Android - TimeKeeper

For years, I've been a happy user of the Yamaha ClickStation metronome. I like it because it has support for playlists, which allows you to select the tempo of the next song by clicking one button, instead of reading it from a piece of paper and adjusting a dial. Another nice feature, is that you can reset the tempo. It will restart counting from the 1 immediately. I find this especially useful when another musician starts a song, and I have to adjust the metronome until it aligns with the rest of the band. It has two big downsides however. Editing playlists is really hard and counter-intuitive (I end up losing changes etc.). Another drawback is that you loose all data if you don't replace the battery in time (which confronts you again with drawback nr. 1, since you have to program it all over).

But these days, why not use an app for that? It should be a lot easier to edit playlists, and you don't loose any data if the battery is dead. Unfortunately, Yamaha only developed a ClickStation app for iPhone. I tried a few on Android, and I liked Drummer's Metronome the most, but none of them had the option to reset it while playing.

That's what lead me to building my own. Again a very minimalistic app, that only does what I need. You can choose the pitch and length of the click (a simple sine wave), but that's it. Getting the audio to react in real-time turned out to be the biggest challenge, and I can't help but feeling that the Android UI framework is more complicated than needed.

If anybody happens to appreciate the same features in a metronome as me, feel free to use it.

Download APK
Source on GitHub

Android - Busy Parking Lot

I thought it would be fun to develop an Android app, so I made one.

Here are some screenshots



It is not on the market, but you can download it here:
http://android.t-ars.be/BusyParkingLot.apk

While I was at it, I installed a git "server" on the freshly installed linux box (see previous post ;-) ) and did my version tracking with EGit.

Happy parking.

Installing Ubuntu 11.04 from Hard Disk

I run linux on an old PC, which can't boot from USB yet, and I'm tired of burning a CD-R(W) each time I want to reinstall the system with another version. I could just upgrade the old system, but sometimes I want to do a clean install.

I found some information on these pages, but it didn't work for me (and it looks like I am not the only one).

I followed most of the instructions from the first link, but the installer couldn't mount the iso.

Here's how I managed after all:

You need 2 partitions.

1. A parition that contains an old Ubuntu installation (7.10).

Copy vmlinuz and initrd.gz from directory "install" of the iso to directory "/new" of this partition. Add these lines to the end of /boot/grub/menu.lst:

title Install Ubuntu
root (hd0,0)
kernel /new/vmlinuz
initrd /new/initrd.gz

This partition will be replaced by the installer.

2. A partition that is an exacy copy of the iso

I placed this partition on a second drive, so I could let the installer use the entire first disk.

Copy the contents of the iso to the second partition by executing:
dd if=ubuntu-11.04-server-i386.iso of=/dev/sdb6
(replace with applicable device)

Note that this creates a partition with the same format as the iso (iso9660). I figured that's the problem with other methods which create an ext3 or fat partition and use rsync to fill it with the contents of the iso.

Reboot and select the new grub entry. Proceed with the installation until you see the message "Detect and mount CD-ROM". Open a new shell (Ctrl-Alt-F2) and replace the physical cdrom drive with the second partition:

rm /dev/sr0
ln -s /dev/sdb6 /dev/sr0

(replace with applicable devices)

Then switch back to the original screen (Ctrl-Alt-F1) and choose to retry. All should go smoothly from there.

Good luck !

Trying out Drupal 7

This weekend, I decided to take a look at the freshly released Drupal 7.


I feel like the Installation Guide was improved, with the possibility to follow high-level or more in-depth instructions. The default UI got a (welcome) face-lift, and the context menus seem to be back (Contextual links module), which I applaud. The installation process is similar to Drupal 6 and the administrator pages are now more accessible through a menu at the top (Toolbar module). They open in a pop-up so you don't leave the current page and you are less affected by the layout of the current theme (Overlay module).

I'm a little disappointed by the amount of modules supporting version 7. I was expecting a wide range of modules to be fully available (due to the D7 Pledges), but it turns out a lot only have a development snapshot or an alpha version available.

Installing modules through the web-interface still feels like a hassle. You have to copy-paste the donwload URL, and then provide FTP-credentials. I use SCP on this Linux-box and didn't set up an FTP-server because that feels like taking a step back. This video made me believe that modules would install right away, but the administration page states "Installing modules and themes requires FTP access to your server". Luckily there is drush which makes it fairly easy to install modules (if you have console-access).

Upgrading from Drupal 6 to 7 looks OK. I did a test with a very basic website (even no extra modules) and all seemed to work.
The main challenge will probably be upgrading third-party modules and themes.

I was looking forward to improved support for staging/deployment/management, but didn't find any traces of this yet. We'll need to keep on helping ourselves with third-party tools, until Drupal 8 is available.

I'll need some miles with this new release to find out if it proves to be stable and practical.

Try it out here.

Building a flightcase

I've been wanting to build a flightcase for a while. Until recently, I decided to go for it.

