Stereo Rick Roll!

April 17th, 2008

Watch

First off: Stereo audio on Youtube is possible. Here’s a good guide on how to do it properly.
Second off. I’ve uploaded what I believe to be the first ever RickRoll with stereo audio. Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up is actually a pretty good song, and when rolling someone, why not make sure they get roll’d with style?
Audio quality that is… The video quality sucks a donkey’s ass. In fact, the video quality is so bad that it took YT’s Content Identification program one hour to detect the video, lulz.
Anyway, watch the video here or be kind enough to give me a Digg!
Thanks for the attention and have a nice roll!

Two IDM/Chillout artists

April 16th, 2008

Churzkia Jrakavla album cover Locust Toybox album cover

I’ve recently found two IDM artists that I like very much. The first one is called Churzkia Jrakavla and makes a smooth, atmospheric, microtonal, chilly kind of IDM. I found him while looking for information about just intonation, something I’ve become interested in lately.
The other artist is Locust Toybox that I found through a person I found on Youtube who used his music in one of his videos. The music of Locust Toybox has elements of chiptune, acoustic music and jazz.
They both have some tracks for download. Click on their names in the text above. Locust Toybox also has 3 animations to accompany his music, on his homepage.

Edit: Come to think of it, there’s a third release I want to mention, Smart Echoes For Sensitive Ears by Audiokonstrukte. 1bit029 on 1bit-wonder is a likewise chilly triphop album which works great for relaxation or keeping up my concentration.

FM Goa by Carlos (Youtube Stereo)

April 15th, 2008


A couple of days ago I heard watched the video Adlib Tracker II - FM Goa by stkthree03/Carlos. I asked for the module for the song, and got it. He also replied and said that Youtube doesn’t offer stereo sound, which is a common misconception. It is in fact very possible to get stereo on Youtube, but you need to convert the video to FLV before uploading it. So it came to this: I decided to upload this great tune in stereo.

Here are the technical details for those who are interested:

  • Played back the module in ADT2PLAY using DOSBox, and captured the audio. I meant to play it on my OPL soundcard, but I had technical difficulties.
  • Opened in Adobe Audition and did this:
    • 20 Hz hipass to remove DC offsets
    • Maximum stereo expansion for the lulz
    • A quick EQ job to get a little more bass and treble
    • Maximize and hard limit. Maybe a little too much, since the sound is “pumping”.
  • Used WMM to export image+audio to video. (Maximum quality setting)
  • Converted to flv in Any DVD Converter. For those who are interested I used these parameters, which apparently work well:
    • Video Size: 320*240
    • Video bitrate: 192
    • Video framerate: 25
    • Audio CODEC: MP3
    • Audio Bitrate: 192
    • Sample Rate: 44100 (Same as the original capture)

    The audio bitrate is higher than recommended by other people experimenting with YT stereo, and maybe it worked just because the video was a still image.

Also a shout out to GammaGoblin reading my blog, and giving me a mention. So this post is for him, as the FM lover he is.

I also hope none of that is ever quoted

April 6th, 2008

23:19 < Direwolf> but nitrotrack is actually gay
23:19 < Direwolf> u know u 2 wants to play munchkin with me ;)
23:21 < CalmDownKidder> nuh uh
23:22 < CalmDownKidder> I find it hard enough getting laid as it
                        is
23:22 < Direwolf> sex is borin :/
23:22 < Direwolf> killing your friends is fun :D
23:22 < Direwolf> http://www.sjgames.com/munchkin/game/
23:23 < combatdave> dude just said sex is boring
23:23 < combatdave> gettim
23:23 < combatdave> nitrotracker is definitely not gay
23:24 < Direwolf> it is :/  thought it would be decent but it
                  bites badly because its awkward to find sounds
                  to use
23:24 < Direwolf> some lads actually like/respect women:P
23:26 < Direwolf> I also hope none of that is ever quoted

Javascript articles

April 5th, 2008

I found this link in an old folder I saved: http://13thparallel.com/archive/
It’s an archive of some interesting Javascript articles. I especially like the aricle about Javascript and Mathematics which takes the first stumbling step towards a JS physics engine.