Avols » Computers – general

Compass, Gyro & Accelerometer device

Arve Voldsund — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:01:15 +0000

I’ve got a new device for inertial sensing from eboy.no, and it’s multiple axes of sensor data are for sure a lot of fun to play with: It has a 3d accelerometer, a 3d gyroscope and a 3d compass.

Today I have made some software snippets that tilt compensates the compass, and translates gyro data and the z-axis of the accelerometer into positive/negative motion triggers: It is like having a drum stick that triggers when it is rotated, pitched, rolled and moved vertically. Triggerpoint is set by a simple threshold value, and could be updated dynamically if such behaviour is desired.

I will write more about this when I get time to map it to something that make sound, and that something might very well be aVoon.

cheers Arve

Active speakers

Arve Voldsund — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:12:18 +0000

I have set up a pair of active speakers and a subwoofer in my rehearsal studio: Two dB (dB Technologies) Opera Live 402 fullrange speakers, and one dB Sub15.

This is a setup that is sufficient for small gigs in clubs and such. The 402 speakers are rated at 500+100 watts, the Sub15 is rated 800 watts.

Point is: I sell this stuff, and want you to know about it. If you need speakers, microphones, cables or anything related to this, please contact. I have tested a lot of this for years, and I am confident that the products I sell is high quality, reliable and reasonably priced.

So why buy from Avols? Because Avols is about custom software and hardware. This means that you can buy speakers (and related stuff) and get software and/or hardware made for you and your needs.

You can save a lot of money if we set up a complete system running advanced, good sounding custom software creations for audio processing.

Please contact if you want more info. I will post more about projects that Avols has done in the past to illustrate how we do things.

cheers
Arve

Fuzzy Logic

Arve Voldsund — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:50:54 +0000

While I wrote my master thesis I became a fuzzy logic user.addict.admirer. In my head fuzzy logic is a runner up for a lot of different tasks. If you do not know anything about fuzzy logic I suppose the website of Lotfi A. Zadeh, the man who introduced fuzzy logic, is a good place to start.

Point is that if you are already interested in fuzzy logic, some researchers at MIT got news for you and me.

Bulkyness or elegance?

Arve Voldsund — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:18:19 +0000

I have bought me my very first mp3-player, and it is an iPod. Now I am one of them. One of those with a white headset, except I really dislike walking and listening to music at the same time. It is like driving and eating, both things are fun, but it is best to stop, eat and drive again. Enough! Now to the bulkyness and elegance.

I have seen the Lemur (Jazzmutant multitouch screen) up close and personal, and I think it is bulky. It definitely has a bulky price tag, I don’t need a big screen with multitouch, I want several small ones, and there comes the elegance of the iPod Touch. It is super thin, super light and super affordable, and the battery last more than long enough for a soundcheck and a concert.

If you have an iPod touch or an iPhone, then buy one of the OSC-apps in the appstore. I have downloaded two, and a third one is on its way. The first one I tested was the TouchOSC, and it made me happy. However I am excited about the text definable interface in MRMR, and will definitely spend some time exploring it.

This is my first post about this, but it will not be the last. Keep an eye on this, and I think we will have something beautiful for your hands and ears.

cheers
Arve

There is nothing funny about a server collapse

Arve Voldsund — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:15:44 +0000

Especially when data is lost. My web host has had a server issue, and as I, stupidly, relied on their backup routines, I have no other backup than their old one from a to long ago. Sorry.

No use crying over lost posts, but it is very annoying. It is like a fire in a paper stack or something. I’ll make my own backup to keep things safe hereafter. But do I have to print things on wet paper to keep stuff safe?

cheers
Arve

Virtualization is the new loud in my host

Arve Voldsund — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:58:34 +0000

I have hesitated the whole bootcamp thing because I did not want to reboot to get into Windows to find out that I have to reboot because I forgot something. Therefore, after Anders Tveit showed me his virtual world, I jumped on VirtualBox and took my Macbook with me. VirtualBox did not work with the CodeMeter dongle that Samplitude just have to have in its keyhole to get going.

Very well. There is no other reason than Samplitude and a few programming tools for the occasional MCU, for me to ever get into Windows nowadays so that was it for VirtualBox on my computer.

Then I installed VMware and everything was fine. VMware let me run Samplitude on Windows while checking email, skyping and surfing while programming Max/MSP tools for my Goldwasser on OS X. And performance seems to be good enough for me. Happy days until something comes up wrecking the horizon. Until then I enjoy my Samplitude and could not be less bothered. I really like this virtualization thing.

cheers
Arve

Macbook and RME Multiface I

Arve Voldsund — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:39:59 +0000

Back in those cold December days when I bought me a macbook I thought to myself: What a wonderful day. Then it struck me, as by lightning, that to get enough money to buy a fire-wire audio interface that would fit my Macbook, I would have to let my Multiface go. But I couldn’t. Because it would be stupid to get rid of such a good audio card when it would be a perfect adat break out box for another card. So I kept it, tried the audio inputs on the Macbook and it worked. Not pristine, but it worked.

Yesterday I thought to myself: This is a great day for some optical SPDIF. Clas Ohlson had the toslink to jack cables, my Macbook has its optical in- and outputs and the Multiface has SPDIF on coax but also (selectable) on its ADAT-in and out. Perfect. The internal routing on the Multiface is a beauty. From my Ecstacy to the Multiface and then out on SPDIF (optical) to the Macbook and back again.

As if this wasn’t enough, the Multiface is still connected to my Windows horse running the great Samplitude. Two computers – one audio card. Sounds good to me. Now I have my guitar software running on the Macbook and Samplitude on the Windozer and the Multiface handles both of them.

As if this wasn’t enough the Multiface can be disconnected from the PC-Card and ramble on in standalone mode. No need for a cardbus to use its ins and outs, just for setting them up each time the Multiface has been unpowered. Tedious.

EDIT: I was a bit to happy about this the other day when I thought that the Multiface remembered its settings…. No internal memory. It would have been a very nice feature if it could rememeber it self. And I mean, come on, home much memory would you need for something like that? It’s probably just a register setting anyway.

Cheers

TextMate

Arve Voldsund — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:03:13 +0000

It is kind of amazing that such a powerful text tool comes at this price. When I wrote my master thesis I struggled with Open Office because I wanted to find out for real how it compares to Microsoft Office. Now I have been a regular user of TextMate and Latex, writing various stuff (text (Latex), PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS) almost every day for the last 30 days. To put it simple: I am never going back unless I really, really have to. TextMate is hereby recommended.

Stuck in a mac superdrive

Arve Voldsund — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 21:14:29 +0000

Got me a stucked dvd today, and one of the tricks that I found on the Internet was holding down the mousebutton while rebooting….. Tedious. But it worked.

I had me another go at the problematic disk. And it got stuck again. This time I tried to mouseclick and eject (button) at the same time, and lo and behold, the disk came out. Maybe this is a familiar trick not appearing in my Google, so I keep it here at my blog so that I will not forget it. Restarting is always tedious so I hope this mouseclick-eject routine was not another one timer……

More on multi-touch

Arve Voldsund — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:01:13 +0000

Bill Buxton has made a very nice summary of multi-touch technology. http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html

Cheers
Arve