2016-07 Concrete Record Player.

The Dual turntable needs somewhere to live. I decided to make this a test of the process for my ideal record plinth.
The Concrete Record Player (plinth.)

The process: Make a mold and fill it with concrete

The mount points for the turntable are precise and too thin for concrete so I made a frame of plywood to be embedded in the plinth the the turntable will rest on and mount to. I made two and laminated them together for strength and the depth needed for the turntable spring support cups.

The frame mounted on the top of the mold with the turntable cutout under it. The frame protrudes and that will keep it embedded in the concrete. Here I am packing out the interior with packing foam and masking tape to keep the void in the middle empty.

The mold with the sides on and some dowels for the mains and audio cables. I didn't want to risk cracking the plinth by drilling these out after it had set. The first  concrete is in and you can see the wire squares I added into the concrete hoping it will strengthen the final block.

2016-04 Empty the LP Queue

I have about 4 to 5 hundred LPs waiting to be listened to or just to be shelved.
It's getting to me. This month I want to review and shelve them all.
I started a bit late and set 8/day as a goal. Had a cold and took a break then came back reinvigorated and decided on 10/day and 20/day in the weekend.
Then the Rotary Book fair happened and I added 25ish to the Queue. Now I've set myself 15/day and 30/day in the weekend. I might make it.
Here's my progress chart that I keep to enthuse myself:

It went well enough. I've kept on top of things too now that I have better organised shelves with some free space. Next to do are the 45s.

2015-02 Control surface for audio processing

I've been considering a sound processing language for a while. Looked at supercollider and liked it but never really did anything with it. Tried again recently and found chuck. I had a play and liked it. Not sure why I prefer it but it's something like: less elegant but faster to code.
The missing bit was an interface so effects and apps writen in chuck could be conveniently controlled during performance or production.
Found interface.js which can use OSC to send messages to any osc aware system/program (which chuck is) and has a constrained but easy to use way to build a panel of controls. These panels are accessed as web pages served by an included server so a tablet can access it.
Presto:  The knobs, sliders and buttons are all touch sensitive on the tablet and you have a versatile touch sensitive control surface that can talk to chuck.

Details follow:

Notes on installing chuck.
I use Fedora both 20 and 21 on two different machines with the CCRMA repo (CCRMA fed21 repo here) with:

       sudo dnf install chuck
       sudo dnf install miniaudicle

The standard packages seem OK.  ( I did build from source to try to fix the windows in miniAudicle not remembering their locations between sessions: got bogged down in QT, but the build was process was reasonable )
The way I use it is to start  jack (with qjackctl) then run miniAudicle.
You'll get an IDE, a console window (shows error, information and print type debug messages) and an execution control window (called Virtual Machine). Like this:

The doc's are a bit out of date for the osc stuff but  these examples are current and will set you right.
You start the virtual machine then use the IDE to edit and run code. Lots of good examples to play with in the link above. (you don't have to use jack: there's  miniAudicle-pulse and miniAudicle-alsa if it suits you better)
Update: Nearly there. A bit stuck on the OSC stuff and chuck keeps locking the osc message stream. Nuts.

2015-01 7" record boxes

I have kept my LPs well sorted and it pays; You can find things and duplicates show up so you can keep the best LP.
But 45's have lived in stacks unsorted except of a fav's pile.
No more.
The mid shelf of LP store was always put aside for 45s but getting boxes ? I could not do this. Nothing was the right size, so I must make some.
Got some thin and strong cardboard boxes from the recycling at work, some cutting and hot glue and here they are:

I made them the same depth as the shelves and just wide enough so that 5 fit on each shelf. Much denser and more accessible too.
Freed up a bit of much needed space so now I get to move the LPs around to make room and then sort the 45's into categories I guess.

• Cut the box into sections.  1 for the front, 1 for the back and one for the bottom and sides.

• 
  

  I use a cutting mat and box cutter to make the parts. To score the bends I used the end of a median paint brush. Be careful to crush but not cut the cardboard.
• Hot glue the parts together.

Box cut into sections for parts

 

 

 

2012-04 Music and Video

I really need to finish a piece of music.

I had a general idea and planned to keep it simple; Some autoharp mic'd up close so all the key bridge noises and fingers on the strings and creaks etc. would be picked up then add some short wave radio noise and some tabla.

Setup the mic's. Do a sound check with the electric guitar first. Like the sound. Try some delay effects. Like that. Add some more. Sounding quite good and a sequence of notes comes together quite well. Do a take. Sounds good. Add effects. Yum.

Now the video.

I wanted this to be about Autumn. Dig out photos of Autumn of Daniel's farm and some dead tree and park photos. Get the TV23 image scripts out and generate some scenes with them. Fire up a video editor and mix the stylistically best fitting ones together to the right length and add the sound.

Quite nice really.

Upload to Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A6Fl3EMZd2U

2012-01 Low Noise Phono System

I've always had a little hum on the record player. So low though that even quiet music obscures it.
However it is there and I recently got a copy of Tibetan Bells. TB is very quiet indeed, with long passages where a single bell note fades completely before the next is struck.

[1] Check the amp.
[2] Check the cables.
[3] Check the record player.

Amp:
Found the Tuner input on the amp, which I had been using had some hum. Checked them all: The Tape input is quietest by far.

Cables:
OK.

Record player:
Both check out fine.



OK, the pre-amp in the amp is noisy so I got a general preamp kit from jcar (http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?ID=KC5159) to try. Cheap enough to discard if not good enough.
It sounds great. Housed it in an old power supply case and it goes directly to a spare input on the PC sound card.
I can easily hear the original tape noise kick in as the cutting engineer switches it in when mastering the LP on Tibetan Bells so the total noise in the system here is less then in the original studio (1970's analog) and there's no discernible hum at all. An added advantage here is there is no need to use any mechanical switches any more. I just use alsa mixer to directly control the sound-card input level and switch between inputs on the sound card.

Here's a photo of the finished pre-amp disguised as a pedestal.

2010-12 C Side music compilation

Collect the oddities I've gleaned over the year, digitise them, select and create a play-order and cover notes then make CDs and send a N Year card.

• Sort through 45's, flexidiscs, 78s and 10"ers - I just want the real scraps from the bottom - done.
• Digitise and weed out - done.
• Create play-list, re-weed, created test CD and give it a listening - done.
• Mail list.
  
• Create cover art.
• Create liner notes.
• Make the buggers and post them.

It'd be nice to use a home made print or stencil process for the cover.

Play-list:

• [1] Hep Clothing : side2-07
• [2] The Electric Prunes : Get Me To The World On Time
• [3] Samantha Jones : The TC Theme[
• [4] Fanta
• [5] Hep Clothing : side2-02
• [6] Teach Your Canary to Sing : Humoresque
• [7] The Partridge Family Fanclub NZ : side1-01
• [8] Embassy_Theatre : Spot and Win
• [9] Fanta
• [10] King Flash : Mama Looka Booboo
• [11] Kapuana : Bill Wolfgramm
• [12] Hep Clothing : side1-02
• [13] The Partridge Family Fanclub NZ : side1-02
• [14] Xi_Qi_Feng_With_Ye_Ling : Tears_Of_A_Lover
• [15] The Fire : Treacle Toffee World
• [16] Asha Bhosi : Chinatown
• [17] The Partridge Family Fanclub NZ : side2-04
• [18] Fanta
• [19] The Saturday Night Suit : side1
• [20] Hep Clothing : side2-03
• [21] HipHigh : side1
• [22] The Fire : Fathers Name Is Dad
• [23] Strawberry Alarmclock : Incense And Pepermints
• [24] The Partridge Family Fanclub NZ : side2-02
• [25] Hep Clothing : side1-01
• [26] The Eelectric Prunes : Are You Loving Me More
• [27] The Shadows Of Knight : Ill Make You Sorry
• [28] Saturday Night Suit : side2
• [29] Fanta
• [30] Syndicate Of Sound : Keep It Up
• [31] The Partridge Family Fanclub NZ : side2-01
• [32] Strawberry Alarmclock : The Birdman Of Alkatrash
• [33] The Partridge Family Fanclub NZ : side2-03
• [34] The Shadows Of Knight : Im Gonna Make You Mine
• [35] Samantha Jones : Ford Leads The Way

These are all from disposable or obsolete records and this is distillation of last years finds. ; 45s : meant to be destroyed by teenagers, 78s : No one has a 78 player any more, Flexidiscs : too fragile and beautiful to live, 10“ discs : everyone thinks they’re 78s and can’t be played, advertising records : no one wants to buy an ad. If this stuff was food it would be crumbs from behind the fridge.

• Get me to the World on Time : This is cheating. I didn’t get this this year, I've had this single for many years but it so blew me away it's kept me digging in bins for manky vinyl ever since so I owe them. Sometimes you can tell a band by it’s cover. Fantastic Title. Fantastic Band Name. Fantastic song.
• The TC Theme : Ah now this is advertising as it should be. I think the product is a car but I'm not really sure. The 45 sure sounds good though.
• Humouresque : Canary Training record. I never imagined such a thing existed but here it is. Poor Canaries.
• The Embassy Theatre Promo' : Who was Rita Samora?
• Mama Look A Booboo : Ah yes, That eternal problem: What to do when you are really ugly. If you're King Flash you write a song about it. This is the B Side to Zombie Jamboree which is very very wonderful too but I’m not going to play it to you.
• Kapuana : This is a 78. I love the slight Sheila Twang in her voice. And the slide guitar. And the rhythm guitar. And that small recording studio sound. So good to hear an NZ accent on a record this old. Listen to that authentic 78 hiss.
• Tears Of A Lover : This is a 10” 33 1/3 and the photo of Xi Qu Feng on the cover shows her with a 60s beehive hair and cocktail dress. She looks great. I like the slightly seasick strings and the way her voice just floats over them.
• Try to imagine it as the soundtrack to the life of a lost English ex-pat' stuck in a seedy hotel in 1960s Hong Kong waiting for the next trust fund cheque so he / she can buy a ticket out of there.
• Treacle Toffee World : Well, the A Side of theirs on here is so very good I had to put this on too. Perhaps that was a mistake. I remind you it is the B side.
• Chinatown : I've been looking for some Asha Bhosle ever since I heard Cornershop's Brim Full Of Asha: Their sung homage to favourite record labels and stars at the end of that song mesmerises me. It’s half Roadrunner half Sister ray and full of deep affection for real music. I was lucky to get this 45 complete with a photo on the sleeve and she looks great and sounds as good as I'd hoped. Imagine if saggy old Madge or the famous for being famous Gaga could actually sing pop songs as well as this. Imagine if their croaky pitch shifted banalities instead darted like small sliver fish in vast dark green undersea cathedrals or soared like a 1970s hang-glider over the grand canyon at sunset the way Asha’s voice can: I'd start listening to commercial radio then. Really.
• Saturday Night Suit : This is the A side. The B side is even better and coming up later.
• Hip High : I suspect that this is the Hamilton County Blue Grass Band. And it's quite good in a nicer side of duelling banjos kind of way. One of the things about Bluegrass is they way they just throw out these blinding licks even in joke songs.
• Fathers Name Is Dad : Wow. How could this not have been a hit. Proto Black Sabbath guitar riff, coolly studied vocals, great lyrics and a Bee Gee'sie chorus. Play loud. Bang head. See stars.
• Incense and Peppermints : Good organ but the rest is a bit mad if you listen too closely. I think that this was a hit. Go figure.
• Are you Loving Me More? : Good rock with neat neat bass stuff going on and wild organ break. Top production that suits the Prunes to the ground and this is the B side to “...world on time” better then most A’s eh?
• I’ll Make You Sorry: I tried to shake back my Shag Cut hairdo and felt the hairspray hold, but I was saved from foolishness when right then the Purple Hearts I’d put in my PepsiCola kicked in and “I’ll Make You Sorry” clicked into play on the Jukebox: I stood, radiated some coolness, adjusted my cuff-links and did the Frug.
• Saturday Night Suit : Now with more words. The B side complete with sales pitch which really makes this brassy rocker complete.
• Keep It Up : If the Temptations covered this it would have been huge. This is at the same time very cheap and so sophisticated. Great no budget soul. How did they get the piano to sound so plunky? Brilliant.
• The Birdman Of Alkatrash : Strawberry Alarm clock attempt a novelty song. As good as you’d think it would be. Nice Duck noises.
• I'm Gonna Make You Mine : Also known as “Return to the speed fuelled 1960s American dying industrial city nightclub where an American Garage Rock Band pretends to be a British Mod Band but that band is pretending to be an American Blues Band.” The classic narrative arch.
• Ford Leads The Way: A free-wheeling song to end it all. I’m hoping that this is sung by one of the women that Ford’s fix it men hired to try to seduce Ralph Nader to blackmail him so he wouldn’t publish “Unsafe At Any Speed” but it probably isn’t.

The interludes:

• Hep Clothing: I can see what they were trying to do and I laugh at them not with them.
• Fanta: There were a few LPs released that had charting songs on them and these advertisements interleaved. These are the ads from one. Interleaved.
• The Partridge Family NZ Fan Club: A well preserved 45. Its all there; no songs, just please buy our records and we’re really tired now.