Simon Says

New year, new location, new features, NEW BLOG!

2011-01-01T00:00:00.000-05:00

You read that right. Or maybe you didn't and you're asking yourself what this long string of words mean?
Well it means that Simon Says is moving to a new location on the web. Over the next few days I'll be exporting my blogger posts and importing them into a fresh new Drupal system hosted at Danacsimmons.com.

I've run my professional website with drupal for several years now, and really enjoy the feature set that it provides. I hope to be able to host more, high quality content using a drupal system. This means: more pictures, more videos, and hopefully, more posts documenting my everyday adventures. Hurray!

Shameless Self Promotion Time

2010-12-11T23:34:00.003-05:00

So I'm not sure what posting links to my own interview, says about me. Self indulgent? Egotistical? Conceited?
Well this is my blog, and the interview is content relevant to a blog about me. So here goes.

After a summer full of movie making magic, I was approached to provide an interview for the Blank Stage website regarding how my involvement with Blank Stage has impacted me and my career.

If you'd like to read my responses to a few questions about me and sound for independent movies then you can find the interview here: Audio Engineer in Georgia | Pole Position, Dana Simmons, In a Perfect Spot[Blank Stage Productions]

Adventures in DVD archiving

2010-12-04T12:52:00.003-05:00

As the amount of data I have to keep up with grows (personal data, business documents, and client's work), my need to keep track of a large body of data over long periods of time has grown. While my backup server I constructed back in 2008 has worked wonderfully for making sure all my current work is protected from drive failure. The mirrored raid has quickly filled with old copies of projects that I don't need to access on a regular basis. The thought of permanently deleting those projects just sends shivers up my spine. What happens when someone comes to me and says "remember when we did that project three years ago, well I want to do something like that again." I don't remember what details where in that project, and I'll need to have a copy that I can go back to and get inspiration and references from.

The obvious solution I've heard many recommend is, "get an online storage solution." After some research however, many of these plans have limited storage or limited access on a monthly basis. I can't be tied down by those limitations, and storing close to a terabyte of data in the cloud using a monthly subscription is still extremely costly.

So how does one create an offline collection of old work that is still secure over the course of many years? At first I though that just throwing a hard drive in the closet would work. Nope. Hard drives are notorious for not spinning up after about three years. And at the rate at which tech changes, who knows if I'll even have a computer that can access the data on them.

My solution? The DVD. DVDs can store an adequate amount of data for archiving key components of a project. And the best part is, they can last upwards of twenty years!

But, as it turns out, not all DVD media is created equal. The life of a burned DVD is dependent on the quality of optical dye that is used to manufacture the disk. Many commonly available brands of DVD media are manufactured using cheap dyes that severely reduce the reliability of these discs as long term storage options.

So which is the best brand to put your junk on? Turns out that there is a company in Japan that is wholly dedicated to producing the end-all be-all top of the line DVD media. That brand is Tiayo Yuden. Untill the past three years this brand has been relatively difficult to come by, only being available through select online retailers. However, after being acquired by JVC the Japanese made discs have become more available. To my good fortune one of my local pro audio/video outlets has even started stocking authentic Tiayo Yuden discs!

After burning close to 100 discs, without a single un-readable disc, I am sold. Although the real test will be when I pop a disc in after five or so years, but for now, I feel confident that my archives are safe.

Much of my information for this post was gathered through this page: How to Choose CD/DVD Archival Media, a must read for anyone interested in storing offline data for long periods of time.

Memories of the summer

2010-11-24T04:53:00.007-05:00

So now that the weather has officially changed, I find myself reminiscing of the warmer days on set. I've had the pleasure of working on some very fun projects this past summer, with a great group of people. Here is a video mash-up of a few of them.

Google Sketchup and your next project

2010-09-14T00:20:00.002-04:00

So I keep seeing google sketchup pop up in conversations all over. There was allot of talk about Sektchup's 3D Warehouse at Maker Faire Detroit; I've seen several projects use Sketchup to help work out design problems, and even google maps' 3d view is using contributed 3d models from sketchup. So what the heck is sketchup?

Well, turns out sketchup is pretty freakin' amazing. I've used CAD programs in the past, and lets just say there is a reason I don't still use them. The software I remember was clunky, loaded with complex options for texture, lighting on top of the exhaustive list of construction, shaping, and placement tools. Now sure, if I were making a living designing 3d models I would find this type of software feature full and efficient. But if I am just trying to bang out a quick model of my spare bedroom and figure out what sort of furniture will fit in it, a hobbyist like myself would quickly get lost in all the options and forget about the original intent.

