Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Mechanical Mower

This was a fun project.  Screwed the handle back on to this mechanical mower of my parents', and now we mow our lawn with it!


cueStick...

It may be early to post about this, but my friend Dave and I have an idea.  Numbers are nice inside the computer, but they're even better in a funny little box.  With JeeNodes, some java and shift registers, you can get just that!  This idea is more developed than that, I promise, but like I said, it may be early to post about this.  Here are some pictures:

Washtub Bass!

My friend Corrina and I made a washtub bass together.  I was going to play it in a play (called the Grapes of Wrath, maybe you've heard of it?) with my friends Meredith, Linnea and Emily, but I forgot I had a thesis I had to finish and an opera to play in (oddly enough, also called the Grapes of Wrath!) and I was very disappointed, but the bass lived on!  Here's how we made it:

I don't remember now, but I'm pretty sure I got most of my details from this website. These instructions are good too!

In fact, their directions are good enough, so here are some pictures instead.  Lazy blogging!











Tuesday, July 19, 2011

First Show!

So, I had my first gig!  This is a short update, and you can see my set here on vimeo.  Thanks to WisaalThe Anatomy of Frank and Tim Lane at Scene Metrospace.  More Soon!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

New Audio Interface

I think I'm going to buy a new audio interface, with more ins/outs.  I really just need one more than the two that I have, but I'm tempted to go all out and get this Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, but I'm waffling about it, because I'd love to use it with linux too.

(image from sweetwater.com)

More research to do, but I was reading a little about firewire audio devices with linux here.  More soon!

Monday, July 11, 2011

qlist!

[qlist] is a Pd object that I haven't tried before, and it will do exactly what I need (I hope and assume, as the help file has assured me as such).

Instead of "looping," I'm going to record a series of events in this [qlist] object, and establish that that is a thing, a duration of time, a measure, or whatever.  It's not playing back audio, but more like making a little MIDI file, and playing it back, but without the crappy sound baggage.  What I mean to say is that I'm recording the relative timing between me pressing this pedal, turning this knob, and saying this thing, and it will remember and repeat (and repeat and repeat if I want).

Let's see if it works!

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Music Project

I've lapsed for a long time, and a lot has changed.  I'm out of school, and I'm out of things to do, except the thing that I've always wanted to do.  That thing is to make music of my own and play it a lot.  So, this is me changing and doing that.  I'm moving away from the town I grew up in, writing new kinds of material, and making plans for logistics of this new project, and it's all very exciting.

You might wonder why I'm writing about it on my tech projects blog.  I've been trying to think of a name for this solo project I'm starting, and it occurred to me that Blitobot Research isn't bad, and it might even be the truth.  All the things I make on here are about me trying to link the different things in my life, and this music project will be techy indeed!

So, the content on this will shift a little bit, but not really that much.  I'm guessing it will become more frequent though :)

ps. I just started a new website, and I'm trying to decide whether to keep it.  Sorry if this moves there...