I'm Back!

Lets talk about things I completely forgot about. Like this blog.

Its almost been two years since my last post, and much has changed since then. I've started and finished a few projects, while others have been pushed to the side due to lack of time. Lack of time is also why I haven't been updating this blog.

I logged on to blogger today after remembering that this thing exists, and apparently people have been reading it. This has inspired me to get back to writing, so lets get at it.

Let's start with project updates. 

I gave up on the ESQ-1 and sold it for parts.

I didn't have time to work on the guitar amps until recently. The SLO Clone is painfully close to working. I've learned a lot in the process of debugging it though. I also decided to completely re-cap the Fender Bassman. This is actually something that I have actually been working on recently (as in last week). Expect post about both of these projects in the near future.

Looking back on some of these posts is kind of a trip. My synthesizer setup looks very different these days. I've bought and sold a few pieces in the last two years. I also have a new found love for the Roland S-700 series of samplers. In addition to the S-770, I now own a S-760 and found a large sample library on eBay. Pianos, strings, and just about everything else sounds wonderful coming out of them. 

I've also started to work on a project not related to music too. I decided to learn how to program an Arduino. The first major Arduino project be designing and building swarming robots. I have a good idea about how to accomplish this and I'm working on a plan for the design, construction, and testing of the various components that will make up the robots. The name of the game is simplicity. The robots will follow two basic rules: stay near the pack and don't run into things. I ordered the first few components from Sparkfun yesterday and basic testing of a few design components will probably begin next week. Expect future posts about this project too.

That's all for now.

Hello Again

I've been ignoring this blog pretty successfully recently. I have a huge backlog of stuff to post...eventually.

Here are some new songs that sound like old songs.

More Songs

I promised myself I wouldn't get any new gear until I have five complete songs.

Its time to get some new gear.

Two of the songs are ones I've posted before, but mixed this time, so they should sound a lot better. You can find them here.

And I promise that I will have electronics updated in the next day or two.

A Song

Well, here is a song, done with my synths and stuff. DX7, Juno, and DX drums. Did some processing and sequencing in Ableton Live. Also had some guitar. I have no idea what to classify this as. It is called "Mumber," because I misspelled "number 1" when naming it and I decided to stick with it. A friend describes it like this:

Aha, yeah; aha, yeah, yeah drumset and eerie piano tune. Minute one, I’m in a 23^rd century cathedral, electric organ ushers in neo-acolytes into the friendly arms of the one true faith. We are all gathered under neon-lights standing over shiny reflecting white tiles beneath us. There are no walls and no doors, only one faith. Minute two, it’s the queue for all of us gathered to begin our absolutions. Everyone starts bobbing in place to the beat. We are one, we are one faith. We are mumber. Cool.

You can listen to it here 

New Stuff and Updates

Let's start with the S-770. After spending a few days scratching my head, trying to figure out how to get this thing working, I finally found a solution. It is somewhat convoluted, but it works. Roland's website has the OS and a program for writing the startup disks. You will need a DD floppy disk though, and they aren't common. You can, however, format a "normal" 1.44MB HD floppy disk to 770kb. All you have to do is tape over the hole on the bottom right corner. This will make it read as a DD disk. If you are running Windows XP or later you can't format disks to 770kb DD. For that I used Alkonost MaxFormat, very useful for formatting floppies. After formatting the disk, write the OS with Roland's program and you are all set!

I ordered a SCSI Zip drive from Amazon and I dug up a bunch of old Zip disks. Now, instead of only having 40MB of storage, I will have hundreds of megabytes of storage. Lots of samples. I keep reading reviews of this thing, and it makes me more and more excited to start playing around with it:

Most impressive in 1990 was the S770, a 3U rackmount sampler that, nearly 15 years later, remains a superb instrument. It was 24-voice polyphonic, incorporated an internal hard disk drive, offered sample RAM that was expandable up to 16MB, had digital inputs and outputs, offered 20-bit A-D and D-A conversion, supported all the peripherals already launched, and was compatible with the existing S-series library. But it was not the S770's specification that held the two secrets of its excellence; these were rather more intangible. Firstly, there was the sample editing system, which was a hugely powerful and elegant synth in its own right, but which was overlooked by the public at large. Secondly, there was the audio quality. Thanks to a new reproduction method called Differential Interpolation, the S770 eliminated the grainy distortion that appeared when you played at low pitches on other manufacturers' samplers. Unfortunately, just as they had on the W30, Roland had missed a trick... once again, the S770's specification lacked the crucial words 'Akai' and 'compatible'. Had it been able to load and/or convert the Akai sample library, it might have gone on to become the new standard. But it didn't, so it didn't.

