5/52: iBook instrument station

This week, I spent some time setting up a new instrument station in the chromedecay studio.

5/52: iBook & Reaktor/Logic instrument station

A few years ago, I replaced my trusty titanium PowerBook with a shiny new Intel MacBook. That brought lots of increased power, but as I mentioned in the post at the time, it meant losing some things I really liked as a result of moving from the PowerPC-based PowerBook to the Intel-based MacBook. My favorite Rhodes electric piano sound came from Logic’s EVP73 plugin, which didn’t run on Intel Macs. One of my other favorite sound sources was Reaktor Session, which I loved for its Vierring ensemble, among others.

logic: evp73 screenshot
reaktor: vierring screenshot

This week’s project, then, was getting an old 500MHz iBook set up to restore that lost functionality! I realized that I could install my old Logic Audio 6 on the iBook and set up EVP73 and Reaktor Session running inside it as AudioUnits plugins. I only get a couple instruments at a time, but that’s perfect – I’m still running Live 7 and Logic 7 on my MacBook Pro, and the audio from the iBook just gets routed straight into that.

Getting Logic installed and set up was a breeze – this is one place where having dongle-based copy protection makes this much easier than a networked challenge/response or authorization. I just plugged in my old Logic dongle, installed the program off CD, and I was up and running. Getting Reaktor Session going was a little more work – it uses a network-based authorization scheme, and I had to email Native Instruments support to get it authorized (to their credit, they turned it around in a day or two and it was quite simple after that).

What I now have is an instrument station that consists of the iBook running Logic 6 with EVP73, Reaktor Session, and any other native Logic instruments I care to load up. It’s got a little 2-in/2-out MIDI interface connected over USB (thanks again, Kent!), which lets me connect my 76-key controller keyboard, as well as MIDI clock sync from the MacBook Pro rig. I can sit down at the keyboard, pull up a great Rhodes sound on the EVP73, and just play. That’s what I was really missing – the chance to just play, without having to worry about routing, plugins, compatibility, and so on.

Here’s a quick jam I recorded last night. The electric piano sound comes from EVP73, the synth sounds are from Reaktor Session’s Vierring ensemble, and the drums are being programmed in Live with a Drum Rack I built.

[audio:https://www.chromedecay.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/5_52_-rhodes-+-reaktor-session-jam.mp3|titles=5/52: rhodes + reaktor session jam]
download this audio track: 5/52: rhodes + reaktor session jam

A few detail photos:

5/52: iBook + 76 keys

5/52: iBook snake detail

Finally, if you’re interested, here’s a setup shot, showing how I took the self-portrait that’s at the top of this post:
5/52: setup shot for Bill Van Loo iBook instrument station portrait

The camera for the shot (a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18) is on a microphone boom stand, angled down using a Manfrotto mini ball head. The main light for the portrait is a Vivitar 283 with a 1/2 CTO gel (shown at the right of the photo), also on a microphone boom stand.

Also, you can see that the far end of the studio there is a bit of a mess. That’s another kind of project, though…

4/52 – new Strobist macro lightbox plus DIY photography gear roundup

A few years ago, I saw an article on the excellent Strobist site, describing how you could build a cheap, easy macro studio in a box – the $10 Macro Photo Studio. I went ahead and built one, and it looked like this:

new Strobist $10 macro lightbox

It was quite decent, but unfortunately got destroyed because it was too delicate and I never had a good place to store it (where do you stick a big, delicate box that’s mostly comprised of tissue paper?).

