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Noise Vinyl arrived today!
July 24th, 2007As I’ve mentioned before, I submitted a loop to the Noise Vinyl project. The disc is a so calles locked groove disc, in other words a disc with a number of loops going forever, rather than a continuous track with a beginning and an end. The noise vinyl project is a community project where several artists contribute. My contribution is Gameboy loop, not surprisingly.
Today my vinyls finally arrrived, after a little fuck-up where my friend who helped me with paypal used an old home address of his. The package floated around in Linköping for a few weeks before going back to USA for a final trip to me.
Their vinyls come in tasty colors. I got two red ones, one orange and one black. I imagine there are yet other colors too.
The Noise Vinyl v3 is for sale to the public now!
Here are some pics:
My noise records and a few other random items. Me staging a photo?? Nooononono!
The red hot record playing my loop
The rubber duck “Kommandotolken” (The wF mascot) and my Skullcandy headphones.
Here we have me, mr rubber duck again, and my precious Redboy!
Gameboy Music How-to published
July 23rd, 2007I just published a page called Gameboy Music How-to. It’s a guide for people wishing to get started with Gameboy music, and hopefully there’s some useful informatiom even for those who have been in the business for a while. In a while I’ll be adding some links to LSDj tutorials and other good stuff.
8580 in 6581 Commodore 64?
July 18th, 2007Right now I’m doing a hack to fit a 8580 SID as the second SID in a SID2SID, in a C64 designed for a 6581 SID. The the 6581 uses 12 V power and the 8580 uses 9 V power. So I had to put a regulator to regulate the 12 V down to 9 V. However, I didn’t find a 7809 (9 V linear regulator) so I’m using a 7808 instead. While that won’t fry the chip, the chip may not work because the voltage is too low.
I’ll be back soon to tell you the result. I don’t have a camera, and Veqtor who was too faint at heart (Alternatively just tired) went home. So don’t expect any pictures until at least tomorrow.
That’s all for now. Back in a few minutes.
Update 1: I inserted the SID2SID board into the C64, and turned it on. At first I just got a blank screen but soon realized that I had forgotten to connect the CS wire. After doing that Prophet64 started fine. the 8580 didn’t catch fire, emit smoke or heat abnormally. Test mode reports 6581, which is my main chip, as mentioned. I have yet to check whether it correctly outputs sound. Back with an update soon.
Update 2: I hooked up the sound output of the secondary SID to an oscilloscope, and… Nothing! There was no signal, nothing. I can think of several things that might’ve gone wrong. 8.13 V (That’s what I measured the output from regulator to be) might be too low. I might’ve done something wrong with the VCC connection. (At first I cut the VCC cupper path when I meant to cut the VDD path) I might’ve got the transistor wrong. (I chose another type because I didn’t find any 2n2222) The filter caps are the ones meant for a 6581. (Although that shouldn’t hurt the chip, just offset the filter frequency) Or I might’ve just burned a perfectly good 8580R5.
I will do tests to eliminate these possibilities and report.
Test results:
- The VCC line is ok. (Almost 5 V)
- I put the 8580 back in its home computer, and it’s not fried. When doing so, I measured VDD to 9.25 V.
- I put the 8580 back to the SID2SID, put it back in the 6581 C64, and measured the output from the out pin. The result was a perfectly fine sawtooth waveform, that changed as I changed the test properties. In other words, the mod works, and did so from the start.
- The problem is, in other words somewhere in the post-SID amplification circuit, and in other words, the 8580 works as it’s supposed to.
It generated some heat, but so did the 6581 as well as other IC’s on the mainboard, so I don’t think this a cause for concern. - It seems like my replacement transistor did something wrong. Now I’m out hunting for a real 2n2222
Shuffle game
July 12th, 2007I was invited by Optimus to play this little net game. You open a load of song you like in a music player of your choice, and play with shuffle on.
Then you answer how well each song fits each question, one at a time.
My problem is that I don’t use playlists, so I don’t have a playlist with favourites. I almost always handpick songs or albums. And I decided doing so would take away much of the randomness that makes this game fun.
So my last resort was to drop local HD music collection into the playlist. (14.4 GB, 3820 files, I’ve got plenty more in other dirs and on other drives)
I randomized the playlist a couple of times, set shuffle on, and clicked next…
If someone says “is this ok” then you say:
047 - Falsäljing - Jolly happy like only 047 can. Sure it is ok!
What would best describe your personality?
Gijs Gieskes - huiu_alla_hakkuh - A very chaotic chiptune. Is that me? Chaos and chip music? Makes sense…
What do you look in a guy/girl?
Tobias Bernstrup feat. Mai Ueda - Pirates Of The Internet - Actually, I don’t think I could be together with a girl who’s not a pirate.
How do you feel today?
Mortimer Twang - Fellow Mellow - A happy chippie mod by Mortima T. Fits my mood surpringly well.
What is your life’s purpose?
The dark knight (TDK) - Russian Theme - Another chipmod… (I have too many :p ) I don’t if it’s right… It changes mood over time, maybe that’s right?
What is your life motto?
