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Archive for the 'Gear' Category

DIY Custom Acrylic Music Keyboard Case

My music keyboard is placed underneath my window, making it a great platform for my cats to walk on. They would constantly step on the keys or buttons, disrupting my Logic sessions by changing MIDI channels or programs. But the last straw was when one of my cats vomited on the keyboard. I decided to […]

Keep your MIDI keyboard active with Mainstage and Applescript: Keep Mainstage Running.app

( Apple andaudio andGear andLogic 8 andMusic andoriginals )

I know I’m not the only one with this problem: You have this giant MIDI keyboard that doesn’t produce sound on its own, and most of the time, playing it doesn’t do anything. You have to launch logic, or mainstage, or ableton, or digital performer, open a new project, setup a new patch, and then […]

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

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 […]

Video Demo of the incredible iPhone iGOG Mic Trigger Mode

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

( audio anddiy andGear andMusic andoriginals )

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 […]

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

( Apple andGear andiPhone )

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 […]

New Video + Music: The Ginger Virus

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 […]

Why has no one made a modern Cinématographe yet?

( Gear andmisc andoriginals andphotography andvideo )

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 […]

Quick DIY Portable iPhone 3g Charger

( Apple anddiy andGear andiPhone andmisc andoriginals andscience )

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 andGear andiPhone )

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. […]