Sketchup simplifies the design process to such an extent, that I almost forgot I was using CAD software. In a few hours I was able to finish the design for a set of closet shelves, that will actually fit perfectly the closet that I have! I was then able to add annotations for measurements in just a few clicks. I printed out a wire frame model and BAM! I'm ready to go buy lumber.

So needless to say, sketchup will become a key part of my prototyping process in the future.

Maker Faire Detroit 2010

2010-08-12T11:07:00.007-04:00

Turns out Make Magazine's Maker fair is growing, so much so that this year the Henry Ford Museum hosted the first annual Maker Faire Detroit. and sure enough, I was able to get tickets.

What an experience, The conference-bikes were there, along with lots of maker bots cnc machines. After touring the grounds and seeing the sights I was able to sit in some very inspiring presentations. Presentations by forward thinking inventors and designers from all over the country, speaking on topics such as sustainable energy, urban gardening, and even garage manufacturing. These presentations makeup the best highlights of the trip.

But enough of all that, now for some photos.

Custom Recording Mixer: Part 2

2010-06-28T11:12:00.001-04:00

I place my order to BatchPCB.com for channel strip boards about a month ago. They finally arrived last week and I can finally get to make some real progress on this project. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a double order of my pc boards at no extra cost (which is good because I ordered exactly half of what I needed). I was able to spend a fair amount of time putting things together and testing them out this week. I managed to get all the holes drilled in the case and began populating the boards (which look and sound great).

Desktop Summing Mixer & Recording Mixer

2010-05-20T20:37:00.003-04:00

For years I've used a Behringer 1204 small format mixer on my desktop for simple monitoring and routing while mixing and recording. For years I have been frustrated with the lack of features and I/O options. After a recent episode of frustration involving the dual function of the mute switches and Post-Fader axillary sends, it occurred to me, why not just build my own mixer? How hard can it be?

Well to those of you still reading and not rolling on the floor laughing at this previous statement, it requires a bit of thought and is by no means a simple, weekend project. There are many design topologies to consider and many variables to account for. One of my greatest resources (aside from the endlessly helpful book The Art of Electronics) was a project published by Rod Elliott (http://sound.westhost.com/project30.htm). His designs provided answers to many of my questions, such as how to implement a panning adjustment and peak level indicators. Of course his designs are very similar in functionality to the mixer I already have (though he does include insert sends and returns). What I want in my mixer are tape returns. I want an entirely separate signal path for the monitor return of each channel. Typically this feature is only available in high-end studio consoles. Well, I don't have that sort of money, so I want tape returns in a 10 channel format, plus direct outs.

I've included my first revision schematic bellow, after the board layout is complete I plan on getting a handful of boards printed commercially and doing a test run with the component values I've specified thus far.

DIY Audio Compressor: Part 2

2010-04-20T10:57:00.004-04:00

After several revisions to the schematic and many iterations of the board layout, its all finally done. The whole package looks and sound great. I had the pleasure of using it to track some vocals some weeks ago and the compressor really imparted a warmer sound. I think I may have to work out a way to incorporate some sort of decibel or clipping meter to prevent over driving the 5532. That said, the overdrive isn't really distasteful. Check out the pics bellow, I've included the final schematic and pc layout.

DIY Audio Compressor: Part 1, the plan

2010-03-03T23:23:00.004-05:00

After finding myself often wanting of an analog compressor in my rack of gear, I ran across the simple compressor design from the old Electronics Projects for Musicians(EPFM) book. It uses a couple op amps and a Vactrol (or LDR Optocoupler) to compress the audio signal. I was able to find a source for the vactrols through Allied Electronics.However, one of the op amps (RC4739) had fallen into obsolescence since the publication of these plans. After poking around the web a bit I found that the NE5532 seemed to work well as a general purpose audio op-amp, and had been used successfully in many of the EPFM plans. The caveat? The 5532 is an 8 pin DIP package, whereas the old 4739 was a 16 pin DIP, this single detail renders the PC board layouts provided in the book useless, and therefore in order to finish my project on a PC board, I would have to re-work the schematic and pcb layout to fit the new parts, I've since completed the schematic and hope to have the layout done and ready for etching (using a cupric chloride bath [Instructable]) soon. I've included the reworked schematic bellow for anyone else who may be interested to enjoy. Schematic and board done in KiCad

Things I Do: Calling all Voices, a Pack the Park initiative

2010-01-02T13:57:00.005-05:00

It was my pleasure to be on set helping with the production of Calling all Voices and the "Mother Earth" music video. This production was a great experience and a great opportunity to meet and work with some amazing people.

