Monday, April 14, 2008

A Week Of Life

Wow a week of life!

One thing that I am appreciating about "blogging" is it gives me a sense of time. When I look at the time and date in my system notification tray and see Monday, April 14th and realize my last blog was on the 7th and only remember like one day that I was off my feet, it gives me great satisfaction to know that I enjoy a great WEEK of life. Seven solid days give or take a headache and some pain here or there.

In this blog I am going to skid over the topics that I may later post more specifically about. But, for the sake of time and that I don't want to forget what is on my mind, I will keep the topics brief for this posting.

First, it was very exciting that the DIMM RAM finally arrived for the Yamaha MOTIF XS and I prepared ahead of time for its installation. The workstation must be flipped over so having a secure "stand to support the unit" is imperative. I used bricks and wrapped them in 12"x12" cloth towels available in sets of 9 for $5 dollars at Wal-Mart. The installation took around ten minutes tops. I also wore a grounding wrist-strap whereas I am one of those people who naturally carry on their person, 50,000 volts of static electricity so it is imperative that I be strapped and grounded before I get near electronic parts such as highly sensitive DIMM memory. After installing the DIMMs, I fired up the XS and it immediately showed 380 minutes of sampling time available. I patched into SONG mode, called up a song I am working on and then mixed it down to stereo to be resampled in the sampler. The process was painless and worked well. I did go through the process 3 times because the amplitude was less than I expected. Yamaha apparently purposely [for a lack of better word] attenuates the signal gain so people don't get distorted samplings. You can adjust the sampler; -12db, -6db -3db -zero +3db +6db and +12db. This is actually a handy feature when you simply want to take a song from the XS, and create a 44 kHz WAV file to send or take to a PC/MAC for mp3 without having any plans to edit, mix or do any post production on the data in any DAW or mastering app such as Wavelab or Yamaha's mastering suite. In my case, this was a simple, somewhat quiet, yet lovely piece of 2 spanish guitars and harmonica and the +6db resampling option worked well.

All of the NDS accessories I purchased finally arrived. This includes the M3DS ReaL slot1, RAM expansion slot2, 4GB microSDHC including USB 2.0 SDHC adapter (very cooL) and an extra RAM expansion called the 3-in-1 which is needed for fast browser cache when using the Opera web browser on the NDS. I'm glad I bought the 3-in-1 because now, both of our NDS units will have Internet capability. All I must do is order another M3DS ReaL which I will do. In my first hours of toying with its features and "home brew" this is really exciting stuff and a fun hobby. If you enjoy handheld gaming and like to get into other venues such as viewing pictures, movie conversion, listening to music and the like, then you owe it to yourself to either find a friend who has one and is doing this so you can check it out OR just go buy a Nintendo DS Lite, and get yourself a M3DS ReaL, download and install the latest firmware v3.4 and get "brewing" ASAP. If you're wondering how much does all this junk cost? Well, the NDS is $129, my really cool case to carry it all was $26, the M3DS ReaL including a rumble pack and RAM expansion plus a USB 2.0 microSDHC reader was a whopping $63 and the 3-in-1 expansion was $20. The Kingston microSDHC 4GB including SD and MMC adapters was $30. So, for $268 you can have a totally custom NDS, with Internet connectivity, watch movies, listen to music, view pictures and do TONS of Linux apps and utils, plus play DS and GBA games. This is handheld heaven. And, yes I was considering a Sony PSP. Still am. It can do a couple more things better. Such as watching home brew video and it has a neat add-on live chat-cam package. But, feature for feature and price vs. price, the NDS costs way less and does AS much as the PSP. Neither handheld can play Flash yet, nor can they view PDF files. Shall be interesting to see who gets any of THAT first. But, in June, Sony will be releasing the "Cherry Red" PSP bundle including the game, "God of War" and it will be a must buy for me. But a PSP with all the bells and whistles and accessories about $500. So... if you're interested at all, leave me a note right here on my blog using the Shoutcast OR email me. But, for under $300 USD, the NDS delivers a TON of entertainment for years to come.

Kathy and I had our 1st "shindigg" here yesterday. We threw a birthday barbeque for her twin daughters. 11 people showed up, plus a gorgeous white pet husky dog. We all had a great time, the weather was gorgeous and I will be adding these videos to the upcoming NASAV website which is the web for our RV life. The party lasted about 5.5 hours and although I enjoyed listening to our favorite music and watching the girls dance and fool around, it was nice to get back to, "nature quiet" after everyone left to drive back to the city.

I'm back to playing Mass Effect on the 360. And a couple days ago I got an itch to play Dawn_Of_War_Dark_Crusade. Enjoyed that so much that I happen to see their new RTS, DOW_Soulstorm so I went ahead an bought it. Great game and now this fine real time strategy game includes, "air units" and I like one of the new factions called, "The Sisters". Fun game, and it's fun to be playing RTS again on the PC.

Tirtiary note: I was surprised that during the birthday barbeque, the guys opted to play Call_Of_Duty_2 instead of playing the new COD_4 which proves that the 2nd incarnation of the game provides a better split-screen experience. Personally, I think the weapon sounds in COD2 are much better than in COD4, this includes experiencing them in full 5.1 digital surround via TOSlink.

In other news: days before the barbeque, I have already finalized all roof maintenance due to the winter. This rig is 25 years old and our roof repairs consistently have worked for us, but each spring, a few spots need upgrading or simply repatching. The entire process took me around 2 hours and I am very pleased with the RV roof.

Also, all of the RV trim got a, "Spring Coat" of flat black latex and I am preparing to do the cab_steps and order a couple rolls of molding for the outside skirts. Also the front grill (in front of the engine) although still looking good, needs to get a fresh spray of black along with the rear wheel skirts. I do this once a year anyhow. This process takes about 2 hours as well. So, you're asking, "When do we get to see all of this so-called customizing?" Okay! You're entitled to ask and to gripe! But the NASAV website is in the works. The transformation of the RV from what it was when I bought it to what it is now, is not night and day, but it is very unique. The main attraction being our RV is probably only 1 in millions of RV motorhomes that DOES_NOT have factory logo decals on it. That was the FIRST thing we ripped off. There will be pictures and video of those experiences.

In the past WEEK, I spent an entire day just learning more about the MOTIF XS song and pattern mode. The pattern mode is very powerful with its 16x16x5=1,280 parts to be used in song creation. It takes some getting used to a different way to [physically] construct songs. Yet, the process is still linear and works well for musicians like me who do write parts such as intro, verse, bridge, chorus, fills, key changes, ending.

Am very excited to finally find a OFFICIAL Yamaha O1X travel case. I say this because I got lazy and didn't buy one when I bought my O1X and then when I went online to order one, they were no longer available ANYWHERE. I was freaking out. So this is great that not only did I find a place that has them, but the price dropped $30 too. This case is a padded, zippered, wheel_around with slide-up extended handle (just like airline pull me's). The case includes space for a laptop in a separate layer of the case along with pockets for cords and cables. So, come the tail end of April I will order one along with a Gater-case for the XS, and 2 nylon dust covers for both units. Once the studio is setup permanently, the units MUST be covered at all times when not in use. Quality towels DO_NOT keep out dust, dirt and debris!!

The month of May will be to INSTALL the studio table, saw, drill and paint and setup the gear, jack all the cables and get excited to begin losing days and nights at NASAV_Studios™.

I spent half a day kicking around some PCTech documents that I am still editing and working in collaboration with the room owner. I expect these to be approved and get published to the net sometime between now and May.

More later!

;;cheers;;