My studio is re-wired and everything works, mostly

I’m finished with re-wiring my studio and it works great, for the most part. All my gear is now plugged into the Behringer PX3000 Ultrapatch Pro. I can very easily select which ones should connect to my sound cards, depending on what gear I want to use and record simultaneously.

Technically I could do this earlier but now it’s so much easier. The thing that works best for me when making music is that when I get an idea I want act on it immediately. Earlier it was such a hassle each time I wanted to record different hardware synths, so I tended to always stick with the same – which is a bit bad for creativity. For me anyway.

The only thing I need to solve now is to get rid of the USB noise / hiss that recently, somehow found a way into the sound from my Eurorack modules. The noise originates from the computer, via the external sound cards. I earlier had the same problems with the sound from a couple of the synths with USB (The Blofeld and the Modemachines Xoxbox) but solved it using a couple of cheap Ground loop isolators.

I tried the same approach with the sound out from the Eurorack modules. The USB noise was removed but so was also everything below 2000 Herz. I’ve ordered different isolators from Thomann. If that doesn’t work I will have to get something more expensive.

More pics from Alghero

Boat for hire

Finally here are some of my best photos taken on my iPhone 6, while visiting Sardinia. Even though they were taken on a mobile phone I think they turned out pretty good.

Beach wanderer  Alghero beach mini mural  Alghero bicycling to the beach  Alghero beach wall

July 30th, 2016|Photography|

Rewiring the studio

Behringer PX3000 Ultrapatch Pro
The project for today is something I should have done long ago: installing a hardware patch-bay and rewiring my studio.

Right now all of my gear goes straight into two external sound-cards, the NI Traktor Audio 6 and 10. Since there are more outputs from the gear than inputs on the sound-cards I use to switch cables when producing. After doing that for a few years you get to a point where you have no idea which cable goes where and also there is a huuuuge bundle of cables, where some of them are probably never used.

I got the Behringer PX3000 Ultrapatch Pro and 2 x The Sssnake MPP8050, which is a multicable with eight 6.3 mm mono jacks on both sides.

Wish me luck..

the sssnake MPP8050

Some photos I took in Alghero, Sardinia

Bicycle and people on the Alghero beach

Just got back from Italy, after a much needed week of lotsa sun and overall laziness.
Here are some of the pics I took with my Canon EOS 70D.
Most are in black and white, because it’s cool and I like it that way.

Boats on the Alghero beach shore    Girl in the Alghero harbor checking her phone    Mystical beings wandering out into the sea

So what can I write about Alghero? It’s a smallish town in the north-west of Sardinia and it’s hot in the summer (around 30 degrees C and one day it was close to 40). The locals are very friendly and the beaches are top notch. Since we went in mid to late July there wasn’t that many tourists around, which was really nice. Apparently the horde will invade in August when the Italians start their summer vacation.

Mostly everything in town is within walking distance so after three-four days you’ve basically seen everything there is to see. I think people go to Alghero for the relaxing atmosphere, the beautiful beaches and for the food. I liked being there, but seven days was a bit too long. If we had small children with us it would probably have been a completely different story.

July 27th, 2016|Photography|

Barcelona street art

I love just wandering about a hot Barcelona in the summer time, darting from shadow to shadow, inhaling the local vibe. And the street art there is everywhere. Lots of graffiti of course but also some surprisingly good art. Check out the snaps I took when visiting this beautiful city a couple of weeks ago.

 

Listen to my unreleased track Red in a Sea of Green

Red in a sea of green

When I’m not posting stuff about DIY music electronics or re-painting a huge kitchen cabinet, I’m also producing some new music. I got roughly enough for a new full length album now, but still need to finish up a couple more tracks, which I hope to do within the next couple of weeks.

However, this track called Red in a sea of green is done and I’ve decided to make it available on Soundcloud. It’s an atmospheric progressive(!?) dance tune with some sort of summer night vibe. Oh and it has a melody.

The album is still unsigned and truth be told I haven’t really put that much energy into fining a label for it. Worst case I’ll just release it myself. Should you know anyone at a (big-ish) label that could potentially be interested, please let me know and I can send send them a secret link to the whole album.

July 24th, 2016|Blog, Music|

PocketCHIP, a portable device based on PICO-8

I got this in my feed a few weeks ago and boy does it look awesome. The PocketChip is like the Commodore 64 all over again, only more hipster and in 2016. Also it’s a lot cheaper than the C64 back in the day, only $49 intro price.

So what does it do? Well, games of course and there seems to be lots of them. And it comes with tools to create your own games or change the code of all existing. Also you can make chip tunes on it, and there’s a sequencer for creating more “professionally” sounding tunes. Click here for more resources on Pico-8 game development.

I also like the technical limitations of the device, as it says on their website: “The harsh limitations of Pico-8 are carefully chosen to be fun to work with (and) encourage small but expressive designs…”

July 23rd, 2016|8-bit, Games, Retro|

Zero Days, a documentary about the Stuxnet virus

A movie about a computer virus perhaps doesn’t sound that exciting, but assure you this new documentary is a real nail biter. See the true story about a virus so advanced it had to be created by some of the best hackers in the world, under the supervision of at least one, possibly several states. A virus so powerful it hampered the nuclear enrichment in Iran and ushered a new era of cyber war possibilities.

July 21st, 2016|Movies|
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