Akai can eat it.

In other news, a friend of mine pointed me to a website that sells PCBs for stomp box clones. I ordered a Zvex Woolly Mammoth clone and a fuzz that uses a 4049 chip (basically it sounds wild, unlike any other fuzz, its kind of like the Red Llama I was making earlier, which I abandoned). I also bought the parts for everything, so hopefully I'll have two new fuzz pedals to make loud guitar noises with.

Alos purchased: a parallel printer to USB adapter for my EPROM programmer. Oh yeah, apparently you need a parallel printer to use the EROM programmer, so the Ensoniq is still not working. Soon though, hopefully.

Electronic Components Part 3: R

V = IR

Welcome to the third part. This will cover resistance. For us armature electronic engineers the component that we will use the most are resistors. Every circuit uses resistors. Actually, every circuit uses capacitors too, but not as frequently as resistors.

Resistors, as the name implies, cause resistance in the circuit. Using our hydraulic analogy, think of a resistor as a crimp in the pipe that restricts the flow of water. This is measured in ohms.

So V is the pressure, I is the rate of flow, and R is the resistance of the flow.

Let's set up a simple circuit consisting of a power source (V) and one resistor, and an ammeter.

Lets say we are using a 10 volt battery and we have a 100 ohm resistor.

Using simple algebra we can rearrange V=IR to solve for I. I=V/R.

I = 10/100

I = 0.1 amperes (amps), or 100 mA. This is the reading we would see on the ammeter.

If we increase the resistance and keep V the same, the current will decrease. If we decrease the resistance, the current will increase.

It is actually much harder to under stand the "why" than it is to do the math with this equation.

The next installment will be an introduction to the various electronic components that you will frequently see in a circuit.

Fender Bassman Update

I was wrong. I wasn't a blown capacitor. It was two blown resistors. And a blown capacitor. The smoke was from the resistors though, not the capacitor. The good news is that these are cheap parts; two 100 ohm resistors and a 5uf capacitor. I have no idea why they blew, but if i had to guess I'd say it was due to age. It should be an easy fix.

Amp Guts Porn:




Here you can see the two blown resistors


Blown cap in the bottom of this picture. It's really hard to see.




Another view of the blown cap.

Roland S-770: Who would have thought I need this old stuff?

On a whim I bought a Roland S-770 sampler. It was made in 1989. Stock it features 1MB of memory, expandable to 16MB. The one I bought has the full 16MB. It has ADSR filters and come cool editing capabilities for 1989, however, I have not used it yet. The internal hard drive, used to store the samples (a full 40MB hard drive!) was busted. It turned on, but when it searched for a hard drive there was a clicking-grinding noise, so I can't use it yet. Eventually I will swap the floppy drive with a Zip drive (and that will replace the hard drive too), but for now I've been trying to get it to fully start up. This requires booting the thing from a floppy drive. The fun part is that it will only take a 770kb DD floppy. I am not sure that I have actually ever seen one of those before, 1.44MB yes, but not 770kb.

Zip drives and DD floppies. Who would have thought I'd be needing these things in 2010.

Anyway, here be some guts:

Ensoniq ESQ-1 Update

After some research I decided it is easiest to try to program new EPROMS my self. I can download the OS off of the internet. I found an EPROM burner for $30 on eEay, and I bought a bunch of EPROMS from Mouser. If all goes well, I will have a working ESQ-1 in about a week. All probably won't go well though.

Where There's Smoke...

Well, no fire, but there was smoke.

