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Archive for the 'Gear' Category

Create a full MIDI Drumset with Guitar Hero and Rock Band Drums

( Gear and New Instruments and audio and drumming and originals and video and wii )

Here is a demonstration of using both the Guitar Hero World Tour Drums for Wii and the Rock Band Drums for Wii to create a full MIDI Drumset:

Camille, the programmer of OSCulator, got his program working with the Velocity-sensitive Guitar Hero drums. Download OSCulator here:
http://www.osculator.net/wp/
I’m still using JunXion to receive MIDI from the Rock Band [...]

Video Demo of the incredible iPhone iGOG Mic Trigger Mode

( Apple and Gear and New Instruments and audio and drumming and iPhone and multitouch and science )

I recently saw a demo of the incredible new iGOG drum trigger program on Create Digital Music. This is the best drum app for the iPhone I’ve ever seen, because it processes the microphone input at the same time you’re playing to determine velocity. The drums are multi-sampled and hitting different areas of the pads [...]

Video Blog: Using Guitar Hero World Tour Wii Drums as MIDI Controllers on OS X with OSCulator

( Gear and Music and audio and diy and originals )

Ever since I heard that Guitar Hero World Tour’s drums were velocity sensitive, I wanted to try using them as MIDI controllers.
Thanks to this post by Camille, developer of OSCulator, I finally got the Wii World Tour drums to work with velocity sensitivity. Unfortunately, as the video demonstrates, they don’t work too well. Either they’re [...]

Evidentally you can only have 9 pages of applications on the iPhone

( Apple and Gear and iPhone )

And by installing all these applications I won the “congratulations, your phone stopped working” prize.
Not really. It still works ok, but it definitely slows down the more apps you install. I actually found that FreeMemory ($.99 in the iTunes store) helps, but I think all it does is load 20 MB into memory forcing other [...]

New Video + Music: The Ginger Virus

( Gear and Music and originals and photography and video )

I made a new video:

It’s 2012. President Palin has been unable to stop the collapse of the global economy. The catastrophic Ginger virus has the ability to spread between humans and computers alike. It has taken over the world bank databases and it produces devastating isolation among its human hosts.
This was a story idea by [...]

Why has no one made a modern Cinématographe yet?

( Gear and misc and originals and photography and video )

In the late 1800s, French inventor Léon Bouly made a device called a Cinématographe (Cinematograph) that could both function as a film camera and a video projector. So you could go out and shoot, bring the camera inside, invite the friends over, and project your movie. How cool is that?
Modern digital projectors are getting smaller [...]

Quick DIY Portable iPhone 3g Charger

( Apple and Gear and diy and iPhone and misc and originals and science )

I’m going to the desert for a week and wanted a way to recharge my iPhone. I bought a zap rx4-c, which works with most of my other devices, only to learn that it’s not compatible with the iPhone. Zap’s customer service was friendly but they should change their description in two ways: One, you [...]

iPhone 3g vs. T-mobile Wing and Windows Mobile: Initial thoughts

( Apple and Gear and iPhone )

Edit: I never finished this review, but I’m publishing it now because it’s getting dated. The clear winner is the iPhone, though there are some things about it that drive me nuts.

In 2007 I decided to go with a T-mobile Wing instead of an iPhone and for the most part did not regret it. However [...]

Turn Wii Rock Band Instruments into Real Instruments with Junxion

( Apple and Electronica and Gear and Logic 8 and Music and New Instruments and audio and diy and drumming and originals and wii )

UpdateCheck out my velocity sensitive full MIDI drumset with the guitar hero set and the rockband set.
Today I figured out how to easily turn the rock band drum set for Wii into a MIDI drum controller:

I did this with Junxion, a program that allows you to transform USB and wireless game controller input into MIDI [...]

How to Make a DIY Music Staff Roller Stamp

( Gear and diy and originals and video )

Here are instructions on how to make a Music Staff Roller Stamp, a rolling ink stamp you can use to quickly draw a staff onto paper for jotting down musical ideas.

You can get all the hardware for less than $10 and it only takes about 2 minutes to make.

Materials:
1 brass door hinge post (~3 inches [...]