CEntrance MicPort Pro

Here's a sweet little gadget my father in law showed me over Easter Sunday. It's called the MicPort Pro by CEntrance Inc. It is a 24-bit/96kHz broadcast quality USB mic preamp that is used by many big 3 letter acronym names we all know and love....you know, BBC, CNN, CBS.

This baby enables instant recording with your dynamic or condenser microphones and Windows XP, Vista or Mac OS 10.5. computers. It also features 48V phantom power and headphone output for zero latency monitoring.

This thing is awesome for someone who has a favorite mic and laptop but does not want to pack around a mixer. A podcasters dream. Field interviews. I could go on.

Check out this video of the CEntrance MicPort Pro and see if its next on your list of got to haves.

Mixman DM2

I ran across this at a garage sale about three houses down from my house. I really did not even know what it was except for the fact that it had something to do with turntables and it was a usb device so it would hook to a PC somehow. I asked them how much they wanted for it and they said 10 dollars. I then asked them if they had the software for it to which they said "whats that" and I said the disc.....long pause.......the CD....longer pause......the DVD. Ohhhh!, no we don't have that anymore, will it work without it? how about 5 dollars? Anyway I got it for 5 dollars, got it home and plugged it into my xp machine and what do ya know, no auto recognize. I didn't think it would but it was worth a try right.

I figured that would be an easy fix right, just go to the manufactures website and get the drivers like every other normal company in the world, no need to finish this sentence huh? It took me over a week of looking on forums and different sites to find a copy of the original software that came with this thing. I finally found a torrent on a forum and it was almost dead with one seeder (thank you unknown seeder whom we will never know who you are, you still rock) it took a week to get the thing downloaded. So I finally got it downloaded and burnt to disc and started playing with it and for a toy(which it turned out to be btw) its was pretty cool but none the less at the end of the day it was still a toy. You could scratch and make some little prefab beats and save them to their own little format for the mixman software and stuff. My kid loves it, but like I said from a musicians standpoint I would call it a toy.

I put it up on my little shelf where I put all of my older drum machines and other stuff that I don't play anymore but I still think look cool just laying around my studio on display. (cmon, you know you do that too) It set there for a month or two and I was looking around the net one day and somehow ran across a website called dm2.proboards23.com.

This website had a whole forum of Mixman DM2 users who used the hacked software called DM2 to midi. It turned the DM2 into a midi controller! I grabbed that thing off the shelf quicker than lager turns to pipì.

I had this thing triggering Ableton live in no time. I used it for about a month and it was pretty cool. Here is Mixmans website if you wanna check them out. I don't know if I would say it something to buy at retail price but pretty cool if you run across a deal like I did or some sweet eBay action. I also found a direct link to get the DM2 to midi software.

To Vista or not to Vista, that is the question

It's been a while since I have posted. I have sat down many times in the last week only to get three words in and hear the words "DADDY COME HERE, or HELP MEEEE ". Anyway, no more excuses, if you have kids then you know and if you don't one day you will say "now I know what that dude with that blog was talking about".

One of my PC's bit the dust 3 days ago. I can't complain since this was one I brought back to life that a friend had retired and it was 8 years old. This time time rather than upgrading it and replacing the HDD I just said forget it and went to work and started looking for something new.

I ended up buying an open box PC (after working around computers they somehow loose their worth like anything else one works around everyday so I just cant pay sticker for a brand new bleeding edge machine anymore). Anyway, like I said, I ended up with an open box PC with a Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Processor, 400GB sata HDD, dvdrw, built in wireless g, blah blah blah. It had 2 GB of DDR2 RAM from the factory but it was running Vista so I went ahead and put 2 more in it. Overall I think I got a really nice PC and did not spend over 500 dollars on it even with the extra RAM so I am not complaining.

So now we come to the point of this post. I work with Vista all day long for a living and do not really have a problem with it 99 percent of the time. BUT..... (big word huh) 99 percent of my customers use their computers to surf the net and check email. I and most everyone I assume who reads a blog like this use their computers for more than checking their email so we might run into a couple of snags running Vista. I'm not saying, I'm more like asking.