I therefore decided to build a new one for this week’s 52 things entry, making a few modifications along the way. I used the same idea as the original Strobist article, but made a few important changes. First off, I decided it would have to be collapsible, to prevent the issue I’d run into with the first one. As you can see below, this is what it looks like when unfolded:
new Macro lightbox: unfolded

The sides are held together at the top and bottom with Velcro strips that allow it to be quickly assembled or broken down:
new Macro lightbox: corner detail

Here’s what it looks like all assembled:
new Macro lightbox: setup shot

I shot a number of test shots using two flashes: a Sunpak 322s on one side, and a Vivitar 283 on the other side, and got excellent diffused light with minimal shadows, like this one of my son’s Bionicle invention (he’s got a bunch of Bionicles made to his own designs, using parts from the kits he has; check out his own site to see more of what he’s up to):
Macro lightbox test: Bionicle

Unfortunately, the Sunpak died right at the end of my first test session, and I’m not sure why (it seems to get a charge, but the flash never fires). That means I’m down to one flash, the Vivitar 283. It works well enough, though, as you can see from today’s photos.

I decided to use this as a chance to do a roundup of some of the DIY photo gear I’ve made over the past year or two.

This is a DIY mic stand to tripod stud adapter. I have a number of mic stands in my studio, including a couple boom stands, but only one tripod. That makes it difficult to place my flash, cameras, etc depending on the situation (for my recent chromedecay behind the scenes video, for example, I used an overhead camera shooting down, mounted on a boom stand with this adapter).

Macro lightbox test: DIY microphone stand to tripod stud adapter

It’s just a metal stud that came with my mic stands, drilled out to allow a 1/4 x 20 bolt (the standard for tripod-mounted camera gear) to be passed through. A wing nut and washer allow it to be tightened onto whatever it’s holding.

I love these cheap clamps from Home Depot, and when you take the cushion off one of the arms, there’s a perfect spot to pass a 1/4 x 20 bolt through. That means it can be used either as a clamped tripod mount, or as a clamp on the end of a mic stand.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 on DIY superclamp

Macro lightbox test: DIY boom clamp

Finally, here’s a homemade diffuser (the “salsa bottle diffuser”) whose origins you can easily guess:
Macro lightbox test: DIY diffuser

It slips over the end of the Vivitar and diffuses the light nicely.
Check out my Flickr set for more photos of the new Macro lightbox in action, and more DIY photo/video gear.

3/52: behind the scenes video, part 2

I’m pleased to announce that Part 2 of the “chromedecay behind the scenes: bill van loo live performance rig” video is now available on Vimeo. (Part 1 is also available).

chromedecay behind the scenes: bill van loo live performance rig, part 2 from chromedecay on Vimeo.

This 18-minute video shows me demonstrating my live electronic music performance rig. Part 2 covers using Ableton Live with TouchOSC and OSCulator, pad and keyboard controllers, and overall concepts of live performance.

Background information: all this video was shot a few months ago, in a whirlwind evening of setting up cameras, assembling gear, taking test shots, checking lighting levels in my living room, rigging cables, keeping my cats off the table I was using, fighting with my MiniDisc recorder’s microphone, and me waving my hands a lot. This week I finally finished editing it all in Final Cut Express, and I’m now thoroughly sick of the “rendering video” progress indicator. I’m quite pleased with the end result, though!

My friend Kent inquired privately about the technical details from Part 1, so I thought I’d include that here.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION
This video was recorded with 2 cameras; a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 was used for the head-on shots, and a Canon Powershot SD1000 was used for the overhead shots. All video was recorded in SD 640×480 format due to the cameras used. Editing was performed with Final Cut Express.

Screen captures were done with iShowUHD screen recording software for the Mac.

Voiceovers were recorded with a Rode NT1 into Logic Express 7, then exported for inclusion into the project. External audio was captured onto minidisc, then imported into Logic Express, edited, and exported & synced in Final Cut Express.

2/52: behind the scenes video, part 1

One thing I’ve learned about myself over the years is that I love teaching and sharing knowledge. This led directly into my chosen profession as a technology educator, and also shows itself in other ways, including making demonstration videos.

I’m really pleased to be able to offer this week’s 52 things project: Part 1 of a 2-part series describing and demonstrating my live electronic music performance rig. Part 2 will be posted as next week’s update.

chromedecay behind the scenes: bill van loo live performance rig, part 1 from chromedecay on Vimeo.

