Theo Verelst Local Diary Page 49
I've ditched the usual header for the
moment, I think it doesn't help much anyhow.
This page is copyrighted by me, and may be read and transfered by any
means only as a whole and including the references to me. I
guess thats normal, the writer can chose that of course, maybe
I´ll make some creative commons stuff one day, of course I have
made Free and Open Source software and even hardware designs available!
This
page is under contruction, so check back later, too.
Sat Jun 28 19:36, 2008
The higher challenges of life? No, but some good challenges are good
for people.
A forest, by the Cure, frame from the video.
A Jazz Jam at the Badkuip in Amsterdam:
People from the local place, other cities, even Paris and Cincenati,
cool I'd say. But on the other hand good people and good music are not
necessarily equivalent.
Praise Him like I should. Cornolio?!
Amplifiers in the loop
I've made more than a few amplifiers the last years and still remember
good I was into live microphone amplification in highschool, officially
that was, and a good challenge that was.
My current amplifiers (which are short loop (few cm) voltage feedback
mixed technology chip power opamps) are fairly fast in the sense of
amplifier output settling,
FPGA synthesizer
Yeah right Theo, are you just saying things, or what the hell do you
mean? Uuhm I mean Ie not yet made but downloaded, verilog compiled,
edited and adapted, downloaded to a Spartan 3E board and played and
recorded a sound synthesizer based only on a FPGA, that is no computer
connection needed and only a buildin DA converter and a midi interface
to it.
In fact it has quite some parameters to adjust for which I made a
Tcl/Tk based script on a windows or Linux machine myself to
program it, too.
See this page:
http://www.theover.org/Fpgasynth
it comes from Scott Gravenhorst who I after the synth worked exchanged
a number of emails with, and is described on www.fpgasynth.net .
I'd used FPGA's before, in fact I had the target board for that
application already for years (!), though it is still a fairly fast and
medium sized fpga, and also am familiar with the ISE webpack from
Xilinx and with CPLD programming for my own synthesizer with a DSP.
Any DSP ?
Well, I recently downloaded the latest Analog Devices VisualDSP
environment and installed it on the Dell M90 Precision engineering
notebook which I'e been able to use now for some years for everything
between HD video processing and well, eh, FPGA synthesizer
programming...
I've tried compiling my DSP
based synthesizer with it which worked except for one thing: an
interupt routine based variable change, which counts sample clocks for
a main program loop to drive the LCD display on the front panel doesn't
change the value of the global counter, so the display doesn't work.
But the whole compilation works, probably optimisation is in the way,
in fact the compile requires optimisation for one part and not for
another part of the source files, which is a somewhat unhandy, but
thusfar worked. I was able to compile or load the flash
programmer, and have been able to change the flash program in the synth
in easily working way, from the notebook.
Also, I looked up the surround Reverb I was working on, which is a dual
core DSP based program on another EZ lite kit from Analog which I had
for years, and that too can connect with the same notebook, even
simulataneously, and can be programmed, debugged, and it's flash could
be programmed and verified.
Ijazz
The below pictures are (processed) from frames of HD material I shot at
Ijazz in Amsterdam:
A band from the Hague, with an organ lead:
PA sounds? Crap, but neat enough mostly, eh. This particular one was a
bit better in ways, some normally usable power there, but not a great
sound, harsh, unnice midlow, maybe bearable a little while, but not
great. Lots of power I sure.
The main stage was also not a nice sound, it seems that is generally
the case lately, the good PA systems have probably been buried with the
advent of dsp or so and since forgotten. I don't know, brutal, pushy,
such as the main PA limited bass types and to airy and at the same time
too powerfull to be nice, really I'd as a band not have liked many of
the sounds, maybe the first one, the little tent with the hanged
speaker array could be bearable at not too high volumes, but a good
decent, warm and bright and open and loud in the good way PA is as it
seems unfindable, let alone a challenging one. Rubbish, all the new
sh*, it appears.
You can say that Theo! Yes I can, I can do it myself good, except only
at a fewhundred watts, even demood officially at AES now, and I've been
on various stages, it can be done much better and nice and less people
and music insulting, I know from practice. It's probably just the New
Age trying to get a nasty way in music and money and power and stupid
theories and such. Makes me feel sick. Remove completely an forget,
please.
For more music
Some great videos from the good 70s music on youtube for instance, at
least long after the primary copyright and profitability issues were
there, but I guess the artists can and should in practice be able to
decide what appears on those free but also greatly promoting channels.
I though about Stix lately, like I´ve played creedence clearwater
revival repeatedly from a library borrowed CD copy (...) which I was
trying to decompress/equalize for more live or big sound system feel.
That´s very complicated as I´ve written about before, but
with at least reasonable succes the masters I´ve been able to
listen to and use could be turned into a very listenable sound, but not
always the greatness which must have been in the non-CD or other
(country ?) mix versions, like interestingly some of the youtube
recordings are digitized from a quite better source so that even though
the highs are almost absent or close to totally boring, the lows are
nice and round except hopelessly simplyfied-
Some more worhty pop and such on this page, this time you'll have to
click the link (maybe open in a new window) to get the youtube films.
Little sister
70s hit.
Larry Graham
As I wrote on my last page this is one of my actual playing influences,
but this is the rockschool fragment I remembered I think (from the
80s). I try to learn these kinds of sounds on a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer,
which to an extend was possible.
Jerry Lee Lewis
inteviewed by Imus
Interview with one of the Gods of Rock.
Jaap Dekker
Well, the above was all american stuff, although Rockschool might have
been British, in fact is was an official course form the dutch
education channel/organisation. But this was an actual influence I'm
sure at my highschool, which he performed regularly, which I liked,
good rock and roll, actually good. Amplified piano, and also dance like
performances IIRC. No disco, but rock! Disco was fun, too, and so was
the disco in that same time. It's just that I've got the impression
people infered all kinds of nonsense about my musical influences, well
this was on of them long before I played in a band myself.
And in fact I shared religeous beliefs at the time with Jimmy Swaggart,
of which I also read an autobiographical book, who is the cousin of
Jerry Lee Lewis, and also a big music seller in the US, also with rock
music, which was also an influence of mine.
Another god of Rock:
Chuck Berry
in the 50s!
interesting 70s music when I recorded and pretty well and loud
reproduced music with my own and self built (mixer, amp, speakers)
equipment:
Everyone's a winner
Hot Chocolat.
Omar Hakim
Wanna swap music?! Can't do that, it's copyrighted...
A short piece of film
frame processing