I was jamming with a friend on Sunday, playing thought the Fender Bassman when suddenly no sound. Initially I thought a cable had a short in it, so I started kicking and jiggling things. Then the smell. Caustic. If you have ever smelled it before you immediately know what it is. Burning electronics components. Panic.

I turned around and saw smoke coming from the Bassman. I ran over and unplugged it.

I'm 99 percent sure a capacitor blew in the power supply. Hell, the thing is over 40 years old. I'm not surprised. At least I have another project...

Kawai K3m and update

Based on the last picture you might have figured out that I bought another synth. It is a Kawai K3m. I bought in on eBay, and it is in fantastic shape. It looks like I bought it new yesterday. This is a hybrid synth. Digital mixed with analog. It also uses two types of synthesis to make awesome sounds.

The wave forms are generated by additive synthesis. It builds up the harmonics to create unique sounding waveforms. It has 31 preset waveforms and one user defined waveform, plus white noise. This allows for a lot of really cool sounds. These are all digitally generated. 

The analog part lies in the filters, using subtractive synthesis. This is what separated this synth from many others in its class. The analog filters smooth out the digital waveforms and make it sound very natural. 

You can assign the LFO to the VCA, Filter, or oscillators. It also has aftertouch. You can have the aftertouch control the filter, balance between the oscillators, the VCA, and the LFO.

It also has built in effects; five choruses, a tremolo and a delay.

You can get a lot of really great sounds with these features. Its a pretty great synth for its price (under $200) and I bet that these will go up in price quickly when people rediscover how cool it is. Is only weakness is that is doesn't do basses too well, at least compared to something like my Juno 106. The K3m is great for pads, noises, and general synthing (I'm not sure what that actually means). It comes in a keyboards version and a rack version. I have the rack version. I guess I'm getting into rack synths now. 

Kawai K3m

Ensoniq ESQ-1

I bought this off of eBay broken. Thought it would be a fun project. I still do, but it turns out it is more broken than I thought it was. It only plays the stock piano sound and the screen is messed up:



The ESQ-1 is a rad synth. It has digital oscillators and analog filters, three LFOs, a cool envelope generator, and a built in 8 track sequencer. You can actually program this thing to sound like a techno-type drum kit. It's sick. I just need to get it to work. I have a feeling, at the very least, I will have to get the EPROMs (the thing that stores the OS) reprogramed.

I tried a hard reset, grounding the battery (to reset the RAM), checking the voltages form the power supply,  and checking to make sure all the chips are properly seated. I need to go over everything and clean off any corrosion. If it still doesn't work I think I will have to send the EPROMS away to get re-programmed.

Since I took it apart, here are some pictures:









I'll probably get around to some more trouble shooting over the weekend.

Um...hi!

New post coming soon (Sundayish) about a new old broken synth. Until then:

Happy Pi Day!

Woo!

Lights!

On Monday I saw Muse live. It was awesome. Matt's piano, which is actually a digital piano in a piano housing, has really cool lights. Every time he plays a key it lights up a light. It is a really cool effect:



As soon as I saw that I needed to figure out how to build one. Its a good thing the internet exists. After some research, I think I figured out how to do this. Its actually much easier (in theory) than I thought.

Enter the MIDI 16-Way Light Controller. It does exactly what I need it to. Takes the MIDI input and outputs a small voltage. It can output up to 16 channels. They also include a schematic for wiring multiple LEDs to the circuit:

If you have a 61 key keyboard (like I do) you will need 4 controllers, not to mention the 61 transistors and 200+ LEDs. I think it will be worth it though.

I'll keep you updated if I decide to build this.

Space and Congress

I went through a few ideas about what to post about today for the Friday science-related post. Since I have a congressional hearing on right now about NASA and its future, I'll post about that. This might turn into a rant about how much I dislike politicians.

I noticed a few things:

• Charles Bolden is a really smart guy.
• Congressmen are not. They don't seem to have a grasp of some key issues of science and technology.
• Congressman Wu from Oregon seems like a complete moron, incapable of making a clear argument. My impression of him: "Wahhh, I don't like this because I just don't. Hmmfp."
• Everyone seems to be worried about a human space-flight program.
• Props to Bolden for having to put up with these people. I couldn't do that.

