Afrofuturistik in Swtizerland!

Ahhhhh....I am currently chillin out at Ambulanz cafe in Berlin, basking in the afterglow of an especially nice gig weekend.

This weekend I was in Switzerland for the first time in the small city of Schaffhausen. I caught an early flight on Saturday morning which was surprisingly brief (approximately an hour and some change). That was a harbinger of things to come, already. I didn’t have to print out anything or check in online. I just showed my passport, checked in my luggage and went thru a security check where I didn’t have to remove my shoes nor did I significantly increase my chances of developing cancer. Flight, sleep, land. One extortionately expensive cab ride later, I met up with Phillip who has the unique distinction of being the promoter AND more importantly, one of 5 people in the world who went for the beatjazz controller perk during my crowdfunding campaign. This was really nice, as I would be able to show him some of the prototype implementations that would be going into the controller he will be getting.

We got to stroll around the tiny yet surprisingly well appointed little town and the architecture is exactly what you would expect in a tiny rich country, well maintained, and laid out with lots of walkable little streets made of cobble stone with the requisite castle in the background (I didn’t get to go check it out though). I couldn’t absorb most of the town as I had not slept yet so when we arrived at the club, I slept.

Taptab is a small club that doesn’t know it. I have NEVER seen that many lights in such a tiny place. It was hilarious and exciting, as was the nice sound system and the overall club layout.

Upon arrival, I was shown a copy of the local lifestyle paper with me on the cover!?!? Wow! I have been on 1001 flyers over the years but this was the first time I was the headliner. It was very interesting to say the least. I could get used to it

The gig

Well, as you know, my system is in a constant state of development. For this show, I revised the visuals a bit, to convey a few more aspects of what is happening and to draw correlations between what people hear and what they see. As well, I somehow shoehorned my mic and its transmitter pack onto the prototype headset I am currently using. It is very bulky but surprisingly not-heavy (not quite “light” though). It confirms my hypothesis that having everything on such a construct will be very freeing, physically. And lastly, I added a few new gestural algorithms to control FX and parameters in Kore. These are giving me valuable insight into how such effects will be realized in my custom system, which I am still building (may debut some of it this weekend in Dresden).

The sound set is wildly more evolved now. The extra horsepower means that there is no longer a need to make compromises in live rendering quality to keep the latency down. Now, everything is humming along quite nicely.

So how did it go? AMAZINGLY!! (I have included a bit of video, shot by my friend Michael who, coincidently, is another soon-to-be beatjazzer who travelled for the show. It would seem that there is a little family forming already!!) The crowd was hyped and varied, and included one of the promoters Grandmother! That was cool. And it seemed well received! Very happy.

But I did see quite a bit of that "wtf?" look that I have learned to notice. I was told that the concept that I was "looping" might have confused a few people so I will implement visualization elements this week that will better represent ALL of the various things I am doing while playing. And "maybe" throw in a few of my gestural synths before the coming weekend.

All in all, this was one of the most relaxed, cool, gigs I've done in a long time and I thank Phillip and the Taptab crew for making it so special.

But now...back to life...back to reality. And that reality is 3D CAD. I have loads of work to do in this regard as well as calibrating the printer as it is currently printing things crooked. But I am NOT complaining...at least it is printing! And when I am not learning about extruding and lofting, I will be working on the new haptic audio feedback system I hope to implement by the weekend. with so many new functions being integrated into the system, I now need a system for know where I am in this massive grid of possibilities, so alas, this cafe trip will be the exciting part of my week up til the show at Groovestation in Dresden this Friday. So I gotta get back to it. Live long and prosper!

wel…I…erm…Reprap is the greatest

hmmmm….well, I guess I whined just a little too early in the story.

As I always suspected, my reprap is fully functional.  I discovered that my problem was that the sequence of tasks necessary to make the reprap operate, was, as I stated before, confused at best.  but the guy on the reprappro forum were extremely helpful in helping me get up and running, although, clarification of the order in which things are done is still very necessary.

most of my confusion came from not knowing the difference between an .stl file (stereo lithography) and a gcode file (which is the sliced file that the printer uses to map out its little extrusion dance).  it is necessary to open the stl file, let it read it and create a .gcode file, THEN open the gcode file and print THAT.  also, the surface that the plastic is extruded to was not very sticky, and it was suggested that I use masking tape as a surface. VIOLA! PRINT BLISS!

so this isnt a retraction.  everything from the previous post is still applicable, except the parts where I am miserable and depressed.  that is no longer the case.  I am ecstatic!! and very much ready to start working on the new controller components now!  cheers!

Rep Rap Pro Huxley Configuration is doing my head in

This reprap huxley kit is officially a pain in the ass(today but maybe not in the near future).

This was obviously built by and for engineers.  and there are so many issues with it that when I do get an answer about it, come off as if it is common knowledge.  missing or wrong sized pieces.  weird firmware configs, AND THEN if you fix one thing, you break another.  loads of people on the forums complaining about screws that should obviously be one length but are another, which means the printer doesn’t do what it is supposed to and the best you get is a “oops, my bad…”.  strange allignments that keep the prints from even starting.  The power adaptor that came with the printer blew up on day 3 and when I opened it up it looked like it had been left underwater for a week (although they did say they were shipping me a new one).

Please note…I am venting out of frustration not because I feel as if I have been purposely misled.  I am very very happy that I purchased the reprap from reprap pro.  I loved building it and it is a fantastic machine that, once it works, should become an integral aspect of my expressions, BUT, engineers should have editors that make things legible for non-engineers.  I don’t program in Python!  I had never heard of gcode, or .stl files, or slicing or any of that before receiving this in the mail ( in addition to the €100 in tools I purchased just to assemble it)  what I feel they should have done after the crowdfunding campaign in which I bought the machine, is to send some study materials links to the person that purchased it.  after I contributed, I didn’t hear from them except to pay for shipping.  in contrast, my contributors are probably exhausted by the amount of communication from me, even now, 2 months later.  DON’T ASSUME THAT THE PURCHASERS ARE ENGINEERS! maybe a PDF or two and some vids that get your mind ready for what is to come and the community that you are about to join.  I did my own research ahead of time but what am I going to do with software with nothing to run it on?

right now I am really kinda pissed. I led myself to believe that I’d be printing by now ( and I’m sure others are) and through a combination of my own lack of knowledge and badly presented or outright confusing online materials on the part of reprap pro, I am sitting here looking dumber than usual.  it is heartbreaking to have such a wonderously powerful machine sitting less than a meter away and some bullshit configs (that one day I will understand, but not at this moment) stand in between you and creative bliss.  as I stated before, I am as angry at myself as much as I am at them. in the future, tell buyers that they should know A, B and C before attempting to build one of these things! 

So I am going to go beat myself up some more then, very very sadly, I must leave this thing alone and concentrate on programming for my set next week.  I must adapt the gestural systems and the visual systems to the new computer hardware and add in the aural haptic system I have been working on.  it kills me that I “may” not have a printed headset to use in switzerland at the taptap club show next saturday.  of course I may figure it out in the next 20 minutes, but now, I at least know that as I prepare my kits and workshops, to remember that everyone doesn’t necessarily know what I know when I know it and to not assume that they do.