Other work from this week

In addition to making this video available, I’ve also been busy taking photographs this past week. On Monday night, I did a quick session in the chromedecay studio, shooting self-portraits so I’d have a new profile picture for Facebook and other social media sites.

Here’s the self-portrait I ended up deciding upon:
Bill Van Loo profile picture

This was shot with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18, with an external SunPak flash triggered by optical digital slave. I’ll write more about this setup at a later time. Upon reflection (no pun intended), I’d probably add a reflector on the right to fill in some of the shadows on the right side of my face, but I’m well enough pleased for now.

Here’s another shot I liked from that session. It’s cropped to a ultra-widescreen aspect ratio to get rid of the glare from a poster that’s directly above me; light was bouncing back off the acrylic from the poster frame, due to the flash pointing at it, so I cropped it out and got this:
Bill Van Loo in the chromedecay studio - January 2010

I also took advantage of the winter weather to shoot some outdoor photos. Here are a couple of favorites; these are both long exposures taken at night.
50 second trees Huron River long exposure

1/52: welcome to a year of 52 things

I’ve decided to engage in a new project for 2010, called “52 things”. Every week for the entire year, I will be uploading some new thing to the chromedecay site, for a total of 52 projects. This project was inspired by a number of similar “thing a day” or “thing a week” projects, especially the excellent Dust Breeding project run by Marcus Fischer (who has been mentioned here before).

These projects will range from photography to music to code to videos and even physical objects. Each week, I’ll upload the entry and include some notes about the project and the process behind it.

This first week’s project is this site itself. For the past 5 years or more, chromedecay has run as a mixture of blogging software, custom PHP code, and HTML. Today, all that is changing. For the past few months, I’ve been slowly working on getting the latest WordPress installed, migrating the site’s content, configuring plugins, and other such things.

The chromedecay site is now fully powered by the latest version of WordPress, and all content now exists as Pages inside WordPress. While that might not mean a lot to you, for me it means the ability to add to and change the site more easily, as well as opening it up to more collaboration with people like Joshua Schnable, who has his own set of projects that he’s eager to start adding to the chromedecay site.

One added bonus: the first seven chromedecay digital downloads are now available again! Over the years, the links to those releases got broken since they weren’t originally hosted on the chromedecay server, making them unavailable. However, today they’re available again, and it’s like rediscovering an old friend. I had a blast listening to some of the old live sets, especially, and I hope you do, too.

Over the coming weeks and months, the site will be continue to change – the current site design is fairly spartan, focused more on getting the new content and WordPress installation running. There are probably still some small wrinkles left to be ironed out, too – I’ll be watching for that as time goes by.

Here’s to a year of 52 things!

announcing CTRL4 + CTRL8: MIDI Control for Griffin PowerMate + PureData

Joshua Schnable has been working on a new controller idea, and chromedecay is proud to announce its availability.

CTRL4 & CTRL8: MIDI Control for the Griffin PowerMate + PureData lets you turn a Griffin Powermate into a flexible MIDI controller. The video below gives a very brief introduction to how this software works:

FIRST LOOK: Joshua Schnable’s CTRL8 Powermate/PD control software from chromedecay on Vimeo.

In short, this setup allows you to use a Griffin PowerMate (the aluminum knob that glows blue and outputs keystrokes/key commands) with the free, open-source PureData software in order to turn it into a 4- or 8-channel MIDI knob controller. More detailed videos will be coming soon, or you can check out the manual for more information.

studio production update

Here’s an update on the studio production side of things.

Slow but steady progress is being made on upcoming Bill Van Loo & Joshua Schnable material. Still undecided whether it will be released as several EPs or one full-length album, but the music is coming together nicely. Tracks keep getting handed back & forth via the power of the interwebs, with new pieces slowly taking shape.

