some sounds we like

Along with Derek getting a mac, more good news is that I got pure data working, so … this movie cracks me up. Thanks D!

Technorati Tags: PD, pure data, puredata

right-click to save: Derek Scott at Bliss Factory - DEFSF

Derek Scott, aka The Rhythmist [Dobox], has probably the best ear for song selection I’ve ever heard. His taste in music is astoundingly interesting to me. Maybe it’s the benefit I’ve had of having innumerable conversations with him about music and what makes a song great, but every time I hear a DJ set from him, I feel like I’m listening to something special. He’s a walking encyclopedia of knowledge for electronic music… from its long history, to todays production methods and new ways of promotion. I think this gives him a unique combination of skills and sense of aural aesthetics that are not like anyone else. If you’re into minimal techno, you’ll probably enjoy this set. To say it’s minimal isn’t quite right, because minimal tech usually isn’t this funky and full of soul. It’s not “house” per se, because there’s an unmistakable *tech* streak all the way through. So, yeah… it’s hard to pin down exactly what kind of music this is. Ok, like this:

This DJ set was recorded on April 25th, 2008 from DEFSF’s Radio Integrated show out of Bliss Factory in Alameda, California. Runtime is approximately 01:50:00. Many apologies for my relatively weak DSL bandwidth and the subsequent skips in the audio stream you’ll hear. If and when we can get our hands on the original audio feed file from DEFSF, we’ll point you to it.

You may catch a few tracks you know in this amazing set, but you’re going to be exposed to some tracks you won’t hear anyone else play, and I think you’ll want to hear more. Definitely head on over to the netlabel he founded named Dobox Recordings.

I’ve learned so much about piezos, microcontrollers, serial data capture, graphing. All from people I’ve never even met in person. Tod E. Kurt’s work on the Arduino MIDI drum kit lead me to want to replicate the project for myself, and I’ve been running into some very tricky problems with the sensors triggering samples two or three times. I got a boost of confidence that I was detecting a real problem thanks to the fine work done by mschaff’s Ardrumo project. Now, thanks very much to Tom Igoe’s article on Sensor Graphing using a tiny arduino sketch, the terminal, and grapher.app, I can actually scientifically diagnose the reason why this is happening.

Using the DIY kick pedal that I’ve been working on…

I was able to capture and graph the data that the sensor is outputting. Here are a few screenshots of the highlights:

This first screenshot shows a good peak, right at the beginning of the strike. Then the ringing begins. If, for instance, I had the threshold set to 500, this would trigger not just one, but *three* midi notes. Ok, but what if I had set the threshold to closer to 750? a big problem with that is that I’m losing a lot of the dynamic quality of the kick pedal. I’d have to hammer on it just to register above the minimum value, and then there’s no way to play it quietly. Every kick would end up being 750 or higher.

But wait, there’s more! Here’s another reading:

Wow, so even if I had set the threshold to 750, I’d *STILL* get three notes off this one kick pedal strike! And then just to mix it up even more:

Here is yet another pattern of the data. a short hop at the beginning well under a reasonable threshold of 250, and then a reading over 500, and then an even higher reading on the “second wave”…

So, the question still remains… how to get a clean sensor reading? Here’s my current idea:

Charting it out helps. Now I just need to try to write the code so it follows this to test it out. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Technorati Tags: ardrumo, arduino, DIY, drum, e-drum, mschaff, tigoe, todbot, trigger

Tomorrow (Wednesday) night we’re going to have the second meeting of SHARE San Jose (see http://share-sj.org for more info). Unlike the first meeting (which was a jam/talk session) this one will be talk/show, at a coffee shop in Campbell. It will be fairly informal - there will be opportunity for people to introduce themselves, talk about how our next jam session will be organized (which will be at Anno Domini), and talk/show whatever people bring to talk/show about. Details:

Wednesday Jan 23, 7:30pm (coffee shop closes at 10pm)
Orchard Valley coffee shop
349 E. Campbell Ave.
Campbell, CA 95008

Feel free to being laptops to show/demo things. Headphones & splitters may come in handy.

…Tim…

Be there!

