steve cooley presents

Comin’ hardcore with sounds from another planet, Deadly Venomz presents us with the ‘Destination Mars’ release. He’s no newcomer to the scene though. The man behind this music, Mattski, is a local veteran in the San Francisco Bay Area with many years of DJ’ing and production under his belt. He always brings the sonic mayhem when it comes to Techno, and these four tracks do exactly that. So put your spacesuit on, step into the airlock and prepare for a sonic onslaught from out of this world.

Artwork by SK70-Mattski

Mars
Phobos
Deimos
Utopia

Complete release in a .zip

I have beatseqr v3.1 unassembled kits available. The assembly is pretty straight forward, with only a couple of weird things you’ll need to do to undo some of the issues I’m reworking for the next version, whenever that ends up being. This version works, and aside from some slightly inconvenient assembly steps, it’s relatively easy work.

Fully built and battle tested with hard acrylic keys, acrylic case & knobs, $349
Kit with arduino mega, $249
Kit with NO arduino mega, $199

kit prices do not include buttons, case, knobs, or cables. contact steve@beatseqr.com for more info.

Derek made a great new overview video for our Maker Faire booth, check it out:

alrighty, then.. so I’m starting to get my bearings with how all the software works to run jobs through the blacktoe CNC router. I switched from cambam over to sheetcam and now I’m getting really good results. There’s still a certain amount of strangeness, probably all my fault, so I’m still learning what works and what doesn’t. Here’s a video I did to show how the blacktoe does with machinable wax:

The end result is a mold to use for casting translucent silicone into for use in my beatseqr project, as a replacement for the hand-cut-and-sanded acrylic buttons that I’m currently using. You never know how an experiment will really go until it’s over, and now that this experiment is over, I’ve learned a lot and will make a bunch of adjustments:

1. change the silicone product from tap plastics platinum cure translucent (way too wobbly for this application) to smooth-on sorta clear 40. I saw this product at the Maker Faire this past weekend and really liked the firm quality of the cured product. I think it will be a really good candidate. Smooth-on dragon skin 30 was my second-best candidate.
2. cut a new button mold using the techniques I’ve learned by doing this one.
3. adjust the height of the button to be not as tall as this test.
4. adjust the flashing surrounding the buttons to be not nearly as tall. I had it set to be 0.1″ tall, and that’s probably 0.08″ too much. all I need is for it to basically be thick enough to keep all of the buttons together, and that’s it.
5. think about how to diffuse the LED light going into the button… this new silicone is water-clear… so … I’ll need a way to adjust that quality so it looks good. maybe just a sheet of paper under the silicone flashing… we’ll see how that goes.

So… progress continues. I’ll post the result of the next prototype when it’s done.

I’m at home, and I’ve had dinner, and I’m… exhausted! We had such a great time showing off Beatseqr to hundreds of people this weekend! Thank you so much for coming and checking it out! I have some video coming soon to recap the reception beatseqr got…… soon. Maybe in a couple of days. I’m pretty tired. Saturday was a 13 hour show day, and sunday was 11 hours, so… I’m going to go get to bed early tonight and sleep very very well, I think!

Anyway, if you want to get in touch with me, send email to steve@beatseqr.com

I’m not sure yet if this is the right thing to do or not. But, that’s what all good science is built on: experiments. That clear silicone is awesome!

Last friday night, we played at 1015 Folsom, opening for Joey Beltram. It was pretty friggen’ out of control if I do say so myself. MJ Gamez got some really awesome photos of the event… here’s a great one of us playing:

photo credit: MJ Gamez

So, that leads me to remind you that we’re headlining at South First Billiards during South First Friday, June 4th 2010. We’ll be playing from 12:00am to 1:30am, and there are a bunch of great musicians and crazy-awesome artists doing their thing as well. Outside of the billiards place is the SubZER0 festival, which is something you just have to see to believe. There’s going to be a whole gangload of interesting art+technology exhibits for you to see, experience, and interact with, so come check it out!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=124142797605678

Hard to miss on this site, isn’t it. Well, here’s an easy way to check it out:

The Strangest Dream – Steve Cooley on Electronic Generation by stevecooley

Welp, I decided on which CNC rig to go with. I wanted to keep my options open for the future, so I decided to go with a bigger rig than I had originally planned on committing to. I decided that I could commit several continuous days in a row to assembly, setting up a major section of my garage, and purchasing a couple-few extra things to accommodate the buildyourcnc.com Blacktoe 2×4.

Here’s the timelapse of the build:

Here’s the first run:

And here’s the first real job I ran with it:

Woohoo! Very happy!

Electronic Generation **live** on Deepmixfm.com (Gumbo Soul Radio)

Every Wednesday 7:30 – 10 PST 10:30 – 1 EST

Listen: www.deepmixfm.com (use the shoutcast or iTunes links)

Host: Stevian (www.djstevian.com)

Chat: Yahoo IM (djstevian) or right on the site with ShoutBox

Guest DJ:

Steve Cooley

Steve Cooley is a musician, engineer, and fine artist in Campbell, California. He has been creating music on computers since 1990 and has multiple releases out on Dobox Recordings. Tonight he will be playing mostly his own tracks from the last 10 years.

Along with Derek Scott, he is creating a new hardware interface for computer music software, called “Beatseqr”. Check it out at http://beatseqr.com

Steve Cooley, Derek Scott, and Charles Johnson (aka QORSER) form the backbone of a band called Haptic Synapses, focusing on live improvised techno. Check out a ton of recordings at http://hapticsynapses.com

Be sure to check www.djstevian.com for current guest info and for Electronic Generation pod casts!

Respect,
stevian