From Wikipedia: Originally, flightcases have been used by rock and roll touring bands to transport sound equipment, lighting equipment and musical instruments.

"rock and/or roll" ;-)



I made some drawings and ordered the parts at flightcase-brico.be. This case would be used for transporting a bass amplifier. Since the amp is quite heavy, the locks had to be close to the bottom and the case would need solid wheels (that could be locked).



Fortunately, there is an excellent guide on the shop's website. I first cut the 6 wooden sides of the case, then glued and nailed them together.



I used genuine 1cm thick flightcase wood. Which makes for a very solid (but heavy ...) case.
After I had a closed box, I cut it in 2 and placed the lid locations.



Then it was time to place the corners and angles (by using pop-rivets).




It seems to be common practice to first place the lid locations and then cut a hole to place the locks. I placed the 4 locks, which slightly move outward (they have a spring) when they are opened to make sure the lid can be easily removed (they are upside down), and then placed the handles.

The wheels shouldn't be attached to the case directly. Most of the time, multiplex is placed in between to distribute the weight.



Now, we just need some padding and we can start rolling. The wheels are perfect, they roll very smoothly and can take a lot of though bumps.



The amp can remain on the bottom plate while playing, which is convenient.



The total weight that needs to be transported has increased, but the general comfort of the one moving it has increased also. Now, one person is enough most of the time (except when lifting), and you can put other things on top of the rolling case. The gear is also protected against scratches, light rain and not-too-heavy impacts.

The Switch: Mac better than PC?

I, for one, definitely disagree. Feeling frustrated. Please bear with me, I need to get it off my chest.

Every Mac user keeps telling me that I don't like Mac because I'm used to a PC. At first, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I thought I had to take the time to get to know the software. But the evidence is striking.

I use my system for audio engineering: recording, mixing, ... I come from Windows XP with Steinberg Cubase SX 3 and I switched to Leopard with Logic Studio 8 (with a Presonus Firepod).

The design of a Mac is great. You've got to give them that. Every other PC or laptop that I have is just ugly compared to the MacBook Pro. Personally I have some problems with the "This is the best for you"-attitude. Many people think that you should limit the user's choices and that Windows is too complicated because it leaves too much choice. But I miss it on a Mac. I'm used to customizing everything and Time Machine for example is too limited for me. Maybe I'm not the intended user? "Mac is for simple people".

When I opened my MacBook Pro yesterday (it was in stand-by) it crashed and showed a dialog like: "You need to restart. Press and hold the Power Button". My Windows XP box never crashed. So I think Apple is in no position to use a blue-screen as icon for a windows-share on the network.

Logic is so buggy and is more complicated to me (OK, I work with Cubase longer, but come on):
1) Working with tempo changes is a real pain. Takes inside a take-folder move around (and using undo only makes it worse).
I nailed the perfect take, saved the project and closed it. Next time I fired it up, it had shifted approximately half a beat. First I thought I did it by accident but it has happened to me so many times that it's just not possible.
When I create a Tempo Curve Logic shows a dialog "Logic Pro has unexpectedly quit. The current project has been saved as ...". What the ...? Cubase never crashed.
2) When I hit Play, I sometimes get a dialog saying that there was a system overload. Look, I use this machine on stage. No jokes like this please. It's a 2.2 GHz MacBook Pro with 4GB RAM and a 7200rpm hard drive with no other programs running. Don't tell me that's not enough.
3) Yesterday, our bass player came over to record a few songs for our next demo. In the middle of the session a dialog appeared "The Device/partition HD/.../Logic/..." can't be found. A file chooser appeared and it's current location was the folder that couldn't be found. It's right there !
4) I wanted to assign a different input to a track. Apparently clicking on the button that shows the current input doesn't do the trick. That's not intuitive (if at all possible).
5) Upgrading from Logic 8 to 8.0.1 rendered some Take folders unusable. The recording needed to be done all over again. Not funny if you know how long it takes to Mic a drum-kit, adjust all levels and play the line until it feels right.
6) Changing the transition between takes of multiple tracks is not possible (and was with Cubase)
7) The GUI has some small bugs also. While recording there sometimes are gray lines in the recorded track.

Yes, I have tried turning it off and on again.

The only thing that is better is the absence of occasional "clicks" during playback, but I think that's just because I didn't use the correct settings for my audio interface. Here Mac gets 1 point for working better out of the box.

For those that are interested: The Presonus Firepod was worth every penny. Works great and has a nice sound.

So what should I do? Go to ProTools and throw away my Presonus? I think I invested enough. Anybody some experience with Cubase for Mac?

Maybe I should just look for another hobby?

Zweden

Uiteindenlijk is het er dan toch van gekomen. Ik heb enkele foto's online gezet van onze Kano-reis in Zweden (nee, niet "naar Zweden").

http://picasaweb.google.be/tars.joris/Zweden