All the way home I was contemplating removing Vista all together and loading my copy of XP Pro on this machine for a couple of reasons. One is that since I have been playing with Vista for over a year now I am over the initial WOW factor of aero-flip and the windows side bar (that took about a day) so the only thing I would really miss about Vista in comparison to XP would be the search feature. Two is I already KNOW all of my drivers for all of my third party software work with XP. and Three is I just wanna see how fast XP will run with a dual core processor and 4 gigs of RAM.

Now we come to my second delima. The computer that broke is not my studio PC. The PC in my studio is working just fine, it was our everyday user upstairs that broke. It has crossed my mind to take the new bad boy computer and use it for my studio (hence all the talk above about Vista not working with my third party software). Then I woulld use my studio pc for everyday use upstairs. BUT...theres that word again...BUT there is nothing wrong with my studio PC and I kinda believe in "if it aint broke dont fix it". The PC my studio is running on is a P4 2.something with 2 GB of RAM with 2 160gb sata drives in it and I have no complaints. It would also be a horrible pain in the head to reload everything again just to find something with the new machine was incompatible or to find out I did not gain any performance.

SOOOOO this is where my blog will hopefully prevail. Has anybody used Vista with Ableton live or any mainstream DAWs for that matter? Has anyone noticed a difference in you DAW's performance between single,dual,or quad core processors? Any feedback would be great, for now I think I'm just gonna put this thing upstairs and use it to check my Gmail.

I will say that even with Vista this thing seems to fly with all the junk stripped from it and 4 gigs so I'm happy for now even if I am just checkin my mail.

The Continuum Fingerboard

The Continuum Fingerboard is something I ran across a week or so ago an have been meaning to post about. It looks exactly like a keyboard except it has no white keys, no black keys, and no buttons... Ok, so it doesn't look like a keyboard but it kinda plays like one...well sorta...a little but not really. You will just have to check this thing out because its hard to explain. Here is a video of Jordan Rudess playing one. I'm sure it is a LOT harder to play than he makes it look since this is him completely killing this Korg Triton.

The Board was designed by Dr. Lippold Haken and manufactured by Haken Audio. It is a Midi / Firewire performance controller with one of the most original interfaces I have ever seen.

The Continuum offers real time continuous control in three directions for every finger that is placed on the playing surface. You can slide your finger up and down or side to side kinda like a laptop touch pad to get different sounds and effects. Shake you finger a little on a held note and wallah, instant vibrato. I'm sure once you got familiar with the Continuum Fingerboard you could express yourself with this instrument like no other. It is compatible with any Midi synthesizer, sound module, or sequencer.

Check out Haken Audio's website to get all the info and listen to some audio samples of this amazing instrument.

Ohm from Livid Instruments

The Ohm is high-quality MIDI instrument designed for real-time audio and video performance. It has blue lighted back lit keys for use in low lit environments such as clubs, and comes in rugged rack mount metal or handcrafted mahogany. It also features a thirty-six button clip bank, high-quality faders and knobs, BPM tap and a DJ-style crossfader.

As a DJ controller, or Ableton Live controller this thing would be awesome. It's mac or PC.

This controller provides both MIDI out and USB connectivity. For me honestly....I just think the thing looks COOL!

It does have a little sticker shock to it with a Introductory Price of $790 but It's no worse than paying $90 for a pair of jeans with holes in the knees that are sold in a store where the music is as loud as a night club....right? Anyway you can check out the Ohm here and be the judge of that.

CD Turntable Refurbishment

This little guy spent a long time in a night club. I'm sure if this thing could talk it could tell you some stories. In it's stay atop the DJ booth it inhaled a LOT of smoke and had a cocktail or two spilled on it. It's FFW and RWD buttons did not work, nor did the play button. The jog wheel was sticky, and it was just dirty all the way through. I must say it did still play cds even after all of that.

This thing was about to see the trash can when I decided to take a chance on it and see what I could do.

It took about 3 hours of cleaning and soldering to get this thing back on it's feet but when all was said and done it looks and plays like a brand new one.

I had an old broken VCR of my mom's in the trash. (because I had tried to repair it and failed) It had the same kind of buttons on it for the play and FFW as the CD player so I got out the soldering iron and started removing them from the VCR. Once I had that done I removed the gummed up ones from the CD player and re soldered the ones from the VCR on the circuit board of the player. The buttons were a little shorter so I shaved a little of the plastic from the bigger buttons (the ones you actually push, not the ones on the board) so they would go down far enough to make contact.

