugged in - it's expecting that ear-phones are plugged in too.  Not sure how to get around this problem, other than breaking out the other two contacts into some headphones.

I bought another 4-contact plug so that I can run my guitar directly into the Touch and use GuitarToolkit's tuner.  Haven't gotten around to doing this yet.

By the way - the active end of the microphone gets connected to the 4th ring back from the tip.  The 3rd ring up is ground.  Weird, but true.

LCD Electronic Piano Watch

Sometimes I ramble on about my modular synth hobby to a colleague of mine that is quite an accomplished pianist.  He is quite kind to tolerate my ramblings.  He found this little gem squirrled away at home, and gave it to me!

I was really really excited to get this freakishly large "watch"/synth even though it looks absolutely ridiculous on my skinny-ass wrist.  I took it home, opened it up, cleaned off the battery contact, and stuck a new battery in it.

Nothing.

No worries... it's just a little dirty - scrubed the contacts some more - gave it another try.

Nothing.

Opened it up, and found that this gem has 3 batteries!  All of which leaked their acidic contents on the cheap Made In China boards dissolving the copper traces like Alien blood.

Here is the cleanest looking board of the bunch, the "synth" board.

Man... there is no hope... Cool gift anyway!

Quad Resonant Lopass Gates

Finally finished up four "Buchla" Resonant Lopass Gate boards I sat on for a while from Thomas White.  Stuffing two of these into a 2U Frac module is a little tight - Here is a Front Panel Express file of the layout I used.  I went very spartan on the labels... ran out of O's in my dry-transfer set DAMNIT!  The labels make sense to me, so whatever...

Translation:  Offset, Depth, Resonance, Frequency, Both, Amplitude, CV, Out, Input 1, Input 2

One thing that is truly of note about this design is that, thanks to info I got from Flight of Harmony, I managed to get circuit board-mount 16mm alpha pots and knobs that look strikingly similar to those used by Blacet.  The knobs (Re'an knobs - Mouser Part 550-67004) don't have D-holes like Blacet, they have stars on the back that match the standard POTs that Futurlec carries.  I bought the rotary 4-pole/3 position switches from Futurlec too.  Their shafts were way too long, so I cut them down as much as I could.  The knobs protrude a bit more on these... not too annoying - they were quite cheap. 

I really like the feel and look of the combo Alpha/RE'AN pots and knobs.  I used this combo on a CGS33 Matrix Mixer, and it turned out great.  Futurlec ships from Taiwan, so it takes much longer to get parts from them, but they are very, very cheap.  Why Mouser doesn't carry this particular version of an Alpha pot is beyond me.

One Laptop Per Child - TamTam Synth Lab

I am a huge scavenger... spend a good amount of every weekend thrifting, garage saling, and wandering the local swapmeet that I fondly refer to as "the mercado".  Last weekend, a little green and white rubbery thing at the back of a stall caught my eye.  The vendor couldn't figure out how to open it (it took me a minute myself, I'm ashamed to say), and didn't know what the heck it was.  I had read about MIT Media Labs One Laptop Per Child project, and thought that this weird little locked up thing might be one, but the bugger didn't have any markings that indicated what it was on the outside.  Once I got it open, I was pretty sure it was an OLPC.  It booted up off of its battery, so I offered to take it off of the vendor's hands.  He happily took $30.

Got it home, and fell in love.  The software included is a wonderful combination of entertainment and education.  My daughter took to it immediately, recording videos of herself, drawing, and getting lost in the more difficult applications.  One of the best inclusions, software-wise, is the TamTam music library.  TamTam includes a simple sampler / sequencer interface similar I imagine to Garage Band (which I admit I haven't seen before).  But, lo and behold, TamTam also includes a lovely little patchable virtual modular synth modeled on Max/MSP called Synth Lab.  Too freekin' cool!

Synth lab is a bit beyond my 6-year old right now, and suffers on the little underpowered computer, but it includes a great selection of modules.  Here's a quick summary:

Sources: FM, Buzz, VCO, Pluck, Noise, Sound Sample, Voice, Grain, Additive Synth.  

Effects: Delay, Distortion, Filter, Ring Mod, Reverb, Harmonizer, 4 band EQ, Chorus.  

Modulators: LFO, Random, Envelope, Trackpad X, Trackpad Y

I'm really looking forward to the day when my daughter digs into this one!  For now, she's obsessed with the Speak activity, which she has saying "Daddy kisses your butt" in 30 different languages as I type next to her.

Dynamo Donut and Coffee

 Yesterday we hit the road at 5AM, and were forced to brave McDonald's McCrappe for breakfast - honestly, their crappuccino was better than I usually get from Starbucks.

Today, we had a little more time to spare, so we stopped by Dynamo Donut and Coffee in the Mission District.  We parked between no-park zones and ordered a half dozen exotic-as-shit donut (bacon!) and a double macchiato.  A couple police cars started swarming our rental car, ready to ticket it, so I jumped in and drove around the block.  Got back, switched drivers, and downed what appeared to be a beautifully presented drink - foam art and all, in about 20 seconds.  God it was good.  Now, on to the feast of fat-fried goodness.

 

Now my life is Komplete

I've lusted after Native Instruments' VST's for years, but couldn't bring myself to drop the money on software...  Software has such a finite lifetime relative to hardware - it is guaranteed to become obsolete, unsupported, and eventually, unusable.  A 1976 Moog is still useful and sought after.  A PDP-11?  Probably not worth the trouble (unless you are a true uber-geek)

So, while I still prefer hardware, for $400, I couldn't say no to VST's any more.

