Recently bought a Mackie Onyx 1620 off of Ebay “for repair or parts only”. It’s been keeping me occupied!
Advertised as having the “Mackie Helicopter” problem, I knew I was in for some PSU recapping. It wasn’t in too bad shape though, 3 caps and it was working again. Continue reading
Numark Mixtrack Pro – great with Linux and MIXXX
In Minirig HQ the Numark Mixtrack Pro has become the go to digital DJ interface.
- Readily available second hand at good prices
- Big chunky easy to use buttons
- Good sound quality
- Works perfectly with Open Source DJ software MIXXX on the Linux platform.
MiniDSP chassis done, at last
Not strictly related to the speakers themselves, but as the miniDSP is a core component in driving the speakers I’ve noted this in the “beyond-econowave” posts:
For a long time the miniDSP was sitting bolted to a lump of wood, the “temporary” test chassis, with a cardboard box sitting on top of it to cover it. But this test chassis was quite noisy.
I’ve made a simple pine enclosure that makes up in solidity what it lacks in sophistication. It still containes the miniDSP and 2 simple OPA2134 based pre-amps to give me a bit of gain over the quiet miniDSP output, but I’ve got a 4 channel stepped attenuator (actually two stereo stepped attenuators ganged together) as a master volume, plus the software volume control as a fine volume pot.
There’s also a switch to switch over to the analogue input for “guest devices” .e.g. mates dropping over with DJ mixers or synths – so the sockets are on the front for easy access.
Made with bits of pine from the local hardware warehouse, and painted with leftover stain/varnish from my big speakers so it matches.
Continue reading
two nice releases from Cold Tear Records from arists Echo Delta & Slownoise
new ambient/drone release ZOGAM : MANSPLAIN EP
Stories Of An Awkward Size: A Slipstream And Hard SF Anthology – Jonathan Swords-Holdsworth
I mainly mention music here, but I’ve just been reading Jonathan Swords-Holdsworth‘s debut short story collection “Stories Of An Awkward Size” and thought it deserves a plug here:
Check it out on Amazon, where you can order it as an actual physical book, with ebook version coming real soon now!
ZOG low budget battery powered party blaster system
This system was started off cobbling together assorted spare parts that were in the garage gathering dust, to create a small battery powered (and partially solar) system that can fit in the boot of the car and be moved on a small trolley. But of course then I added some extra bits as well to get it how I liked it, so it’s not really assembled from “junk” any more, but it is all inexpensive low power use.
Loscil : Sea Island
Some nice electronic ambient from Canadian Artist Loscil.
I got the FLAC release from Boomkat.
http://boomkat.com/vinyl/1138161-loscil-sea-island
Neither scene nor heard: a journey through ambient music
Great article from the excellent A Strangely Isolated Place site: