No Warranty Expressed Or Implied http://johnp.net/blog Lisp, synthesisers, Web 3D & stuff. en Copyright �a9; 2011 John Pallister 60 Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:30 GMT me@johnp.net PyBlosxom http://pyblosxom.sourceforge.net/ 1.4.3 01/10/2008 Forgive the proud father music/sasha-does-twinkle-twinkle http://johnp.net/blog/music/sasha-does-twinkle-twinkle.html I admit I have been littering the house with musical instruments, and this is pretty much my desired result:

Not bad for 20 months old!

I'm really enjoying having the piano there, and my own keyboard skills are slowly improving. But it looks like I'll have to work on my self-accompaniment if I'm going to keep up...

]]> Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:30 GMT New LMK3+ circuit diagrams music/lmk3+-new-circuit-diagrams http://johnp.net/blog/music/lmk3%2B-new-circuit-diagrams.html LMK3+ page with links to some circuit diagrams that a kind soul sent me. The circuits are for an Orla Commander C80, which uses the same Fatar keybed and E510 encoder chip, but they should prove very useful nonetheless. ]]> Fri, 01 Dec 2006 21:19 GMT My Doepfer LMK3+ page music/my-lmk3+-page http://johnp.net/blog/music/my-lmk3%2B-page.html

One of my current projects/distractions involves a Doepfer LMK3+ MIDI controller keyboard I picked up cheap on TradeMe. To find out why it was cheap, and how it has turned into yet-another-time-suck, visit my LMK3+ page.

]]> Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:36 GMT It's here... music/axon-now-available http://johnp.net/blog/music/axon-now-available.html The Axon AX 100 mkII is now available. EUR499 plus shipping. Yum. There are ten demonstration videos available for download. ]]> Tue, 10 Jan 2006 08:55 GMT Not bad "as is" music/not-bad-as-is http://johnp.net/blog/music/not-bad-as-is.html Today I had a chance to just plug my Strat in to my amp and wail away, and it sounded bloody good. Even with the old strings and stock switching and pickups and all that, once I turned the amp up a bit the tone was highly satisfactory. The middle/bridge switch position isn't so good with the little humbucker in there; I might try the original bridge pickup again once I've fiddled with the wiring.

The point is, I don't actually need to spend a lot of money on the guitar; just cleaning it up and getting it properly adjusted should be fine. Although the Hot Plate would be very handy. And new pickups are always nice... ]]> Fri, 06 Jan 2006 09:39 GMT Plans for my strat music/plans-for-my-strat http://johnp.net/blog/music/plans-for-my-strat.html My Stratocaster is a 1987 '57 re-issue, a bit dinged about, with a few modifications. It's the first decent guitar I bought for myself (the first guitars I played were also decent, but belonged to my Dad). I paid about USD500 or so for it in 1988, IIRC. I bought the guitar (and a Carvin 100W solid-state combo amp, that I also still have) from a guitar shop in Los Angeles while we were stopping over on the family trip to the UK.

Anyway, I'm thinking about tweaking it a bit more, so I've collected a few links here.

]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2006 06:12 GMT Local talent music/local-talent http://johnp.net/blog/music/local-talent.html In November last year, I attended a seminar organised by MIDI.org.nz (not a great choice of name, IMHO) as part of Wellington Music Week. The topic was music recording and production, and on the panel were Liz Barry, Gillian Craig, Mike Gibson and Lee Prebble. Suffice to say, it was great. Thanks to the MIDI guys for organising it, and to the panel for being so cool and helpful.

There's a truckload of world-class music coming out of Wellington at the moment, and I find it very inspiring. Not that my music would be world-class even if I were producing any at the moment, but I'm working on it. Hopefully over the next few years, I'll be able to compose and record some stuff of my own. In the meantime, there's a lot of preperatory work to be done (and other things taking priority, but that's OK).

Other clever music-type bods I've come across 'round town recently include Darren Inwood a.k.a. Lucidtone Electronics, who'll build you a custom tube amp or weird effects pedal, and Simcha Delft (whose website tubesandfrets.com isn't up yet), designer of the Moonlight Amp, a popular small tube amplifier (see also here and here). Simcha also makes hand-wound output transformers and is a first-class luthier. Darren works at the Guitar Gallery in Newtown, while Simcha lives up the coast in Otaki.

Other NZ guitar resources include Joh Lang's guitars and pickups and the NZGuitar.com forums. ]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2006 01:19 GMT MIDI guitar links music/midi-guitars http://johnp.net/blog/music/midi-guitars.html The birdfish guitar Although I've been very busy with work, I have been thinking about the home studio I plan to put together next year (while trying to resist buying more old synths off TradeMe). It occurred to me that, as a guitar player with minimal keyboard chops, I should controlling my (six voice) synthesiser with one of my guitars, not trying to learn to play keyboards particularly. So I've collected a few links while reading about the current state of guitar-to-MIDI technology. On the way, I've met a few interesting people around Wellington, which has been nice; I'll say more about them in a later post.

]]> Sun, 18 Dec 2005 23:10 GMT Oberheim Xpander technolust music/oberheim-xpander-technolust http://johnp.net/blog/music/oberheim-xpander-technolust.html There's an Oberheim Xpander up for auction on TradeMe. The guy wants $3500 for because he paid well over the odds for it himself, but I find myself craving it rather badly. Unfortunately we're having a few cashflow issues at the moment. We'll see what happens. It's certainly a more worthy and massively more practical lust object than last time.

Links:

]]> Wed, 02 Nov 2005 09:22 GMT C U R V E R E M I X E R music/curve-remixer http://johnp.net/blog/music/curve-remixer.html Curve, one of my favourite bands (currently disbanded) have a page on their website that offers the chance to remix the original tracks from the song Unreadable Communication. You can then send in your mix on a CD, and they'll list it on the site. Very cool.

Further to the D-110 post below, I checked the schematic and the path of the MIDI input signal is very short, so hopefully if I take it apart and trace the track from the socket through the optocoupler (a Toshiba TLP552, apparently equivalent to an NEC PS9601) and into the CPU, I might be able to debug the problem. Or not. Who knows. ]]> Wed, 02 Nov 2005 03:39 GMT