steve cooley presents

I just got my Alesis IODock for iPad. It solves some serious live performance problems for me!! Here they are:

1. Playing my iPad live is awesome, but keeping it powered up is a decision between power and midi data. Previously, I would plug in the camera connection kit for midi or a power plug. No more. The IODock has power to keep my iPad charging while in use, and a square style USB port.

2. Speaking of midi… Previously I’d have to connect a midi out usb device from my computer to a midisport UNO connected by the camera connection kit to the ipad. Giant hassles! Now with the IODock, I just go directly from the computer to the dock. No midi devices whatsoever between the computer and the iPad. Sweet!!

3. Flexible outputs… Since there are quarter inch output jacks and a headphone jack, I can use whichever I need to. Sometimes playing live, I can experience the iPad being too quiet… The headphone jack on the IODock gets *crazy* loud. So I have options for different mixing environments.

4. Looks professional. Always helps. Ima cover up this giant Alesis logo post haste, guys. (Sorry Alesis.) But the case looks good, the tilt is nice. A definite plus.

And I guess there are a bunch of other things that are in this box, but the items above cover the price of admission for me! Well done Alesis. This seems like it’s going to be a great product.

-steve

I made this video last night. I was just running through some of the features that I use when I’m using a beatseqr.

Alright, this jig I made to hold the dremel flex shaft horizontally worked *beautifully*. I hand-programmed the gcode, and I obviously have some more fine tuning to do, but overall, I’m on the right track!

Here’s the nice clean hole the jig produced. Adjustments required, but almost there.

Here’s the jig that’s holding the case down.

Video of the jig in action:

Alright so one of the last hurdles to jump before I’m ready for production is being ready to cut holes in the sides of the enclosures for the USB cable. I’ve been doing this by hand with a dremel with *extremely* variable results. :-/ So, when my pal Jim was up for a visit earlier this year, he helped brainstorm on some ideas and this was the concept we ended up with. Using the dxf files for the cnc machine, I was able to locate the hole pattern and design a new piece that will bolt on to the existing z axis gantry. This new piece, with the help of some shape lock, securely holds a flex shaft attachment for a dremel… Which in theory should let me jig a beatseqr enclosure to the table and cut nice clean square holes without and problems or sloppiness. In theory. But man, I’m getting really close to having the infrastructure in place to do what I want. Getting pretty exciting up in here!!

Well it was a long fun night. We had technical problems and came up with great solutions. It was great, and I hope we get to do it again next year. Here’s an hour long video of us playing. Sorry for the lack of light. You get an idea of what was going on, though. It’s available in 720p… and the sound is better at that resolution.

Here’s the flyer for us playing at SubZERO 2011!! As long as the rain waits until Saturday to show up, it’s going to be crazy awesome! Be there!

Thanks again to Matthew Gamez for the great photo!

When I have a bit more time, I’ll post a video, but I just couldn’t locate mechanically fastening LRF’s to the specs I need. So I drew up a concept on some paper, redrew it in illustrator, exported it to dxf, imported it to sheetcam, and cut a casting mold. I used the smooth-on shore hardness 40 silicone since I’ve decided it’s too tough to work with for my buttons… Turned out pretty good! Maybe a little too tall. But it will be easy enough to slice off this mold and try again. I’m loving the time from concept to iteration. Very fast!! And I’m not committed to hundreds of failed designs. Just a couple few. I’ll even use these for experimental projects.

Pretty good! This case is a “scratch and dent” kind of situation, so I feel pretty good about how the silicone buttons turned out with the new casting mold.

Research and development continues with cutting (and recutting, and recutting) the new silicone button casting mold. I’ll be verifying the dimensions tonight, but things are moving along nicely. I may be able to get one of the new v4.51 boards close to fully assembled. Which I am very
much looking forward to. The last major task is to engineer a jig to hold a dremel flex shaft that will attach to my cnc machine. This will let me cut a hole for the USB jack with precision and repeatability on the case. After that, I’ll be able to kick into a higher gear for producing units and kits. Whew!

Fail.

a sea of machineable wax chips. This mold would end in disaster.

Present and future casualties of my learning process

Try number 3. This one went well after 5 days of chipping away at it.

Smooth-on dragonskin-30, a two part a/b platinum cure silicone, in the happiest place on earth: a beatseqr button mold

It. Looks. GOOD!

sCCweet (cheesily said: “shweet”) for the Korg iMS-20 is a MaxMSP compiled application for mac os x that connects to your iMS-20 app through your existing MIDI connection (figure that out ahead of time). It randomizes the parameters of the iMS-20 at an adjustable rate so you can explore different combinations of settings that you might otherwise never run into on your own. It’s pretty random. There aren’t a lot of controls. Think of it as a spelunking tool for this synth. Enjoy!

Download “sCCweet for the Korg iMS-20″

We will be playing throughout the night at the 2011 SubZERO street festival, June 3rd, 2011. Check out the website for more info: http://www.subzerofestival.com/

Here’s us playing at the south bay music swap event in may 2011… I had a lot more footage, but this clip has all three of us in it, so I figured it would be cool to post. I shot it with my gopro hd hero, hence the exxxttrrreeeeme wide angle. Enjoy!

This clip goes on up to 720p… youtube has smiled upon me, so I can upload looooonger movies.

Wow, we had a blast playing at WORKS’ new location on 365 Market street, downtown san jose last night!! We were joined by a talented group of painters and a huuuge crowd. It was awesome. There’s some photos and video coming later… but for now, here’s the audio:

Haptic Synapses live at Works/san jose 2011-05-06

If you’re like me, you probably want to know what the modern device fluxamasynth arduino shield sounds like. I decided I would take a risk and pick one up without having … almost any idea of what it sounded like. It’s relatively affordable and runs right on top of an arduino… theoretically speaking, a lot to like about this kind of product. There are some issues that I’m waiting to hear back on (software serial) before I can really dig deeply into it as something I’d use in my live act, but… here’s what it sounds like:

so, do yourself a favor so you can follow along. Open this page up in a new tab:
http://wiki.moderndevice.com/pmwiki.php?n=MD.ListVoices

then hit the play button below to listen to 64 notes of the first bank of 128 different voices of the fluxamasynth shield. I just realized that I hit the record button while I was uploading a new firmware… so when you hear the “piano” start playing… that’s when you start reading down the list of voices on the other web page:
fluxamasynth_audio_samples_bank0.mp3

We were invited to play at the South Bay Music Swap and had a great time yesterday!! Here’s the audio:

haptic synapses live at south bay music swap may 1, 2011