War of the Worlds: A Radio Re-enactment

2009-12-16T13:24:00.005-05:00

In tribute to creative content being broadcast on the radio at large. I gathered together a group of friends to revisit the radio drama of ole'. The drama of choice? The classic "War of the Worlds" in abridged form. Our antics are included bellow in recorded mp3 form.

War of the Worlds [abridged]

Enjoy!

Controlling Ardour and Jackd through OSC and Python

2009-10-03T18:40:00.005-04:00

OSC, or Open Sound Control, is a flexible network messaging system intented to allow the control of various music and sound oriented software. There are several mature applications that currently support external control via OSC. These apps include Jamin, Ardour, and Jack. In this post, I'd like to concentrate on controlling Ardour and Jack through Python using OSC.

Ardour has a little known set of OSC messages that it can understand. Oddly enough, this set is vaugly documented in the Supercolider wiki. The messages currently implemented (As of this writing the latest stable version of ardour is 2.8.2) controll basic channel routing functions and simple transport operations (Mute/Solo/Rec Arm, Stop/Play/Punch In). So without the use of any external software we have a basic control of Ardour which can be extended to external interfaces (think midi controllers for Ardour!).

Thanks to a small python module called Simple OSC, it is possible to send, recieve and manipulate OSC messages within Python. We will use python to glue all this stuff together and actually do something interesting.

Unfortunately, Ardour only offers rudimentary control of its transport mechanism over OSC. Which means we mush use some other means to locate the playhead to specific locations and get current time line/meter/tempo information. This is where a little app called jack.clock (or jack.osc) which is a member of the jack-tools package.

The bellow python code is about as simple as it gets, this module will allow a user to play and stop ardour through osc, as well as enter timecode locations (in seconds)

import osc

osc.init() #Initialize the OSC module

def play():
#Send a play message to ardour, there is no additional information required for this
#Hence the empty list!
try:osc.sendMsg('/ardour/transport_play',[],'localhost',3819)
except: raise

def stop():
#Send a stop message to ardour, there is also no additional info for this message
#Hence the empty list!
try:osc.sendMsg('/ardour/transport_stop',[],'localhost',3819)
except: raise

def locate(loc):
#This message requires that there is a jack.clock instance running at port 9001
#jack.clock is a member of the jack-tools package and controls the jackd timeline
try:osc.sendMsg('/jck_rl',[loc],'localhost',9001)
except: raise

Quick, Automated, Incremental backup with rsync and ssh.

2009-09-15T17:18:00.006-04:00

Working in the multimedia field. I live and die by data management. It's easy to be a little to quick with the delete key. Even with the best data organization strategies, it's all for nothing when a drive fails. This is why i've set our in search of a reliable way to incrementally backup my data.

A few months back I posted a little app that I wrote using rsync and ssh that would backup all my portable media overnight when it got left plugged in. I've since found that data o cumulates very quickly without some sort of incremental organization.

Fortunately, my backup server uses a file system (ext3) which supports hard file links. Hard links make incremental backups very simple to manage as copies of the same file do not occupy additional space. After a little research, if found that with a little rsync and ssh magic, a very simple and efficient backup archive can be built.

Firstly, we have to backup something remotely. I place the most recent backup copies in a "current" folder. Also, notice bellow that the --delete switch is used in the rsync command, this will remove files that no longer exist. That may seem like a bad thing, but i'll show you how this is actually good and helps in the incremental backup scheme.

#Backup remotely using rsync and ssh
rsync -avx --delete /home/Dana/ server.home:/backup/dir/current -e ssh

Now if all we did was run this command. At best, we would just end up with a direct copy of our data, which isn't really much of a backup. But if we then make a hard-linked copy of the 'current' folder and rename it to be asociated with the date the backup was made, we quickly get an incremental backup of our data. This copy can be executed directly after the rsync job has finished.

