Also, any band which uses MySpace as their primary online presence will not get any visits from me. That site is too damned annoying to use.
With web space as cheap as it is and basic design as simple as it is, there’s no reason not to have at least a standard website with some info, tracklists, and other such things on it.
Earlier today I had to go to the ER because my foot was hurting. It was amazing. The result was that this mass of stuff was cut out of the bottom of my big toe. I can’t really walk right now, but… this is a lie. ;)
Actually, that photo is part of the result of a rather interesting experiment. About a month ago I purchased some tomatoes. To give you some idea of how long ago, I don’t really remember when they were purchased.
Anyway, I had two leftover tomatoes sitting on the counter and after a week they both formed some small bumps on them, almost like something was pushing out from under the surface. Cutting the first one open I found that some of the seeds had begun to sprout, so I decided to let the other be. I’d regularly set it in a place where sun through the skylight would shine on it, and generally just let it sit. About a week and a half ago the one of the shoots had finally punctured the skin of the fruit and it all was beginning dramatically soften.
Still, it hadn’t rotted. Taste tests during dissection showed that the pulp of the tomato was still very tomato-like, only lacking a bit of the normal sweetness and flavor which generally comes with a tomato. I figure that this was because a bunch of the sugars and such were used up by the germinating seeds.
At this point I decided it would be best to dissect the tomato, and that one above is part of what I found. The rest of the photos can be found here, in an album entitled The Tomato Which Wouldn’t Rot (photo gallery retired). These include:
· The tomato before I went poking around in it.
· Upon initially breaking the tomato open.
· A bunch of the sprouted bits on a paper towel.
· The leftover tomato-y remains. This is the part I tasted.
· The base of the stem, where something which looks like roots had begun to appear.
· Detail of the root-like mass at the base of the stem.
So, yeah. Definitely check out the whole gallery for The Tomato Which Wouldn’t Rot (photo gallery retired) if you’d like to see more photos. And yes, it’s now in the trash. Not that it was beginning to smell or anything, I just wanted it gone.
Irradiation or something is likely to blame for the lack of rotting, I think. Or maybe my house is just especially clean.
I doubt the latter.
Sir Mix-a-Lot’s Testarossa, despite it’s HORRIBLE vocals and awful samples, has one of the best FM synth-based rythem parts ever recorded. It just simply sounds wonderful.
Then again, lots of this cheesey 80s/90s rap has some wonderful backing music.
When at Guitar Center earlier today I got to play with a real DX7. That was nifty. I still wish I had purchased a TX816 on eBay a few years ago when I had a chance. It would have been only about $150.
Well, it’s done. After thinking about how to solve the problem and (restlessly) sleeping on it, I ended up realizing that if I bent one of the PCBs back towards the rear of the pots that things would fit into the case properly. (The bend can be seen here.) After that I was able to finish assembling the P3 and get everything up and running.
I had figured that if I bend the board back, either it’ll work or I’ll break some of the pots. If the pots break, I’m back to the worst-case scenario of having to replace all the pots. Clearly they didn’t, so all is good.
Interestingly, after I walked back upstairs to my desk I found that Colin, the guy who runs Sequentix (and a rather nice guy, from what I can tell) had seen my rather frustrated previous post regarding the pots and clearance in the enclosure and wrote to tell me that due to some slight changes he has to bend the top pot board back on production P3s. It was rather reassuring to read that note and know that the problem I ran into wasn’t unique and that the solution of bending the board back is the ‘right’ one.
So, yes. It’s all done. I’ve got a few more photos of everything up online. Here’s the more notable ones:
In Progress Album: (photo gallery retired)
· Main board and a pile of ICs and such for installation.
· Wholly populated Sequentix P3 main board.
· All cables for connecting the P3 boards, except for the short jumper between the main board and the I/O board.
· Top pot board, bent back so that the enclosure fits together properly.
· Sequentix P3 front panel fitted with cables, ready to connect to the bottom of the enclosure and the main board.
· Inside the bottom of the P3 enclosure, looking at the power connectors, mainboard, I/O board, and jumper.
· All cables inside the P3 enclosure connected, everything ready to close up.
