Friday, March 14, 2008
Musicians Friend
A few days ago I purchased a used Akai MPC500 sampler and decided I would buy the ram module (EXM-128) from Musicians Friend an online music equipment retailer. I have to say this store has gone far beyond my expectations and I would recommend them to anyone looking for musical equipment.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
TEMT6000 Light Sensor Breakout
Today I took some time to develop the TEMT6000 break out board for one of my projects using Eagle Cad. Its a small little board which uses surface mount parts 2x 10k Ohm resistors and 2x TEMT6000 light sensors. This breakout board is for a much larger project involving performance and audio.
The file can be found here:
Breakout PDF
I used PDF format for the actual file as its easy to print at the correct sizes for multiple systems.
Enjoy!
Bronome Schematic
I have been working on a schematic for the Bronome in Eagle CAD. It is not completed but right now it accurately reflects the parts I am using. Any suggestions are appreciated.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Bronome Brain
I have been working on the Bronome switch system which is based on 74LS164 and 74LS165 shift-in / shift-out registers. I have yet to write the code to handle these things but two such brains have been built. Additionally here are some images of the build of the Bronome.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Enough is Enough, stop stealing our money
When should someone be allowed to steal your money? Should you have to pay for music downloading if you do not download music at all? Personally I do not think so. The song writers in Canada have proposed a $5 fee to be applied to your internet service bill to compensate themselves.
This brings back memories of the tried and failed iPod levy introduced in Canada. And yet again I am left wondering why in this new digital era are music companies and now music writers not adapting. For the last 8 years this group proposes sales have "dropped from $1.3-billion in 1999 to $704-million in 2006." Is this not a clear indication someone needs to change?
Essentially the idea of distribution adding to the cost of music is dead. Being able to download a track or album provides the record companies even greater profits. Additionally consumers are not idiots we know that companies want to give us less while charging us more. No package, no printed material, no shipping, no storage fees from logistics companies, no middle men (if you do it correctly) and you have pure profit, production costs aside of course.
Rather than charge us $5 consider spending all that money you are using to lobby the government and put together an effective business plan. A plan that benefits the customer while making yourself money through downloads eg: iTunes, and other online sites, about 100% of the music I enjoy listening too is not available through these distribution methods, so I am forced to buy a CD and rip it to my iPod. This is far less convenient than purchasing online content (with out DRM) to place on my iPod or my MiniDisk.
The infrastructure argument: this new form of distribution costs us money. Everything costs money, but digital distribution will cost you less money. What major company does not have an internet and intranet network these days. Personally I run a business and maintain my own web server, I am not a major corporation and somehow I manage to fit that into my own budget, and I don't charge my customers $5 more for them to view my web content, write down my prices, or even to send me an e-mail.
"80% of artists make 15000 or less a year"
This last point is particularly frustrating to me, and to most artists in any discipline. I enjoy making art and would love to work as a full time artist, but currently that's not realistic however, I work two other jobs to support myself. I understand that people need to make money but loving what you do is sometimes more important than the money you make. Take for instance Radiohead, they released a pay what you can album. I was ecstatic, free music, perfectly within my budget, but more importantly its someone giving something back. Someone who loves what they do and wants to show that they care, and that we the listener are important.
And finally to complete my point. This flagrant disregard for respecting the rights of Canadian internet users is shameful at best. If this tax actually gets passed whats next taxing people who hum or whistle a melody, do we tax a telephone user if music happens to be playing in the background, or even better maybe we should tax car radio listeners by the kilometer.
And to quote the Calgary Herald "It's not my fault that nine or 10 years after Napster, a proper system hasn't been worked out to compensate songwriters and recording artists." ... second source article (page 2)
This brings back memories of the tried and failed iPod levy introduced in Canada. And yet again I am left wondering why in this new digital era are music companies and now music writers not adapting. For the last 8 years this group proposes sales have "dropped from $1.3-billion in 1999 to $704-million in 2006." Is this not a clear indication someone needs to change?
Essentially the idea of distribution adding to the cost of music is dead. Being able to download a track or album provides the record companies even greater profits. Additionally consumers are not idiots we know that companies want to give us less while charging us more. No package, no printed material, no shipping, no storage fees from logistics companies, no middle men (if you do it correctly) and you have pure profit, production costs aside of course.
