Friday, April 8, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Came Up with Another Recipe
OK
So we had some leftover Rudy's from my dad that he bought for sxsw. Talking Turkey and Brisket. Here's a nice alternate use I came up with for it
1. Make a baked potato in the microwave (7 min)
2. Grill up some white and red onion together
3. Reheat Turkey (option: and Brisket) on a pan
4. Take potato out of microwave....put on butter and a little light brown sugar
5. Put on onions, turkey and brisket
6. Sprinkle green herbs (italian mix) on top
7. optional: BBQ sauce
I made this twice, once with the brisket + bbq sauce and the first time without. I would actually say it was better sans brisket and bbq sauce, but I would not tell anyone not to try it. It was just shockingly light w/o it. The brown sugar gives the onion a slight caramalization....you can even stick the brown sugar on the onions to do that in the pan, I think I did that the first time.
The best thing since sliced bread? Maybe not, but I'd say at least the best thing since 4 square toast. One day I'll get one a them smart phones and take pictures and auto-upload them on this blog....
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Resurrecting an Ensoniq EPS classic sampler
Join me, for a journey into the world of vintage music electronics repair and modification...
Our subject, the Ensoniq EPS.
Don't know it? Sure you do!!! Ever heard Wu-Tang's 36 Chambers? You've heard this keyboard. It was the precursor to the uber-popular ASR-10.
It's a very characteristic 13-bit sampler beamed to us from 1988. Low RAM in this one (480k) means you gots to get real creative.
Anyway, I was given this keyboard, and immediately dug it. I already had a soft-spot for the ESQ-1, and this is basically like it's sampling brother.
The only problem with these old machines though, is that floppy disks are not much fun, the particular ones for the EPS are very hard to find (DD, not HD!), and they will eventually fail. The HxC Floppy Emulator steps in to replace your thousands of floppies with one, easy to find SD card.
The process:
I backed up all my EPS disks via OmniFlop. This creates a RAW img file, which, as far as I know, is just a byte-for-byte (or close to that) copy of the diskette. The beauty of this format is that the host machines don't need to be able to read it, they just copy the raw data off it. The problem is, you don't know if it's working til you've tried it. I did not anticipate this, and thought the software would read my *.img files easily...not so.
So in the HxCFloppyEmulator software, I can't do 'batch convert' (that expects *.efe files...i've got *.img raw files), I had to do "Load Raw image":
- Load Raw image
- You have to change the settings in this menu.
For 819200 byte images, use these parameters:
Sector per track = 10
Sector ID start = 0
GAP3 lenght = 40
Anyway, that converted all my floppies to images, and at that point, I just hoped it would work.
Finally found the EPS service manual, which helped me remove only the screws I needed to remove the disk drive.
Here are the instructions from the service manual:
Replacing the EPS Disk Drive
1. Remove all cables connected to the EPS, including the power cable.
2. Remove the four (4) screws that fasten the control panel with a 2.5mm hex wrench.
NOTE: These are machine screws.
3. Turn the unit over, top down, and remove the four (4) screws that attach the wheel assembly to the case. See Figure 12 for location of screws. Return the unit to an upright position and raise the control panel. Carefully lift the wheel assembly out of the case.
4. Disconnect the two cables from the Disk Drive, paying particular attention to the polarity. (See Important things to know - the disk drive, page 2).
5. Remove the four (4) screws and star washers that attach the disk drive to the wheel assembly.
6. Carefully slide the Disk Drive out of the wheel assembly. Remove the two (2) screws and star washers that attach the metal plate to the bottom of the disk drive.
etc, etc...
Got that out, got the floppy emulator in, powered up, and CRAP! it WORKED. Couldn't believe it. Scrolled over to the disk image for the OS, and the sumb*tch loaded up like nothing was wrong.
I made the above video while I was doing the upgrade, and then I created the soundtrack from the demo disks that came with the EPS.
So if you've got an old sampler, and floppy disks are holding you back, get over it.
DIY4LIFE. Read More......
Friday, February 11, 2011
Woolfy Interview, Cosmic Trigger Tonight!
....Special report from certified-homie Hayden Bagot....
Hayden from Flying Turns here. We caught a DJ performance from Woolfy last year during SXSW that left us throttled. He completely stole the show and then got off the decks to drink and dance with us while his label-mates on DFA records pushed on further into disco-house territory. We woke up the next day in pieces but knew we had to bring back the man who has killed parties, released on popular labels (DFA, Rong, and Permanent Vacation), and performed his records with a touring live band to do the business to Austin again. In anticipation of the party this weekend (and because I could) we had a quick Q and A session.
H: Let's pretend you are boxing for the title against George Foreman, What song do you pick to play while you walk out to the ring?
W: This is a very good question Hayden, for me I would choose "tomorrow" from the Annie soundtrack; there's nothing like a good show-tune before an ass whooping. For George I'd choose "Lean On Me" cause that's all he ever did in the ring.
H This is not your first time in Texas, do werewolves prefer Austin's tacos or barbeque?
W: Bar-b-que for sure. I want my baby back baby back baby back ribs. That works for the first question but it would of gone, I want my ribs back baby . . .
H What's your favorite piece of musical equipment and why?
W: My classical guitar, it releases a lot of demons for me; it also cooks me dinner, sends heart warming texts and is a big fan of Dexter.
H: The hard-drive with all your recordings on it crashed last year, have you been busy writing new material?
W: That was definitely a hard time for me, but I took it in stride. I thought I'd be writing make-up to break-up love songs due to my divorce, but it started a new genre of music; post angst computerism. The name of the album;s called KILL KRAFTWERK.
H Do you have any plans in the works to tour the Woolfy Band soon?