#copy and rename the current folder
ssh server.home cp -rl /backup/dir/current /backup/dir/`date +%Y-%m-%d`

The -rl switch ensures that directories are copied and that all of the copies should be hard linked, which means that new copies will not occupy additional disk space.

Since bash, python and ssh come installed by default on OS X, this method of backup can also work wonders for the Mac crowd. And for windows

Is twitter taking over? I think not!

2009-08-31T01:53:00.003-04:00

This past month as been jam packed with stuff for me: Moving, settling into the new digs, painting, wiring for a network, four classes at school, developing software for work, moding my dumpster destined x-box, finishing Out of Control, pre-pro for a new short? etc.

So chances are, if you've talked to me during the past month, you know a little about whats been going on. So this post, I want anyone who is at all curious about anything I may have mentioned in a conversation together to request that I write a post explaining in more detail the (mis)adventures in tech i've experienced as of late.

Post a comment with your request, send me an email or just ask me in person. And if no one makes a request, then that is simply that much less writing I will have to do. (But you really should make a request) I leave you all with the video bellow. Don't try this at home kids! Oh, and of course, you can keep up with my many blurbs of thought and text on twitter @dcsim0n

Pyro Cannon Test from Kevin Wilson on Vimeo.

Rebuilding a studio: Adding Gear

2009-07-08T23:44:00.007-04:00

Day two and three of the studio rebuild consisted mostly of placing the gear into the racks and wiring everything up after all the snakes and looms had been run and prepped. The layout of the outboard gear is crucial. By grouping similar gear together one can simplify the usage of looms and snakes. For example, by dedicating one rack to dynamics. A single snake can be dedicated to dynamics and run directly to the rack instead of stretching fan-outs between racks and running extensions and such. Also, it is very important to realize how much heat certain gear generates. Typically, any gear with tube based circuitry will generate a fair amount of heat, along with any high voltage speaker amplifiers. For this type of equipment is is crucial that there be at least 1U of space above for adequate ventilation. Heat can build up quickly and is most harmful to sensitive (and expensive) equipment.
A DL termination on a snake, DL connectors are unique in that they are "zero insertion force" connectors. Meaning that the pins do not wear out from frequent use.

A rack of pre-amps and processing. Notice the 1U spaces between some of the gear for ventilation and cooling.

There will be lots of wires, lots and lots of wires.

This is a fan-out, or sometimes just called a fan or breakout. This fan terminates a DL snake into 1/4" TRS connectors for connecting to outboard gear (In this case, for headphone monitor sends).

Ahh, gear.

Rebuilding a studio: Wiring the rack

2009-07-08T01:17:00.004-04:00

I've been helping out in the studios at Ai to rebuild the racks of gear and simplify/tame the many snakes, looms, and rat nests of cable. Here are some pics from Day One, you see the many fans of cable have been lain out on the floor for more work room inside the rack. The ultimate goal here is to keep all of the looms out of the floor from in front of and from behind the rack. The solution? We run all the cable under the rack, bringing the DL looms out from under in the back to mate with the fannouts for connecting to the gear.

DIY Condenser Electret Mic

2009-06-10T20:47:00.001-04:00

For recording enthusiasts and diyers everywhere, there is DiyCondenserMics.com.

Overview:

If you're not afraid of a soldering iron, you can actually build a +48v phantom powered studio condenser mic, for fairly cheap. Most, if not all of the parts can be found at your local Radio Shack. The only thing you really need to find, or make your self, would be the mic body. People have come up with all kinds of ideas for mic bodies. From old flash lights, to pluming parts, to Altoids tins.

The site features build pics, schematics, and construction plans as well as a forum for sharing ideas and other treatsies.

P.S: The move into the new place is going well. ethernet is going in this week, painting is ongoing and a true transformation can be expected in the near future. Pictures to come soon!

Cable Management: The boy-scout way

2009-05-10T08:00:00.002-04:00

Lifehacker recently featured an article on how to tie cables using a continuous piece of twine or rope. In my opinion this sure beats buying bunches of cable ties and zip ties. This method is also a whole heck of alot more flexible as well (no cutting and using fresh zip ties). It also brings out the ub3r boy scout side of me.