I cleaned everything up and let the plastic parts soak in soapy water for 15 min. or so. I used a Q-tip and alcohol to remove the pop/nicotine from the places I could not get wet. After all was said and done I basically have a near new Pioneer CDJ100S.

So, as I have said before, don't be so quick to toss that high dollar piece of equipment when it goes down. Digg into it and see what happens, after all if you mess it up who cares, it was broke anyway.

Electribe x 3

I have been on a scavenger hunt for this trio on eBay for quite some time now and I am finally finished. It took a lot of shopping but I have somehow managed to get all three of these little monsters for the price of 1 (if you were paying retail that is).

eBay is a great place to get stuff for cheap if you are willing to put the time in looking every night until that sweet deal comes along. I got my EA-1 for 60 dollars! I paid 140 for my ER-1 MK2 at a local pawn shop and just today I received my ES-1 MK2 via UPS from eBay that I paid 152 dollars for. All of these retailed for over 400 brand new and the ES-1 still retails for 599.

I cant wait to get all of these bad boys in sync and see what beats I can come up with. The ES-1 is one bad sampler I hear, Ill let ya know once I dig into it. I was looking around online for some training videos on any of the Electribe series but came up with nothing??? If anyone knows of any please let me know. I have the manuals but I like video tutorials much better.

Yeahhhh eBay!!!

Open Lab's Miko LX

Open Labs has designed the Miko specifically for the electronic artist and lifestyle. It is windows XP based with a 250gb hard disk and does it all. This thing looks incredible. It has built in touch screen, keyboard, and a cd/dvd burner. You can do Composition, Remix, and Performances with this machine.

The Miko is also a complete home theater system including surround sound and dual head video outputs capable of resolution higher than HD. It is capable of hosting up to 250 plug-ins and effects at once, playing over 500-voice polyphony. Hows that for processing power.

This workstation combines the capabilities of a professional musical keyboard, a dedicated DJ section, and control surfaces into one fully integrated-compact package with 64-bit processing technologies plus the ability to store gigs of data like vst's or anything else your pc would do.

Its basically like taking your whole studio with you.

Jonathan Davis of Korn used one of these to do a lot of his music. He plugged his guitar right into it and recorded it on the fly. Timbaland also swears by the Miko. You can plug anything into this like a mic, guitar, etc and record, edit, and burn to cd to have it ready for playing without ever touching a pc. That's a lot from a single piece of equipment no bigger than some keyboards.

The Miko also has a feature called "MimiK" which enables it to clone any digital piano or hardware sound module, even their after-touch and effects. The 15 inch touch screen will allow you to recreate the controls of the hardware that you cloned (sampled). Sweet huh?

Ok here's the kicker.....$3499. It sounds like a lot but if you really think about it you probably have that much tied up with your pc, controllers, cables and all. Anyway this thing looks way cool and I cant wait to try one out. Here is a video of the Miko in action.

LightSnake USB MIDI Cable

Soundtech Profssional Audio has produced a quick way to hook that older midi device into your pc with ease. Its called the Lightsnake USB midi and its pretty handy to have around.

The LightSnake connects any standard MIDI instrument or controller directly into a computer's USB port. The cable's MIDI I/O allows your computer to control and communicate with a range of musical gear. It also has a feature called "live when lit" where the cable ends glow when properly connected.....Sweet.

They are around 80 bucks and are 10 feet long. They also come with a Sony Media Software Demo DVD that is compatible with Windows 2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.2 and later.

The Hang Drum ? Very cool indeed

I was sifting through Youtube a minute ago and saw something so cool I decided to post about it right now. I saw this video of a guy with this big metal biscuit looking thing sitting on his lap. He started tapping on it with his fingers and it sounded very similar to the steel drums (or piano drums) you hear in the Caribbean. It is called a Hang drum (pronounced hung) and they are way cool. Right off the bat I wanted one. I looked at some more videos and it just made me want one even more. So its off to eBay, I'm sure there will be some on there......nope. There was one but it had 2 days left and was already up to 3025 dollars! I cant believe an instrument Ive never heard of costs this much.
After doing more searching I found no websites selling them and only a few that even talked about them. I also found that the instrument had only been around since 2000. Its not every day a completely new instrument is created (at least one that is not electronic). The hang made its debut at Musikmesse Frankfurt in 2001. Its design is attributed to the instrument builders Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer. Supposedly their workshop in Berne is where every Hang in existence was made. They do not ship instruments directly nor do they sell them through any retailers. (makes ya want one even more now huh?)