Clipz - Forever Feat. Tali - A dnb tune about eternal love, (I think) which I don’t believe in. Or maybe the vocals were just shallowly placed there for no real reason. Although a great tune, I don’t think it reflects my motto.
What do your friends think of you?
Paza - Arabläkaren (Translation: The Arab Doctor) - More chip music, with weird arabic chants in top! Making stange noises, coming from another planet?
What do you think of your parents?
Jamiroquai - Main vein
What are you going to do to make me hate me
I can’t see how you can this time
A fistful of lies and a verbal decimation
It’s so sad but baby keep on trying
I got no chains or fancy aspirations
But I’ve still got a losing streak
I don’t need praise or instant admiration No no no
It takes more than you to make me weak
A funky house tune. Although the lyrics are written in a totally different context, they’re at least partially correct.
What is 2+2
Random - Give Me Your Day (Psilodump Remix Beta 1) - Makes no sense. I was actually hoping for Bud Melvin’s 1+1 = 1+1 here. 
What do you think of your best friend?
Mortimer T - Chip jungle - More chippy music. Who could’ve guessed? My best friend is into both chip and jungle music, but I don’t think he’d like this one. I was hoping for something with more of a message.
What do you think of the person you like?
Astral Projection - Sativa (Deep atmosphere sfx remix) - An AP tune about sitting in the studio smoking weed, or something like that. Hmmm, no nothing like her. (Or me for that matter)
What is your life’s story
Trance Control - In Trance we Trust - A part of my musical story longing for about 3 years, otherwise pretty inaccurate.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Aphex Twin - Avril 14th - No relationship. \:
What do you think when you see the person you like?
Ikuma Morata - Fami 2 Step - No \:
What will they play at your funeral?
Psilodump - Senki Otus Part 1 - Probably not \: Perhaps a piece of classical style musical based on the main lead…
What is your hobby/interest?
Herbert Weixelbaum - Tanzmusik - A Gameboy tune, other than that not giving too many hints.
What is your biggest fear?
Psilodump - rescue.mp3 - Seems to be about drowning (Perhaps from a mental point of view)
What is your biggest secret?
Jega - Syntax Tree - Neh…
What do you think of your friends?
Benny B - Dont Touch Too Much (Sfaction mix) - About my need for intimacy and being alone?
This didn’t really work out as expected, so I’ll just start over from the question where it started to go havoc. I’ll randomize the playlist two more times and press next…
What is 2+2
Psilodump - Pocket Calculator - There we go!
What do you think of your best friend?
Acidwolf - MMM - Nah
What do you think of the person you like?
Heavens Cry - Til’ Tears Do Us Part [Flash Harry Mix] - Why not?
What is your life’s story
Norah Jones - Don’t Know Why
Don’t Know Why
I waited till I saw the sun
I don’t know why I didn’t come
I left you by the house of fun
I don’t know why I didn’t come
I don’t know why I didn’t come
When I saw the break of day
I wished that I could fly away
Instead of kneeling in the sand
Catching teardrops in my hand
My heart is drenched in wine
Hmm…
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Dave Koz - Together Again - Nope…
What do you think when you see the person you like?
Psilodump - The Somnambulist (Din Stalker Remix) - She’s a somnambulist and I’m her stalker. 
What will they play at your funeral?
Astral Projection - Black & White - Nope.
What is your hobby/interest?
Goblin Sound - Tetris (NES version) - Yay!
What is your biggest fear?
Nintendo - Donkey Kong (NES version) - Hahaha! No!
What is your biggest secret?
seVeneleVen - Rings Of Medusa - The Last Crusade ReMIX - Yes!
What do you think of your friends?
Ninteno - Cluclu Land - What’s up with winamp’s shuffle function?? So many nsf’s in such a short time?
So who to invite? I don’t know how many people actually read my blog, less how many people would like to participate in a game like this.
But anyway, here are my invitations: Vickei, omniuwo, pepino, Andrew Nesbitt, Elmindreda.
New anti-spam technique implemented
July 8th, 2007I hate spam, and if you’ve been following this blog you might’ve noticed that it has been 100% spam free. This is because I’ve set WordPress to require confirmation from me before posting anything. However, after a while I totally drowned in spam. So I made a dictionary of common words used in the spam I got, and hard blocked these comments. It worked fine for a while, and I kept adding phrases to the dictionary. But then after a while it got out of hand.
So now I’m using a second anti-spam technique based on Javascript. I’m actually so confident it will work well that I have turned off the word filtering and e-mail confirmation for now. (Posts with more than two links in them still require confirmation by me though) If any spam gets through I’ll re-activate one or both of the other methods in conjunction with the new one.
The system works by running a very obfuscated piece of javascript that creates new form elements and also renames (Changes the name property) of existing ones.
The downside with the current system is that users browsing the web with Javscript turned off won’t be able to leave comments, but in the end I think it’s a good tradeoff.
I’m linked from statusrank.com?
July 2nd, 2007I’m checking my referrers actively and I’ve got not one but two hits from http://statusrank.com/. What’s up with that? I don’t see any link to my blog on that site. Did someone add me to that page, or am I in someone’s private bookmarks there?