Wireing and Cabling: How To Lace Cable Harnesses

Location Re-Location

2009-04-22T17:29:00.003-04:00

After spending a little over one and a half years in my current apartment. I seem to have outgrown the renters lifestyle. Several of my friends and I have gone in together to purchase a house of our own. I'll be packing up my belongings within the next few months and moving into the new digs. I expect to have room to expand my workshop and office areas. This can only mean that there are many fun projects to come. In fact, I'm already postponing the construction of several treatises until after I settle into the new place. So here's to new beginnings. I hope to be moved in and ready to rock by the time I write my next post.

P.S.

If there so happens to be anyone in the North-Atlanta area looking for a place to stay, I am in need of someone to sub-lease my current apartment until the end of the year.

Latest Build: Sound Lab Mini Synthesizer

2009-03-03T15:16:00.005-05:00

I recently got around to building a project I've been longing to try for quite a while now. I ran across Ray Wilson's website: Music from Outer Space. The Sound Lab imeadtiatley cought my attention.
In my search for a suitable enclosure I ran across a K-NEX box in a thrift store, complete with bags of K-NEX pieces, gears and wheels, perfect for front panel knobs. For $3, this case and collection of knobs blows the typical $30 tab for pre-fab eclosures and molded plastic knobs out of the water.

I've included some of my build pictures. Hope you enjoy, samples coming soon.

I've been planning this build for a while and last week, I finally had everything I needed to get started.

The P.C. board, almost complete.

Inside view of the case. This is barely half the amount of wires in the finished product.

Preliminary tests of the oscillators, working well!

The box, with pots mounted, switches coming soon.

Picture of the day, Guess what it is.

2009-03-02T12:21:00.001-05:00

Just a bit from my latest project.

New Years Resolution: Removable Media Backup

2009-02-02T08:00:00.002-05:00

Removable and portable media, I've found, is one of the toughest things to make consistent backup copies of. After all, there is really no way to predict when and/or where my multitude of drives will be plugged in. Which led me to a simple solution, back them up when they are plugged in.

In the past, I've used rsync to make backups on a regular basis (using cron jobs). I devised a similar scheme to backup removable media.

A simple python script scans for mounted media. Drives that have been configured to be backed up are copied through rsync and ssh to the specified backup location. Drives/media not configured for backup are simply ignored.

The script looks for a two line text file in the root directory of each mounted drive to designate whether or not to backup the drive. The text file contains the volume's name (not to be confused with the portion label, this name is only for aesthetics and organization) and also the location the drive should be copied to on a remote host. The script then continues to archive the drive to the location specified. When done, it moves on to the next drive and so on.

The script and example config file are included in a tarball below. Comments and improvements welcome.

Download the Drive Booty script [Box.net link]

DriveBooty by Dana Simmons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Arduino Control Voltage: Rough Code

2009-01-04T01:49:00.004-05:00

I've worked a little more on the Arduino Control Voltage. The processing code bellow takes midi input from any midi device, reads the note and velocity information and then spits it back out over the USB Serial connection to the Arduino board. It's a roundabout convoluted way of getting midi information (midi being a serial data stream to begin with), I hope to get a direct midi input wired up soon.
Arduino PWM to CV out circuit


import promidi.*;
import processing.serial.*;

int com = 0; //Comport/Serial port #
MidiIO midiIO;
Serial sOut;
PFont font;
int pit;
int vel;
void setup(){

font = loadFont("ArialMT-40.vlw");
midiIO = MidiIO.getInstance(this);
println(Serial.list());

midiIO.printDevices();

midiIO.plug(this,"getMidi",0,0);
sOut = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[com], 9600);
}

void draw(){
background(255,255,255);
textFont(font,15);
fill(0,0,0);
text("Midi Data",0,14);
textFont(font,12);
text("Note:",0,28);
text("Velo:",0,42);
textFont(font,12);
text(pit,42,28);
text(vel,42,42);
}

void getMidi(Note note){
println("Got a note!");
vel = note.getVelocity();
pit = note.getPitch();
println(vel);
//println(pit);
sOut.write(vel);
sOut.write(pit);
}

Bellow is the (now) simple code to be uploaded to the Arduino board which just reads the serial data and controls the PWM output.


/*Arduino CV. Reads note and velocity information form the serial line and outputs to PWM pin */
byte note = 0;
byte vel = 0;
int synPin = 11; //Pin # for pitch CV output

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
if(Serial.available() >= 2 ){ //Wait untill there is enough information
Serial.println(Serial.available(),DEC);
vel = Serial.read(); //FIX ME: Implement velocity sensitivity (VCA Control)
note= Serial.read();
analogWrite(synPin,note);
}

}

Arduino Control Voltage by Dana Simmons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at code.google.com.