Bill Van Loo solo material is also coming along, albeit at an even slower pace. Here’s a sneak peek at a new track that’s made almost entirely with iPod Touch applications as the sound sources; this (very rough) track uses SynthPond and BeBot Robot Synth as the primary sound sources, with additional post-production & arrangement in Ableton Live.

BeBot Robot Synth -> new track in Ableton Live
iPod Touch apps -> new track

BeatMaker on the iPod Touch is also getting used, along with a new ThumbTacks mic; here’s a (also extremely rough) snippet using only sounds recorded in the car, garage & front porch:

iPod Touch with Thumbtacks mic

a look back at 2008

Here we are at the start of a new year, so it seems worth taking a look back at the events of 2008. The next blog post will be a look forward at what to expect from chromedecay in 2009.

2008 was an extremely visuals-oriented year for chromedecay. Besides one digital release (Bubblegone’s excellent “Record of Memory (Live)“) and the Sync08 performance from Bill Van Loo & Joshua Schnable (see photos, video), the public output of chromedecay was otherwise visual.

Here’s a quick look back at the chromedecay year for 2008:

January 2008

January 2008 started off strong on the visual front, taking lots of photos.
the blur of passing cars
above: first photo of 2008

Another big development was the beginning of explorations in Processing, the fantastic visual programming environment.

processing sketch: many circles v1 (reds)
above: processing sketch: many circles v1 (reds)

February 2008
Bill Van Loo contributed the “chicago slow down (el trains remix)” for Canasta’s “We Were Mixed Up” remix album.

programming drums with the Trigger Finger
above: Bill Van Loo programming drums for the Canasta remix

skateboarder with hydrant
above: a trip to Salt Lake City, Utah yielded an excellent photo-walk!

March 2008
On Friday, March 14, 2008, Bill Van Loo & Joshua Schnable performed at the Sync08 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. You can see photos and video from this performance.

Bill Van Loo & J. Schnable - live at Sync08
above: Bill Van Loo & Joshua Schnable perform at Sync08

April 2008
Bubblegone’s excellent “Record of Memory (Live)” was released in April 2008, marking this talented artist’s first release on chromedecay. Bubblegone has performed at events with Bill Van Loo solo and the duo of Bill Van Loo & Joshua Schnable several times, so it was particularly exciting to have him join up!

Record of Memory (Live) cover art
above: artwork for Bubblegone’s “Record of Memory (Live)”

May 2008
May saw a studio session with Joshua Schnable, working on new material for future release.

quadruptych: bill van loo & j. schnable studio session
above: Bill Van Loo & Joshua Schnable in the chromedecay studio

June 2008
Continuing the visual domination of 2008, June 2008 marked the arrival of a new camera! Bill Van Loo took delivery of a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18, and quickly began putting it to good use.

First FZ18 shots: in-camera motion blur
above: one of the first shots with the new DMC-FZ18

The real news for June, however, was the wedding of Joshua Schnable! Congratulations, Josh! See photos here and here


above: Bill Van Loo & Joshua Schable at Josh’s wedding

July 2008
A day trip to Chicago yielded a new chromedecay video, with black & white footage set to moody beats.

above: “chicago (as seen by car)” video

August 2008
There was lots of photo-taking during the summer months, including more experiments in long exposures.

I-94 lightstream
above: I-94 lightstream

September 2008
Just a few short months after Joshua Schnable got married, longtime chromedecay contributor and supporter Rob Theakston got married in scenic Lexington, Kentucky. Congratulations, Rob!

tablecloth (wedding abstract)
above: tablecloth (wedding abstract)

October 2008
Photographic experiments continued, as material was gathered for upcoming chromedecay photo and video releases.

michigan avenue, ypsilanti
above: a section of Michigan Avenue in Ypsilanti

November 2008
Here’s a favorite photo from November.

morning commute
above: morning commute

December 2008
December ended with more Processing work and photography.


rndm4 – processing sketch from chromedecay on Vimeo.
above: rndm4, made in Processing

gym mat abstract
above: gym mat abstract

Looking foward…
Next up: looking forward to 2009!