Happy New Year! [as it's been a vibe-y 2017]

I don't know how many people actually read this blog but I felt it's my duty to bring you the latest buzz of what's been going on..

I founded a company.

Yes, that's right... at the moment it's merely a bureaucratic move in my musical ventures to ease a few things such as taxing, albeit it did bring some extra work..

Anyway, I've been building a sound system, a dance stack to be precise (something that got my mind at least a bit off the quirky live setup but I'll get to that later..)

Here's the initial sketch for the system which was posted on DJF and Speakerplans forum (they're a bunch of nice people there too I guess, once you get past the physics stuff and sandbox-like politics on whose system is the biggest and baddest..)

Well, to continue the story, I confiscated a sheet of MDF and began working on a system (I've built a scoop bass bin back in 2010 and a 186 folded horn so I consider myself a novice-level builder, although I lack the workshop and the tools but the stuff I've put together so far has been of adequate quality I think)

Here's the high to mid-low section of the stack (as you can see I didn't quite follow the original plans as I didn't feel the need to build a system of the same size as in the blueprints)

Here's a full single stack.. it stands roughly 2m tall. For those of you who don't know what a dance stack is; it's roots stem back to the Paradise Garage sound system in the 70's.

It's far from being complete as it's missing the 2nd sub and all the amps and processing and due to financial reasons I've put the project aside for now, BUT, as I mentioned earlier in this blog post regarding the live setup, I bought something called a single board computer/microcontroller, an Arduino to be precise to see if it can do some of the processing (it's a development board/educational tool with a breadboard and digital and analog I/O pins and a programming IDE) or just to pass the long winter.

I've already done some simple projects with it and at the moment I'm studying it's possibilities as a MIDI controller (I'm a programming/electronics noob but I'm really trying)

I already did a simple "Hello World!" program with it using the supplied LCD in the kit and the programming IDE.

Other than that, I read a HTML5 handbook (I used to do some basic HTML back in high school) and I'm currently studying on a Linux book (I already set up a simple bootable Ubuntu USB stick with an Apache server, although I used to be an openSuse user back in the days)

Anyway, I hope you all a merry belated Christmas and a happy New Year!

-ef

EDIT : minor fixes

EDIT 2 : I also bought an alto saxophone (I used to play the recorder when I was like 10) to keep things hectic in the studio; I also plan on incorporating that to my live funky house sets once I learn to play (I had trouble believing at first that a live performance would be appropriate for the funkier styles of house but it seems to work surprisingly well)

EDIT 3 : I also applied to Metropolia AMK in ICT as well as electrical and automation engineering and attended the entrance exam but didn't make it... maybe next year?

#dance #stack #djf #speakerplans #scoop #186 #paradise #garage #arduino #MIDI #html5 #linux #programming