First revision: Arduino Control Voltage

2008-12-29T22:57:00.000-05:00

The recent holiday brought into my possession a shiny new Arduino Duemilanove board, my first real project with it? Control Voltage output to control my self titled Uranus synthesizer (based on the Voice of Saturn synth). In any case, after a couple long nights I cam up with the sketch bellow, I've tested it and it seems to work with a little adjustment from the pot on the output.

I have yet to attempt at getting the thing tuned, but by runing the PWM output of the Fading sketch (a steady ramp up and down from 1 to 255) i was able to verify that it does indeed control my rather excentric synth. Thoughts, suggestions and critics welcome.

NOTE: The capacitor in the lowpass filter at the bottom is 470 uF, apologies for not adding the value.

Arduino Control Voltage by Dana Simmons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at code.google.com.

Got boxes? Got Drums!

2008-11-08T11:00:00.001-05:00

Inspiration often strikes in peculiar ways, lately, I was struck to bang on random resonant packaging materials and record the sounds they make. I assembled them into a hydrogen drum kit [download drumkit][Broken link now fixed] and composed a simple little percussion piece to demonstrate. Hurray for percussion!

Check out the Waxy Ear myspace and listen to the resulting BoxJar Jam song

Build Pics: Home LAMP server

2008-11-01T11:00:00.000-04:00

As promised, I've uploaded some pictures of my latest project: A home network LAMP/Backup/Print server. Details on configuration and ub3r tweaks next time.

I chose a micro ATX case, for slim compact size

Time to roll up the sleeves and get dirty!

It's a GeForce 7050M Motherboard

The three hard drives which will handle all the data (two 500 gig sata, one 80 gig ide)

One of the two drive trays to hold the RAID 1 array

It's coming together!

Installing Debian. (Before I realized it was much simpler to do a net-install via usb flash drive)

And that's that. This little workhorse has proven to be a very valuable investment. Besides backing up my main workstation every night to the RAID 1, It runs TorrentFlux to manage bittorrent downloads and also servers as a CUPS host to my home network for printing.

Prelminary descrete circuitry guitar amp.

2008-10-16T00:33:00.000-04:00

Above is pictured a very simple and wonderfully bad guitar amp circuit. The output is weak and horribly distorted but it works and can sound quite interesting.

After doing more research I noticed a striking similarity to my circuit and an NPN based Fuzz Face circuit

New Linux box!! Hurray!

2008-09-28T15:53:00.000-04:00

Just like the title says, I put the finishing touches on a new home network/backup/print/file/misc server box this past week. Of course I took lots of pictures (to be posted soon) but I've included the specs for the new machine below.

- GeForce 7050M mobo
- AMD Athlon64 1620 cpu
- 512 MB ram
- 2x 500 gig Maxtor SATA drives (RAID 1 backup system)
- 1x 80 gig Maxtor IDE system drive
- Micro ATX form factor
- Debian 64 bit operating system

Pictures to come soon!!

AIA Edition, stuff I do

2008-09-01T03:00:00.000-04:00

AIA Edition Show 5

Just one of the broadcasts I've been a part of over the past months. AIA Media is a student run news/digital media/digital film group based out of the Art Institute of Atlanta. It's a fantastic group of students who have chosen to turn their talents in video and audio production into a career. This video is one of our many productions and there are many more to come.

Headphone/Monitor Switch in a can

2008-08-01T15:00:00.000-04:00

Frustrated with having my monitors and headphones amp on separate outputs. I cooked up this wacky and simple switcher to select where to send the main outputs from my desktop workstation P.C.

Basically it is just a DPDT switch wired up to a set up 1/4" TR inputs, fed from outputs 1 and 2 of my sound card. The switch can either trow the signal to the headphones amp or the monitors. I simply grabbed the closet empty semi rigid container I could find (I.E: empty soda can) to house the wiring and such. In the pictures below I've only completed 2/3 of the wiring as I still have to add a second set of outputs (I ran out of female 1/4" TR plugs). Thus, in it's current state it simply acts as a glorified on/off switch. Once I get some more TR plugs I'll put it all in a proper enclosure and it will find a happy home on my desk. Build pictures bellow.