Technorati Tags: sharesj

I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with the double or triple trigging notes from my implementation of Tod E. Kurt’s piezo sensor arduino MIDI project. Near as I can tell, the resonance of the piezo seems to be almost as hard as the initial strike to the sensor. I can’t figure out what else would be causing double triggering at every level of threshold I set for the analog in pin.

I’m just stabbing at science on this. Derek said it best just a few minutes ago:

were’s an oscilloscope when you need one?

So a few things that I’m wondering about. One is to keep the analog pin open for a static amount of time instead of the dynamic period of time that the Todbot code prescribes… Two is to make sure that the current going into the analog pin is only flowing one way with the help of a zener diode… Thirdly, it could be is that the surface I have the sensor attached to may be *too* resonant, and is compounding the problem.

so I’m going to try some of these things tonight…

I was very glad to see the Ardrumo project, and in such a timely fashion, too. While I had limited success with it, I wouldn’t chalk it up to anything but my own system and setup. I should try it again and see if it works now that I have my electronics side in much better shape.

Here’s a diagram I made of the setups I’ve tried and am working on… These are your options if you’re on a mac…

Technorati Tags: arduino, DIY, drum, e-drum, electronic, engineering, experimental, MIDI, ardrumo, todbot, trigger

Things are progressing nicely! After mocking up a proof of concept model, I realized that the position of the pedal is crucial to it working correctly. I then consulted my local Guitar Center’s drummer section to get some more insights into how the “real” pedals work. Turns out my original sketchup drawing wasn’t too far off the mark. I made a couple of minor adjustments to accommodate the materials I’m using, but overall it’s turning out how I envisioned it. Not having blocks of metal to work with made me realize how inadequate wood is for some of the heartier mechanical parts. the hardwood “spring block” serves two functions. One is to bind the mallet’s axel to a predictable orientation, and secondly to attach to the springs. Essentially I’m using a too-long 8/32 bolt as a set screw. After grinding down a flat spot on the axel, I torqued down on the set screw, and it snapped the wood along the grain. I recut this piece with a different grain orientation and it still the the same thing… so I ran two smaller bolts along side the set screw to reinforce the wood perpendicular to the grain, and now it’s solid as a rock.

All of the instructions I’ve seen for these DIY drumpads say to epoxy the sensor onto whatever underlaying material you’re going to use as the drum head, but I used double sided carpet tape…. mostly because it’s wicked strong, thin, and I already had it at arm’s reach when I was working on that part.

the mallet itself is a 4″ x 3/8″ bolt or something similar… with a cut piece of doubled over mousepad, wound as tightly around the head of the bolt as I could get it and then taped over… I found a handful of sample mousepads at work and figured they’d come in handy… I didn’t really have a plan for the mallet, but this worked out really nicely.

I think I can improve on the spring situation by buying one proper spring instead of using two chained together. Like all good DIY projects, my main and primary goal is to spend as little money as possible.

I’m having a harder time getting the software and MIDI to all work… Mostly the midi. The arduino software seems to be working nicely. So hopefully next update will show me happily banging on my fully functional midi drum trigger.

Anyway, I *really* love fabricating these kinds of things. Gotta love that bandsaw. It’s a pain in the ass to change the blade, but I’m back from a 1″ to a 1/4″ blade so it’s back to being more of a versatile tool.

Technorati Tags: arduino, diy, drum, e-drum, electronic, experimental, trigger

Peter was a late addition to the First Friday event at Works/San Jose for september 2007. He did a music set and then did visuals for us for the rest of the night. He wrote to let me know of his upcoming gig:

Hi All,

I’m participating in the Illuminated Corridor on Wednesday evening at 7:16pm, near 8th and Folsom in SF. We’re filling the walls of the Prelinger library with projections from their archives, and filling your ears (and the neighborhood fm radio spectrum) with sound.

Continue reading ‘Peter Nyboer at the Prelinger Library’ »

Yeeeeeeeeah! DJ Mudfoot going back 10 years for some classics!

Technorati Tags: drum and bass, mudfoot

Apple has released Logic Express 8!

Now with Ultrabeat and the ES2! WOOHOO!!!

Technorati Tags: apple, express, logic, logic express