W: A lot of offers have come my way recently, but my main man (keyboardist) Dan's band ORGONE is blowing up right now and to start from scratch is a tall order. Chemistry's a fine art in the music biz, Match.com anyone?
H: Your release on Whatchawannado is under the name Sir Woolfy. How did it feel being knighted by the queen?
W: It was humiliating. They made me wear a Tudor wig and used a plastic sword. Sean Connery and McCartney were laughing during the whole ceremony, bastards.
H: What is the strangest thing you've ever been asked in an interview? and how did you respond?
W: See question 1.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Zen and the art of tape deck repair
Taken while replacing a broken belt in my Sony TC-K1A Cassette Tape Deck.
Amazing machine! My crappy pictures do this thing no justice.
Not to mention, built-in RCA cords!
Monday, January 24, 2011
Biggest Tool on the Internet
From bleacherreport.com.
I love to hate this guy.
OK, so I don't know exactly how, but I keep finding these links that are like "the 50 worst NFL coaches" or, this weeks edition "the 50 worst Championship teams in all of sports." The list is exactly what it sound like...some guy going "sure he won the superbowl, but his all time won loss percentage was a paltry .569 . Or something like that (one of the coaches even had a winning record, srsly). It is really absurd. He puts the 93-94 Rockets as the 32nd worst championship team out of principal because MJ didn't play that year. Oh and the Seattle Supersonics lost in the 1st round, thats somehow a black mark against Dr34m.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/530269-worst-of-the-best-50-worst-championship-teams-ever?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=outbrain#page/20
Oh yeah, how about you go out and win an NBA championship, then we can talk.
The Dream
Update: The Hakeem interview went well.
Aside from some audio fidelity issues (this was a phone interview) and a polite decline of my request for a voicemail drop ("Wassup this is Dream, shake out a message for my all-star friend Dan Gentile") the interview went pretty well. We spoke for 40 minutes (he talks fairly slow).
I learned:
Despite his website's statement that he has a "private palace" in Jordan it is just a small house. He was upset about this, seems like somebody's gonna get fired. He would also love to have Michael Jordan visit him in Jordan.
Hakeem's dream shake would be vanilla with strawberries and bananas ("you've gotta keep it creative, mix it up, use different combinations").
When asking him about the controversy behind his height (some say 6'11, some say 7 foot) I got him to admit that he is in actuality 6 foot 5 inches. This took some convincing and included me using the phrase "Don't lie to me, Dream!"
He's not familiar enough with the ninja turtles to pick one that he most resembles, despite Dwight Howard (who he called the best big man in the game today) constantly referring to him as Master Splinter in an adorable YouTube video of the two working out together.
He has never played NBA Jam, thus making my question about whether he used the unstoppable combo of Shaq and Scott Skiles irrelevant.
We had some taco talk regarding the double decker, which he starred in a commercial for with Shaq. He said he's trying to watch his weight so he could probably only eat two of them, and that he would not want to compete with Shaq in an eating contest.
The fashion equivalent of a dream shake would be wearing a cashmere sweater with jeans. This was without a doubt the best part of the interview, Hakeem spoke very passionately about his personal style at length and how the key to fashion is to make it look like you're not trying.
He still plays 3v3 pickup games with Clyde Drexler. God help the other 4 guys that randomly end up in that game.
Those are the highlights. I might chop up some of the audio and post it soon. Watch for the Thrillist piece sometime next week.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Vintage Sampler Floppy Disk Salvation
We interrupt these awesome basketball Dream posts to bring you your quarterly nerd report:
Having trouble backing up your Ensoniq EPS Classic (wiki) sound disks?
I was.
I've been using software called Omniflop which basically reads your non-pc formatted disks as raw as possible, then saves that as an 'image' onto a computer...which it can later use to recreate the floppy.
I ran into some problems with some EPS disks not wanting to read...hey, the most recent date on any of these 1989, so we can cut mother nature some slack in this case. Specifically, these disks WOULD load in the sampler, but would not load in my computer disk drive.
The solution:
Find a floppy that DOES load fine on your computer. This is going to be your 'transfer disk'.
Format your 'transfer disk' with your sampler. Make it fresh.
Take a 'problem disk', and load it into the sampler. Load the sounds as normal.
Now simply save the files onto your freshly formatted 'transfer disk'. If you could read the disk before, you can likely read it again, albeit this time with new data on it.
So it's a lot of insert disk, load, eject disk, insert xfer disk, save, eject disk, insert into pc, backup disk...over and over (more depending on your sampler, maybe)...but it is a way to salvage your material!
I will be posting soon about my experience into installing an HxC SD Floppy Emulator into this same EPS, so I don't have to go through this failing disk / drive nonsense again.
You may now return to higher caliber journalism.
-j
BONUS POINTS: Save an image file of the formatted disk, and instead of formatting in the sampler later, simply load the formatted image via the PC.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Smooth Jazz
hey there Blogermanics! or should i say "Legomanics"!!
I thought there was no point to smooth jazz music....no environment where it was like "oh yeah, thats the stuff". I am happy to report I am wrong. When looking for video evidence of this: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=6037737&sportCat=ncf on youtube (amazing) I came across this:
ps howd that hakeem thing go? Everything you dr34med about?
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Hakeem Update 2
The Dream has agreed to let me interview him. Bloggermaniacs keep your eyes peeled for the full story next week.
Read More......Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Hakeem Update
So I'm trying to interview Hakeem Olajuwon for my other blog. The reason for this post is to let you know that Hakeem's PR representation casually calls him Dream, as in, "I will speak to Dream today about this matter."
Keep your fingers crossed bloggermaniacs.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