I scavenged some 1/4" female plugs from an old mixer. Bellow are all the build materials (minus two female TR plugs of course)

Here is the can with the holes punched out, I just used a flat head screwdriver and a little ub3r skill to cut "X"s in the aluminum, then simply folded the corners in.

Soldering the TR plugs:

Inside the can after all the TR plugs are installed

After the switch gets installed

And finally 2/3 of the finished project

Studio Production Pics

2008-07-15T15:00:00.000-04:00

Some random pics from a recent video production shoot:

Lighting
"Looks good in the monitor"

Extra lights

Portable Apps + Mini CD-R

2008-07-01T15:00:00.000-04:00

So you need to check your email, but the computer at the office/library is locked down, so you can't install your thumb drive loaded with Portable Thunderbird and Portable Firefox. What to do? If all else fails. It is possible to burn a "Portable Power" cdrom, with all your portable apps set up and ready to go. But who wants to toss around a full size CD-R, why not go all out and make a "Portable Power" pocket disk. Pocket disks are about half the size of a regular CD-R, and have a storage capacity of about 210 MB. This makes them the perfect size for installing plenty of portable apps, giving you back the power to take your life on the road [Lifehacker: Carry your life on a thumb drive]

Phillips Scope Repair (Done)

2008-06-24T23:36:00.000-04:00

Like the title says, I've been able to successfully repair my PM3217, with a lot of help from a friend. Turns out there was a broken strand of wire that was part of an induction coil in the vertical amplifier, after a quick re-solder the C.R.T is fully functioning. The next step was to recalibrate the beast. I managed to find a service manual, which included the much needed instructions and schematics for the process. Several nights of tedious measuring and adjusting and everything is back in order. The finished product is pictured bellow, not a bad deal for $60 odd bucks on ebay after all.

Is Auto Tune evil?

2008-06-12T20:48:00.001-04:00

Ran across this interesting article in The New Yorker today, which addresses the possible over use of Auto Tune in music.

Of course the article also made it onto the Tape Op message boards

Happy Reading

Phillips Scope Repair

2008-05-25T13:34:00.001-04:00

I finally decided it was time to buy an oscilloscope. I ran across a Phillips PM3217 on ebay for what seemed to be a good price, the seller couldn't test the thing because "he didn't have any probes", so it was offered as is. The two traces were confirmed to at least display and move about, "what could possibly be wrong with the thing", I thought. So I get it in the mail and the first bad sign is a notable rustle of what sounds like something broken. I open the shipping box and the front cover, which is supposed to protect the front panel controls, has been shattered into many plastic pieces. Also, the distinct smell of burnt electrolyte fills the air.

Long story shortened, There was a blown capacitor on the power supply and the trace could only be displayed in the bottom third of the CRT screen. *sigh* Lessons hard learned: Taking risks on eBay is rarely worth it.

Linux Cluster = Awesome Power

2008-05-15T23:33:00.000-04:00

I ran across this little article while perusing the Hack A Day feed, in which Janne of Svensk Film Effekt built a networked Linux cluster of ub3r proportions. Using a modified Ikea Helmer cabinet and six maxed out motherboards, running at a combined 57.6 (six quad core Intel cpus) GHz and utilizing a combined 48 gigabytes (six motherboards holding 8 gigs each). Needless to say, animation renders previously taking hours would take only several minutes using this beast.

Remix your favorite tunes

2008-03-01T18:38:00.000-05:00

Ever wanted to remix Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody? Or maybe you have some killer guitar you want to add to some of Nine Inch Nails' songs? With a little creative googleing that is very possible. Collections of raw takes from The Beatles to Marvin Gaye are available for your remixing pleasure. There is even a website dedicated to Nine Inch Nail remixes [NINRemixes.c om]. I've included some screenshots of my Killer Queen remixing below. If you've got some free time, and some multi track software, you can be a producer for Queen.

Truecrypt release for OS X

2008-02-07T12:24:00.000-05:00

Arguably the most popular disk encryption tools has now been updated with an OS X (intell and ppc) version, solving the problem of having to fuss with different programs and formats to get disk encryption to work through multiple operating systems. If you aren't already using truecrypt to protect your sensitive information, you no longer have any excuse because now you can protect it and take it with you where ever you're hacking heart desires.

Truecrypt.org