Thursday, February 13, 2014

New comic book story

I’m finishing up my two-page contribution to Éditions Trip’s upcoming release of Trip #8. As you can see from the page below, it is about an astronaut floating out of control in space. This short piece is the prologue for a longer work I have outlined and it sets the ontological basis for magic in that graphic novel’s universe (more on this as it develops).
An obvious inspiration for the astronaut drawings was NASA’s photographs of the first American spacewalk.
The word captions were removed for this posting to provide further incentive to buy Trip #8 when it comes out in March.




I would like to thank Éditions TRIP for the opportunity to participate once again in one of their publications as it provided the necessary impetus to start this project.

Friday, February 7, 2014

OSCNotation 3.0

Version 3.0 of OSCNotation has just been released on the Apple App Store.

I started working on this update in December when composer Nicolas Fells contacted me about including iPad support to OSCNotation for a piece he was working on. The appeal of working with the iPad is that OSCNotation can be used to display multiple staves on the same screen.  Musicians can all read from the same device and see how their parts interact with those of their colleagues. This is probably the single most requested feature and I had some spare time I decided to dedicate to this task.

IOS Simulator Screen shot Feb 4 2014 8 53 03 PM

The user guide has been updated to reflect all changes.

What I find most rewarding about my work in music technology is hearing the music to which my software contributes. Below is a concert from early 2013 featuring Dan Tepfer and Lee Konitz.  Dan is using OSCNotation to send musical notation to the Harlem String Quartet from his midi keyboard. How cool is that?

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

My Commodore 64

Lately, I've been obsessed with the Commodore 64.  It all started when I read a fantastic little book that discussed a one line program from a variety of different angles.  After spending a couple hours with emulators running on my MacBook, I wanted to get my hands on the real thing.

My first computer was a Commodore 64.  I remember vividly the happiness I felt that night in December when my father came home with all those boxes.  He laid everything on the floor and we spent hours putting everything together.  All the manuals and documentation were in English and at that age (eight), I had yet to master the language.  This is probably the greatest gift I ever received from anyone.  Not only was the Commodore 64 a fun game system, it was my first introduction to computer programming.  I spent a lot of time deciphering the codes in the manuals and I made little games in BASIC.  Unfortunately, I never figured out how to save anything, so I had to input the code every time I wanted to play one of my games (again, the manuals were in a "foreign" language).

All this reminiscence eventually lead me to acquire two systems.  The first is an early model breadbin C64, just like the one I had as a kid.  I made some modifications to it:
  • I added an SD card reader to replace the bulky disk drive; 
  • I added some buttons to control the SD card reader; 
  • I installed JiffyDOS with a Kernel selector switch;
  • and I installed heat-sinks on most integrated circuits.  
I will use this unit to play games and to create my own programs.

Programming the C64 may seem like an odd idea (or a waste of time), but the 6502 CPU on which the C64's CPU is based is still being manufactured and seeing lots of use in certain applications.  Learning program in 6502 machine language may be a very worthwhile endeavour…  these chips are a lot cheaper then the micro-controller development boards available these days and, in some sense, a lot more powerful.

Also, the Commodore Basic language was ported to OS X, Windows and Linux as a powerful scripting language.  As such, it is an interesting alternative to other scripting languages and a nice way of recycling my old chops.

I also acquired a mint condition C64G.  This is a beautiful unit with a C64C motherboard in a creamy-white breadbin case.  I got this one specifically for musical purposes and I modified it in the following way:
  • I added a 1/4" audio output; 
  • I grounded the audio input to reduce noise; 
  • I installed an LCD screen;
  • I installed a power plug for the LCD screen;
  • I installed heat-sinks on most integrated circuits.
This C64 will live on a pedal board next various guitar pedals. I'll use MSSIAH's mono-synth program as a sound source to be modified by the guitar pedals.  For controller, I'll use my previously mentioned homemade midi guitar controller.  I'm also using a Raspberry Pi running Pure Data to process the midi signals from the guitar controller to the C64.  Here's the signal path I'm considering at this time:

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