The Constellation program was flawed. It was nothing new, just rehashing Apollo age technologies. Like rebuilding a 1977 Cadillac, but painting it red this time and adding a Tom Tom navigation system. I respect President Obama for his decision on this issue. It takes a lot of guts to completely cancel a program that we have already spent $10 billion on. I support this too. We need to develop new technologies to get us into space cheaper, and that is what the proposed NASA budget focuses on.

Congresswoman Giffords talked about how she (and many others) want to see more details about this shift for NASA. I agree with her. Details are important. This seem to be a reoccurring theme in this hearing. I'm not convinces that NASA has the details worked out in full, but Bolden did mention a few programs thay are currently working on.

Congresswoman Fudge had a story where she was talking to a kid who wanted to be an astronaut, and she didn't know what to say to him. She wanted to tell him to think of a new goal, because NASA will not have a maned space flight program. OK, what about private space flight? Can't he work for one of those companies (Boeing, Space X) that will soon have the capabilities to take people to space? There is a weird focus on government funded manned spaceflight, like its government funded manned spaceflight or nothing. I actually think that there is a better chance of me going to space if we have a few private companies that have the ability to get there.

She is also worried about the priorities shifting and having the funding for proposed programs canceled in the near future. If that is your worry, you are in the wrong field. Stuff like that happens in the world of politics all the time. I like to think that if it is a well thought out plan, then it will last.

One overlooked goal of the NASA Bidget is the development of a heavy-lift rocket. NASA is looking long-term, not just at the next ten years. This is the type of thing where government funding is useful. There is almost zero incentive right now for the private spaceflight industry to develop these type of rockets that use new technologies.

Bolden is talking about education in NASA. Important. Possibly the most important. Educating kids about NASA ans space and getting them excited about it is the best way to ensure the future of our space program, be it government or private.

It'll be interesting to see how all this plays out. Congress needs to approve the new NASA budget, and right now there seems to be a lot of resistance.

Electronic Components Part 2: I

Time for part 2 of this thing: Current. I is the second term in V=IR (obviously). It is also the one thing about electricity that scares the crap out of me. When it comes to electrical shocks, the current is what makes them deadly.

Current describes the rate of flow on the electrical charge. It is the change in coulombs (electrical charge)/change in time. Going back the the hydraulic analogy, current is the flow rate of the water. Current is measured in amperes (A).

This is a quick post. Next week will be R (resistance), and I will also bring everything together for an explanation of Ohms Law.

Synth Setup

I went to Guitar Center this weekend to pick up stuff i needed to set up my synth rack. My old keyboard stand is now used for the Oberheim DX. I bought a new 2-tiered keyboard tack to hold the two synths. I bought a small Behringer mixer too. All the synths and drum machine are plugged into the mixer. This allows me to use the FX loop on the mixer for the synths (or drum machine) and all three now have a single output. I was very excited to set everything up, and even more exited to play through it.

Pictures:

Synth pop?

I have always had a weakness for pop music. Lady GaGa is one example of this, I just can't get enough of her. I also like 80s synth-pop. I also like Nine Inch Nails, so my musical taste is all over the board.

I've been a fan of Gary Numan for a few years now. His songs have a feel and sound that is truly unique. And he sings about robots. I've been waiting to see him live since I first discovered him, but he hasn't come around.

Then there is Little Boots. Watch this video right now. Catchy pop tunes. I discovered her last year when my roommate showed me the video linked above, and I immediately fell in love.

So what do these two people have in common? A love for synthesizers. They joined forces back in December for a 45 minute session at the BBC studios. It is worth watching the entire thing, especially the Lou Reed cover at the end. They do a two solo songs each, then join up for three songs as a duetish sort of thing. Somehow, it works. Really well too, in my opinion.

Watch all five parts, it'll be worth your time.

Part 1
Part2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

The aspect ratio is off on these videos, but it was the only complete version I could find. There are interviews throughout too. Strange how their two different worlds can combine so well.