Rather than charge us $5 consider spending all that money you are using to lobby the government and put together an effective business plan. A plan that benefits the customer while making yourself money through downloads eg: iTunes, and other online sites, about 100% of the music I enjoy listening too is not available through these distribution methods, so I am forced to buy a CD and rip it to my iPod. This is far less convenient than purchasing online content (with out DRM) to place on my iPod or my MiniDisk.
The infrastructure argument: this new form of distribution costs us money. Everything costs money, but digital distribution will cost you less money. What major company does not have an internet and intranet network these days. Personally I run a business and maintain my own web server, I am not a major corporation and somehow I manage to fit that into my own budget, and I don't charge my customers $5 more for them to view my web content, write down my prices, or even to send me an e-mail.
"80% of artists make 15000 or less a year"
This last point is particularly frustrating to me, and to most artists in any discipline. I enjoy making art and would love to work as a full time artist, but currently that's not realistic however, I work two other jobs to support myself. I understand that people need to make money but loving what you do is sometimes more important than the money you make. Take for instance Radiohead, they released a pay what you can album. I was ecstatic, free music, perfectly within my budget, but more importantly its someone giving something back. Someone who loves what they do and wants to show that they care, and that we the listener are important.
And finally to complete my point. This flagrant disregard for respecting the rights of Canadian internet users is shameful at best. If this tax actually gets passed whats next taxing people who hum or whistle a melody, do we tax a telephone user if music happens to be playing in the background, or even better maybe we should tax car radio listeners by the kilometer.
And to quote the Calgary Herald "It's not my fault that nine or 10 years after Napster, a proper system hasn't been worked out to compensate songwriters and recording artists." ... second source article (page 2)
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Update
Tonight was the lunar eclipse and I managed to get a decent photograph of it.
As for my other projects, I have been working on the bronome switch array and have two prototype units built. The code needs writing and Little-Scale has been nice enough to lend a hand with some of the missing pieces. With a little more free time on my hands I should have something working. In the next few days.
Bronome set to white Feb 20, 2008.
TEMT6000 Ambient Light Sensor for laser midi interface project.
As for my other projects, I have been working on the bronome switch array and have two prototype units built. The code needs writing and Little-Scale has been nice enough to lend a hand with some of the missing pieces. With a little more free time on my hands I should have something working. In the next few days.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Bronome Prototyping
Today I started to tackle the LED routines. Right now its still really crude as I am borrowing a large section of the code base from other sources. I am not happy with the speed at which it is executing so I am going to rewrite a lot of it and perhaps use assembler. Here is the latest video:
Please excuse the documentation of code, that was more for my record.
Please excuse the documentation of code, that was more for my record.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Why Bronome?
The Bronome project has been designed to address some of my personal performance audio needs. I saw a need for something more than just a USB interface something which could also act as a hardware midi controller. In that respect the Bronome is a brother to many other projects such as the Monome, Tonori-on, and MidiBox. It borrows concepts and ideas from all to make a unique interface onto its own. Although the initial facade is very much like the minimalist Monome 40h, the differences are in its use of light to convey meaning. Through visual means the interface of the Bronome can mutate or transform into a multitude of utilities, keyboard, sequencer, or display. The configurations are endless.
If you would like to participate in this project either through coding, graphics, ideas or suggestions, send an email to Brian Durocher.
If you would like to participate in this project either through coding, graphics, ideas or suggestions, send an email to Brian Durocher.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Bromome Stage 2 (RGB Monome Derived Interface)
A few more parts arrived from my favorite supplier and I was able to wire everything up and get it working on a very basic level. The next stage will be switch/button implementation and LED reaction to button presses. I am not totally sure if i am going to use the Monome code base or just create my own assembler version. Regardless here is the video.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Amtel 2560 PCB
My 2560 PCBs have arrived from BatchPCB they took about 3 weeks in total. It was fairly quick and cheap, so perfect for what I am doing. I ordered two and soldered one yesterday. However, I distroyed some of the pads on the board while putting the surface mount chip on. :( (Thats what happens when the iron gets too hot I suppose. No worries I am just going to use some 30 awg wire and replace the broken traces with that.
To save on time I am probably going to order this next time.
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