Gee, it would be kind of embarassing to have to post this article.
Nifty PIC-Based Synthesizer Modules
There’s a fellow with a website here that documents a clever idea for building LFOs and ADSRs using PIC microcontrollers rather than the usual handful of analog components. I’m quite sure that this would be a less expensive way to build these modules, and one could build exotic things like DX7-style rate/level EGs instead of plain-vanilla ADSRs. He even provides his source code for the firmware. I might build the ADSR on a breadboard just to see how it performs. (Personally I prefer AVR chips to PICs, but hey, if all I have to do is assemble somone else’s code and burn it, I’m not gonna complain about his choice in CPUs.)
Naughty Apple
It seems that Apple isn’t above monkeying with its stock options to polish its financial image a little. There’s an article in the NY Times here that says while current employees have been cleared of any wrongdoing, the investigation is still in progress and Apple will have to restate its earnings. Nope, it just never looks good when the CFO has to resign from the board.
Good Old Weird Al
Here’s a great video of a recent Weird Al song. It’s nice to see that he’s still as brilliant and funny as he was 20 years ago.
Somewhat fittingly, Tracie found this video just as I was on my way out to the garage to work on my retro-arcade game controller, and I’m typing this on my ergonomic keyboard…
Aww, Poor Digidesign
I really shouldn’t gloat over the misfortune of other companies in the music-tech biz, but somehow I can’t help but smirk a little. Seems that Digidesign’s parent company Avid got the attention of the financial world by announcing that sales of ProTools have fallen off badly recently. Their stock then fell 14% in response. Bummer. Maybe Digi’s monopolistic stranglehold on the DAW market is weakening more than I thought. Maybe people are starting to figure out that just because ProTools is ubiquitous doesn’t mean that you should use it, or that there aren’t better products for less money, etc.
Earthlink Sucks, Lunarpages Rocks, and Comcast Blazes
I just cancelled my Earthlink accounts (one for general internet access, one for DSL). I’ve had the DSL account for five years and the general account for… uh… ten years, maybe? I opened it long enough ago that my email address was a single dictionary word. It’s a little odd to no longer have that as my default email address, but I’ll get used to it.
There were several reasons. One was that the quality of their customer support declined rather sharply when they outsourced the operation to India. Another was that I discovered that Comcast’s cable-modem service costs the same as Earthlink’s DSL service and is dramatically faster. (Suddenly YouTube makes sense. At DSL speeds all of the videos are blurry and not terribly fun to watch; at cable speeds they look like local video files.)
My Hero
Okay, at the risk of public embarassment I’ll state here that “I Feel Love” is one of my all-time favorite synth songs. Here’s a video of the guy that did it:
New Photos Up
Tracie just put a bunch of new photos up in the photo gallery. They’re mostly pictures of flowers and plants in our back yard, and some of the cats. (Yes, photos of our cats! Such a surprise, no?) Click here to go there.
Today’s Word Puzzle
[Not that I have a daily word puzzle, mind you.]
There are three words in the English language that start with the letters “DW”. What are they?
(Thanks to Chris for mentioning this.)
Epoxy for Attaching Stand-offs to Panels
Several people have written to ask me about the “liquid steel epoxy” I mention on this site. It turns out I was calling it the wrong thing; its correct name is Plastic Steel Epoxy. The manufacturer’s product page is here. I imagine that any epoxy would work for the task, but the Plastic Steel formula is stronger for metal-to-metal bonding than the other formulas. I would avoid using the “5-Minute” formulas because the longer set-up times of the other formulas make it easier to get the stand-offs into their proper locations.