Now, I must pray to the VISTA-64 gods (and to the grim Reaper too) that this software will work on my computer... wish me luck.

Broadway Architecture, one of the two reasons to visit downtown LA

I managed to sneak out of the Renegade craft-fair thing yesterday and hoof it up Broadway in the heat with my ok point-and-shoot.  Starting out at the Eastern:

This building is amazing to behold.  It was converted to residential lofts, which sounds great until you think about where it puts you... downtown, which isn't a great place to live by any stretch.  Here's a closeup of the foyer:

Along the 6 blocks North to the Bradbury - loads of fun things to look at.  Santeria stores:

Delapidated theaters with heartfelt words:

And then the Million Dollar Theater 

 

And ending at the Bradbury.

Note - yes this was used as J.F. Sebastian's apartment building, not Decker's as I mistakenly posted (thanks Andy).  Decker's home was actually the Ennis Brown house, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  I didn't have it in me to hoof it the 10-15 miles up to the top of the hill it sits on, but I do need to go see it before they stop providing tours (happening soon).  Other Blade Runner locations that one may wander about are called out in this fanboy site:  LA 2019 on $50 a day: A self-guided Blade Runner Tour

Top of the world

I'm helping the wife out, selling stuff at Renegade this weekend.  It's at the Market Center, 9th and Main downtown LA.  I don't get downtown often - there really isn't much to draw me here with any regularity, unlike other parts of LA.  One thing that downtown LA does have is amazing architecture, from the Bradbury building (Decker's apartment building in Bladerunner), to the Million Dollar Theater (also seen in Bladerunner).  One gem I had missed on previous visits is the Eastern Columbia building, and from the 13th floor that I'm on right now it is stunning.  This picture doesn't do the view justice.

My first mobile blog, how 2007... of course the picture isn't uploading

Espresso Podcast

Getting good coffee at work is tough... I've spent years trying to perfect my setup in terms of taste first, and ease of production and cleanup second.  When I upgraded my home espresso machine to a Rancilio Silvia, I had a leftover Francis! Francis! X3 to take to work.  Since I can't afford to take my Rocky grinder to work too, and I'm too freekin' lazy to pre-grind daily (which really is required for freshness), I decided to give Illy pods a go.

Illy pods are fairly common - you can get them at reasonably equipped shops around town.  They are really nice in terms of mitigating espresso mess.  I situated my X3 in my lab, next to some expensive electro-optical systems that I built (bad idea, I know), and started making Illy shots whenever necessary (a few times a day - especially before meetings).  Illy pods are fairly tasty.  Infinitely better than Starbucks swill, but not quite as good as a shot from the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.  Nowhere near as good as a properly drawn shot of home-roasted beans from Sweet Marias.  Problem is, after the 6th crate of illy, I was getting a little tired of the same-old pod flavor.  I decided to give the Podmerchant Espresso Pod Super Sampler a go

Over thirty types of pods, all from Italy - some 100% Arabica, some Arabica/Robusta blends.  I know... roubsta!?!  I've read some pretty bad things about robusta beans, but I figured that I'd give them a try just for the sake of entertainment and education.

I wholly recommend trying the espresso sampler at work.  Ranking the set was immensely entertaining - I laid out all of the empty packages on a shelf as I worked through the first time, and fine-tuned the ranking on the second time through.  I started off with Illy, which I was most familiar with, and ranked according to it (caffe scuro and caffe normale rank close together to me, so I left it generic in the list).  I made general notes, with draw-times (which varied from 14 to 26 seconds), and did my best to find the crema of the crop.  While I cannot truly say that the #1 outranked its nearest neighbors, I would say that the top third were all very good, the middle third ok, and the bottom third to be avoided.  Interesting to note that, while I definitely didn't care for most robusta blends (RB), some ranked quite highly.  Also interesting to note how Podmerchant ranked at the top, and bottom, depending on the robusta content...

Front Panel Express versus dry transfer. And the winner is...

I bought a couple of DIY boards last year that were offered on the synth DIY forum on E-M, and I figured I'd buy an extra board of each for my good friend Andy.  I did the loathsome task of parts ordering, laid out the panels, and made myself a Fonik PS3100 resonators, and a Wogglebug #3.  I also stuffed the extra pair of boards for Andy, and sent him the panel design files so that he could order panels from Front Panel Express.  Andy's modular is mostly Frac-rack, populated with lovely Blacet, Wiard, and a few Metalbox CGS modules.  Since his system is so uniform and professional looking, he wanted to get some high-quality panels to match.  Here's a picture of about 1/4 of his modular (and his Niece knob-tweaking).

Andy finally got around to ordering the panels, along with replacement panels for two "Furious Joystick modules" that I made for him.  Here are the final results with etched and filled panels.  FPE provides a really high-quality product - I told my wife I'll need to replace all of my hand-made panels having seen how amazing the alternative is.  She wasn't amused.

And here are my two original dry-transfer PAiA anodized panels for comparison (obviously DIY...)

Andy's are prettier.  I checked them out on a scope, and both seem to be working fine.  I need do a final performance check in my rack and then I'll send 'em off to Andy on the dreaded Isle of Long.