Anyway I thought this was a very cool instrument but ill be waiting until others start producing the knockoffs I guess because I don't see me going to Berne or dropping 5000-8000 dollars on eBay for one in the near future.

Oh yeah This guy has a good idea. He made one out of a propane tank for 27 dollars, not even close to the same sound but fun none the less. Here is a video of his "Hank Drum"

IBook G4

Well I took the plunge last week. We all know I'm a PC guy who knows nothing about fruit but I got a good deal on an IBook G4 laptop last week that I couldn't pass up. I got it home and turned it on and it booted into the very unfamiliar world of OSX. I found myself with that same feeling you get when you cant find your car at the mall, just kinda staring at the screen with my face lit up all blue from the monitor.

Where is start ? WHERE IS START ?? ..... OK, no start. Click this thing.....OK Where is the Internet? ....WHERE IS THE INTERNET ?? My night went on and on like this until 1 in the morning. After a while I started picking up on the whole layout of things and its not as hard as I once thought. I did manage to get Garage Band open and play with it for a while. I must say I was impressed to see that no matter what midi controller I plugged into this thing it never asked for a driver.

Garage Band was pretty fun, especially for something that comes stock on a laptop. ( I assume it came stock, it is used so maybe it doesn't, I don't know? ) Anyway I am not planning on leaving Ableton Live anyway soon.

All in all this little trendy laptop is fun if for know other reason than it's something new to play with. I like the size (it's the 12 in screen) and of course I love the little glowing Apple on the lid, I mean cmon...IT'S A GLOWING APPLE.

Anyway, I'm not planning on switching my PC in the studio to a mac anyway soon but for 200 dollars I figure I couldn't go wrong. btw, its a powerpc 1.33MHz processor with 784 ram and running an OS called Tiger..........ROARRRRR!!

Circuit bending my Casio SK1

I was over at a friend's house last year (whaddup Shanthi) and he showed me something that I thought was really cool. He had an old Speak and Spell. Remember those things...." A...E...I...O....U......" even if you are too young to remember them I'm sure you have heard Dane Cook talk about them, If not just Google it. Anyway, this was not just any old Speak and Spell. It had extra knobs and switches all over it and had an Atari paddle controller hooked to it? ? ?

I stared at it for and while and then I just had to ask. What the heck is that? He got all excited and turned it on to show me what it did. "this is my circuit bent Speak and Spell" he said and turned it on and started hitting the buttons. At first it sounded just like a regular one pronouncing the letters of the alphabet just like normal but then.......(drum roll).......then he switched one of the toggles on it and started turning the Atari paddle and it started making some crazy, demonic sounds right out of a Crystal method or Prodigy album. I was blown away, I played with it for 30 minutes or so.

He said his wife found a guy on the Internet that circuit bends toys and little keyboards and she bought it from him. At the time I had never even heard of circuit bending but I bet you can guess the topic I googled when I got home. I spent night after night reading on the topic. I found that the instruments/toys of choice for a lot of people to "bend" are Casio keyboards. The one that is considered the Holy Grail of them to bend was the Casio SK1 sampling keyboard from the early 1990's. I was stoked to read that because, guess what yours truly had in his basement? That's right, I had a Casio SK1 from way back in the day. (brb, my bagel bites are done)

Alrighty, as I was saying I had an SK1. I had to build up my nerve to rip this thing open and start soldering on the board especially since I had done almost no soldering before. I got on eBay to make sure I could get another one if i fried this one. I found that there were a lot of them on eBay but The prices were pretty high and they all had titles like "ready to bend" in them so there is obviously a lot of people doing this. I tossed caution to the wind and dug in.

I found many sites about circuit bending and one dedicated to bending the SK1 with exact directions on how this guy did his. It gave step by step instructions so I pretty much followed them to the t (or tee, or tea ???)

I worked on it for about a week, a little here and a little there and got it all wired up. I added toggles and pots at a lot of bend points and got it making some pretty crazy sounds. The only thing left I have to do is make a case for it now. Here is a pic of a stock SK1. Here is a totally tricked out bent one. Pretty cool huh?

