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Category Archive: electronics
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Administrivia and News of the Future
Lots of things going on of late. A quick recap:
1. Upgrading the FeedWordpress plugin ate a number of the PTB show descriptions from the last three months or so. I recovered some of them. The rest have the generic description again. Yay upgrades.
2. I’ve set up a Facebook page for whatever it is we do here(are we a label? do we build gear? A little of both and then some?), so if you’re a fan of whatever it is we do here and prefer Facebook to these ‘blog’ things, go become a fan there. I promise it won’t be a constant source of annoyance.
3. Expect some announcements of things happening in the future. For instance, I’ll be performing at Bella Dubby in Lakewood on August 21st, as a duo with my friend C. Randolph C. More details soon. Also be on the lookout for the forthcoming cassette released in conjunction with Everyone Else Has A Record Label, So Why Can’t I?, as well as more fun stuff on the horizon.
4. GoatTracker fans- here is a FAR better port of GoatTracker for Mac OS X than mine ever was. Seriously, it’s awesome. I’ll be going back and adding links to this one in my older posts.
5. A quickie on the DIY front – I’m moving right along on a MIDIbox SID. It’s just going to be a single-SID/basic control surface model, but it is moving right along. Hopefully usable & in an enclosure before August 21st…
Tagged news
audio DIY update – June 2009
After the flurry of activity earlier this month, things slowed down significantly – mostly due to preparations for PRIMER on Memorial Day weekend. I did make a concerted effort at building a modified proto-Klee sequencer the day before PRIMER (to have something to trigger the Sound Lab with), and had positive, but not quite fully working results. It’s still sitting on a breadboard, so I’ll get back to it eventually.
Last weekend I trekked to HGR Industrial Surplus in Euclid, and made some impressive scores:
- A box containing something like 60 of these Clarostat 100k potentiometers and maybe a dozen 2N3055 power transistors, as well as a number of AC inlets and other random parts.
- An interesting looking enclosure that will likely contain multiple sequencers and a joystick in the future.
- Some sort of dual industrial computer thing (I split this with a friend, each of us taking a motherboard – I got the enclosure and he got the cabling). It’s got a bunch of LM339 comparators, LF398 Sample-and-Holds, DG507 dual 8-step multiplexors (sequencer uses?) and many other as-yet-unidentified ICs – all socketed(!)
If anyone knows of a good inexpensive source for knobs for those Clarostat pots, I’m all ears (they’re 1/8″ shafts, about 7/8″ tall). I have some that would work ok if I were willing to cut down the shafts by about 1/4″, but I’m not sure I want to do that.
On the studio front, I found fitting, or close enough to fitting drivers for the monitor cabinets I picked up a while ago. I’ve now got crossover parts on the way. I guess I need to build an amplifier now too – I need no more than 50W per channel and don’t want to spend a lot of money – any ideas/suggestions?
Some WTPA demos
I spent a little more time playing with the Where’s The Party At? 8-bit sampler this evening. I first tried my theorized CD4046 voltage-to-sync circuit, but that didn’t seem to work. Not sure where the problem lies, but I think I’ll need a scope to figure it out for sure.
That said, I then made a couple of quick demo MP3s. The first is a straight up demo: wtpademo.mp3. I play a loop on my RY10, and sample it into the WTPA at its highest fidelity. I let it play for a few bars, and then messed with the sample rate a bit. Then I try some of the special effects – reverse, half speed, one of the “math modes” which takes it into an overdrive, backwards halfspeed, and then triggered playing. Note that this demo only uses one of the sample banks.
The second demo uses the fact that you can vary the sample rate while recording: drumfight.mp3. This is two loops from the RY10, varispeed-sampled into the WTPA, and then manipulated. This again, didn’t take advantage of the banks – I just multitracked it. The first loop plays alone the first fifteen seconds, then the second fades in over the next fifteen seconds and the two play side by side for a minute or so. Then the second starts getting its sample rate further manipulated.
Tagged wtpa
time for the SDIY update!
Something is done. Kind of. Not a synth component, though.
After the first attempt at the USB sound module didn’t work, I hastily tossed together the second one, using more-or-less parts on hand. This time, I didn’t do the flood-and-drag technique on the SSOP IC. I did something a lot less electrically unsafe – I fluxed the board, laid solder on the pads, fluxed again, carefully placed the IC on the pads, and then used my craft heat tool to solder it. I then tested pin-to-PCB connectivity, and hand-soldered the three or so pins that didn’t get connected by the heat gun. The board is noisy sounding, but it works! I think I’m going to try desoldering the first one with the heat tool, and maybe trying it again that way. If it doesn’t work then, I’ll have to write off the IC as dead. (Update since I wrote this earlier today: did the desolder/solder thing. WORKED! Now I’ll have to get an enclosure for this one. With any luck it will be quieter (better parts, better grounding), because this second one is noisy as hell.)
Other stuff worked on:
SN-Voice- giving me lots of headaches. It’s all together, but has some very odd problems. I have gotten the LFO to produce sound under certain circumstances, and I think I heard the output of the noise generator once, so, it’s progress. Ran into a problem that appeared to be a bad socket. trying to fix that led to all sorts of issues that aren’t quite resolved yet, but getting there.
Gristleizer – poked at it a bit, but no real progress. I may try putting one of the other boards together, see if it works any better.
Upcoming projects:
The “Where’s The Party At?” 8-bit sampler – it should be arriving Monday.
A SoftRock Lite Software-defined Radio – picked this up at Notacon.
Some monitor speakers – I got the cabinets already, and now figuring out appropriate drivers/crossovers/whatnot. Then I’ll have to build some amplifiers…