Done! Album: (photo gallery retired)
· The P3 triggering the x0xb0x, since it’s a good synth to learn with. I think.
· Front view of the P3.
· Angle view of the P3 booting, as seen above.
· View of the Sequentix P3 showing the rear panel.
· Sequentix P3 while receiving firmware update as SYSEX data via MIDI.
· Firmware update complete, time to boot up with 3.1.006C.
For fuck’s sake. I can’t close the case on the P3.
It turns out that the pots which are recommended for those in the US are sized in a particular way which causes a particular circuit board to stick out far enough that the case won’t close. :\
The other pot option is US$1.35/ea. That’s not bad, except when you figure that I already purcahsed $32 worth of pots and they are now useless. And I can’t finish it this weekend.
I’m going to have to figure out what to do about this tomorrow.
Top of the Sequentix P3 front panel with all modules installed. Knobs are still missing, and the protective film is still over the PLED/OLED.
Ah, the Sequentix P3 which I am building (photo gallery retired) is coming along quite nicely. Last night I made a wood and tape jig for aligning the keys on the number pad while soldering them. I think the alignment came out pretty well.
I also spent a lot of time cleaning the remaining flux off of the board and assembled everything in the front panel. It’s all fitting nicely. I can’t believe how nice the Cherry keyswitches and laser etched caps look and feel. They are just perfect, just like an old, quality computer keyboard.
Now I just need to wait for a few ICs to come in from Digi-Key, plug in the chips, and make the cables to connect the boards. :D
I’m getting excited about it.
I just hope it works…
UPDATE: It turns out that the Digi-Key order is being delivered today. I might be able to finish it tonight! (Hrm, I don’t have a mixer… so I can play a bunch of stuff at once, but not listen to it / record it. Oops.)
[Cross posted to
Well, the first order of Casio SK-1 MIDI Mod has been ordered from PCBEX.com. I decided to order from them this time as opposed to PCBFABEXPRESS because there were no listed prohibitions against paneling PCBs nor a maximum average number of holes per square inch. (PCBFABEXPRESS wanted a max of 25, where I was at ~25.24 and couldn’t easily eliminate any more vias.) Hopefully boards from them are decent.
If things go according to plan and the boards actually work, I should have them available for sale as kits within the next couple of weeks. I don’t have final pricing yet, but I expect it to be under US$50 for all parts needed. People will just have to assemble it and put it in their SK-1.
Ahh. I finally took the time to create an entry on my site for info about the x0xb0x.
My goal is to eventually list all the background info on projects which I would normally post just to LiveJournal on the site itself, that way the information is more readily accessable. Hopefully within the next few days I’ll finally get information about the PAiA FatMan Rebuild (aka PAiA FatMan Plus) (photo gallery retired), the iPod installation in my car (photo gallery retired), the iSight Tripod Adapter (photo gallery retired), the cheap lighting rig (photo gallery retired), and maybe a few other things.
Now I’m going to head home and (hopefully) work on the P3 (photo gallery retired) some more, confirm that the board for that Casio SK-1 MIDI input fits in the enclosure, and… oh yeah. Eat dinner.
Today I received the enclosure for the Sequentix which I am building. It arrived especially quickly, and I’m quite happy with how it’s made. As one would probably expect, I kept going on the assembly of it tonight, and by the time I called off work I had finished assembling the pot boards and poking around with things.
The I/O board is also complete, but that was done a few days ago. I’ve also almost wrapped up the main board and function switch boards, they are just missing a few small parts which should arrive in the next day or two.
then it’s just a matter of polishing everything off, waiting for the ROMs and a few harder to find ICs from Digi-Key and finishing things up.
Yay!
About that time the MIDIbox SID-NUXX’s should be done too, and I’ll finally have something to trigger the everything with.
Now I’m off to bed.
In the mean time, if you’d like to look at some other photos from my assembly of the P3, check out these links: The Parts (photo gallery retired) · In Progress (photo gallery retired)
Is there anyone who is reading this who has an EPROM programmer (and eraser, maybe) that I can borrow?
DOS / Windows / Linux / whatever support, I can make it work.
I need to write up to five 2732A EPROMs.
Thanks very much.