I'll post a pic and some links to some of the sounds when I'm done with it. It's a lot of fun and you can start with any 2 dollar toy from a thrift store and work your way up from there. Give it a try.

Repaired my Electribe for $1.40 and some Research.

If you read last night's post then you know I was not a happy man when I saw smoke coming from my Korg Electribe ER1 last night. I spent an hour researching to find out anything I could about the problem. I found KorgForums.com (awesome site BTW) and got some answers just by reading older posts.

I found someone who had a Korg Triton that had popped and quit powering up. They found it to be a very inexpensive capacitor that had blown and had someone repair it at a local shop for a little over a hundred dollars.

I do not have a hundred dollars, I have 3 kids instead. I opened up the unit and the first thing I saw was a blown capacitor. Then I went to youtube and found some videos of people soldering ,then I went to some other sites to do the research on capacitors and replacing them. The next day I took the board with the blown cap on it to a local electronics store and showed the tech at the bench. He was nice enough to show me how to do the repair and I bought a new cap for 1 dollar and 40 cents.

It took about an hour for me to fix it but I'm sure it would have taken him 3 min. Anyway $1.40 beats 100 or so and I learned something in the process. I'm sure it is not always this easy but in this case it was so before you toss out an expensive piece of hardware just because it wont come on and smoke rolled out of it get on the web and do some research, It might be worth your time.

HELP! I think I toasted my Korg ER-1 MK2

Last night I went to plug in my ER1 and I noticed that it did not light up in its normal fashion. A couple of seconds later (like 10) I heard a pop and then saw smoke coming from around the jack where the dc9v adapter plugs in. I immediately unplugged it and shouted an array of words that I will refrain from typing in this post.

I called one of my friends from work who has had an electribe repaired around here before. He said it costs him around 80 bucks. I paid 150 for this at a pawn shop so I'm not sure I want to spend that much on it.

SOOOOOO..... I took it apart like any wanna be McGiver would do.

Inside I can see that the capacitor is popped. It is swollen on top and the plastic coating is ripped down the side. I traced it on the board right to where the adapter plugs in so it is the first cap after power from the adapter.

I am going to try and replace the capacitor if I can find one with the same values, It seems easy to get to and only has 2 solder points. My question is has anyone done any repairs like this before and if so do you have any suggestions before I jump in the water. My other question is do you think that is all that I will need to replaced or is the rest of it fried too. I wonder if since it was the first thing in line after power if it acted like a fuse and stopped the problem there. I also wonder why it popped in the first place?

Anyway any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Ima go cry now.

EZ-poly (1 more freeby)

Ok before I scare my audience away I promise I am not going to turn this blog into a once a week link to freeware. It has been busy around here because of the holidays and the last 3 posts or so (including this one) have all been links to free stuff. SOOOOO, Ill get back into the swing of things again ASAP and try to mix it up a little. This is not to say that when I find some crazy-coo software I wont let you all know about it, It just means that's not all I will do on the blog.

I ran across this little gem of a VST tonight. I played with it for 30 min. Its called EZ-poly.

It has an 8 step analog sequencer which syncs to your hosts tempo, or can be stepped with each new note. This little guy delivers full-blown leads, weird special FX or expressive pads. Its from a company called Krakli and you can get it and many other free vst's here in the free synths category. Check it out, you wont be disappointed.

The Levelator .... and oh yeah, Happy New Year

First post of Oh-Eight...Here we go

This next piece of software (which is also totally free, even for commercial use) is awesome. It's called The Levelator and it can make your podcast or speech or whatever....well....well it will just sound better.

It's software that runs on Windows, OS X , or Linux (Ubuntu) that adjusts the audio levels within your podcast or other audio file for variations from one speaker to the next. Now you are probably thinking I mean a compressor, nope. It's not a compressor. It's not a normalizer.It's not a limiter. It does contain all three of these though. It seems to do more than most of these tools with one drag and drop of a file. I'm sure you could do a better job by using all of the above mentioned tools one by one in a couple of hours but this is seriously "drag and drop" it does the rest and fast.

Have you ever recorded a conversation, interview or podcast and ended up with different sound levels because of variations in peoples voices or distance to mic, etc. Well this little tool will fix them in seconds.

Anyway, don't take my word for it. Try the Levelator yourself for free. Let us know what you think.