It’s true; there’s going to be a Mini Maker Faire in Seattle on June 2nd and 3rd, 2012!  Swing by the Seattle Center to check out all the fun interactive projects and displays that your fellow makers will be showing off.  If you want to show off your own project, you can sign up for a booth space on their web site (hurry though-  the deadline is April 7.)

I’ve been working on a new site, and I think it’s ready for you to check out. It’s called The Synthesizer Academy. Every Monday, myself or a guest writer will post a new synthesis tutorial, how-to or lesson. Topics are going to include everything from what exactly a synthesizer is to how to put together your very own system. If you like synths, or even think you might, go have a look.

The University of Pennsylvania posted this fun-to-watch video of flying robot quadrotors playing the James Bond theme on a variety of instruments.  The slower instrument parts (keyboard, cymbal) are played by having the robot fly up and down.  The faster lead part is played on a “couch guitar” they rigged up by running a series of strings tuned to the right series of notes across a couch frame.  3 robots take turns dragging a wire across the strings to play the sequence.

The whole thing is pre-programmed and the robots are acting autonomously.  We’re one step closer to Skynet.

What is mastering?  It’s what happens to your music after you’ve finished recording and mixing it.  This includes:

• Arrange tracks and spaces between into their final order
• Perform any minor edits that may be required
• Remove noise
• Adjust levels
• Sweeten tracks by proper application of equalization and compression
• Adjust ambiance or stereo width as necessary

This is of course an over-simplified list.  My good friend Steve Turnidge wrote a book explaining the mastering process in great detail which is about to be released.  He’s a very talented guy,  so if you really want to make your music and studio recordings shine I highly recommend you check out his desktop mastering book.

Update:  Here’s a video of Steve explaining how audio production is like pie.  Sweet, delicious pie.

The Lite F/X 1741 fogger was cheap and readily available a few years ago.  Many of us have one or more of them that still work great.  One down-side to these fog machines is that it’s tough to find fog timer remotes and wireless remotes that actually work with them.  I’ll show you how to make common remotes that are readily available work with these foggers.

When you go down to your local party store, they have fog remotes that have the same kind of connector as the Lite F/X units have, so you’d think that they would be compatible.  It’s true that several manufacturers use IEC-320 C13/C14 connectors, but Lite F/X uses one pinout and everybody else uses a different one.

The above schematic is drawn as if you are looking at the male connector that is attached to the remote from the pin side.  The first thing we notice is that the button connects the same two pins together when you press it.  This explains why simple button-and-light remotes from other manufacturers work on the Lite F/X foggers (even though the lights act a little weird), but when you get a fancier remote that requires power from the machine, it does not work.

Most foggers that use this type of connector have the same 3 signals on their pins: Line, Neutral and Output.

• Line: Connects to the “Line” wire of the power plug
• Neutral: Connects to the “Neutral” wire of the power plug
• Output: Hooks to the fog machine’s pump.  Connect this pin to the Neutral pin to make the fogger operate.

Looking at the above schematic, we see that the Neutral pin stays the same between all manufacturers, and that the Neutral and Output pins are reversed between Lite F/X and everyone else.  This means that it’s a simple task to convert a remote from one standard to the other.  You just need to take it apart and reverse the Line and Output wires.

Here’s an example of this mod performed on a fog timer remote that is readily available:

When you take these remotes apart, it’s not immediately obvious why the board doesn’t just come right out.  The trick is to desolder the 3 buttons as they are the panel-mount kind and can’t be pulled through the front of the case.  There are a total of 6 points you need to desolder:

You’ll need to remove the 2 knobs too.  They just pull off.  After doing those 2 steps the board should lift right out of the case.

In this remote the Line and Out connections are clearly marked, so we know that we need to swap the white and green wires.

Here’s another example using a wireless remote I found in a party store:

Once again the connections are clearly marked on the board, so this is an easy mod.  Just swap the white and green wires.  Notice a pattern?  The manufacturers of these remotes buy their IEC-320 C14 cables pre-made, and since they are typically used as a standard power cable, the same colors always go to the same pins.  (Well, mostly.  I did find one with a red wire instead of green once).  This means that even if you get a remote that doesn’t have the connections labeled anywhere, it’s easy to determine which two wires to swap.

The short version:  If you get a fogger remote and it doesn’t work on your Lite F/X fog machine, take the remote apart and swap the white and green wires.

That’s it.  Lots of explanation for a simple mod.  There aren’t many remotes that are made to work with the Lite/FX foggers right out of the box, but this mod will let you use easy to find but incompatible remotes with your machine.

Ahoy, matey! Today be September 19.  It’s time to throw your “proper” English overboard and talk like a pirate, else ye be cursed to spend eternity in Davy Jones’ locker!

Personally, I think any day is a good one to sound piratey, but a couple of scalawags in Oregon decided that this was the best day of all to unleash your inner pirate. Go forth, pillage and plunder my fellow buccaneers!

Official ITLAPD Site

Most of the time, if I’m shooting with a flash, I’m using it off-camera.  Up until now I’ve been using a PC cord, which limits how far you can get from the flash and likes to fall out all the time.  For a bit I tried a super-cheap remote flash trigger made by some company with an unpronounceable name, but it only worked about half the time.  Finally I quit screwing around and ordered some PocketWizards.  I’ve had a chance to play around with them a little bit now, so I’ll give you my first impressions.

What I Got

FlexTT5   Transmits and receives   External antenna   Uses AA batteries
MiniTT1   Transmits only   Internal antenna   Uses CR2450 coin cell
AC3   Mounts on TT5 or TT1 hot shoe   Manual controls for 3 zones

The ControlTL PocketWizards have several advanced features that are specific to either Nikon or Canon cameras and flashes, so they come in two flavors.  I shoot with a D200, so the choice was obvious.  Don’t worry about getting locked in, though.  All of the models will work in “trigger only” mode (which is similar in function to the Plus II or MultiMAX) so they work with any camera system .

I picked up 2 TT5s for use with my SB800 flashes, and a TT1 to stick on top of the camera.  I also got the AC3 ZoneController because I usually control the power of all my flashes manually, and it gives me power knobs to turn right on the camera, as opposed to having to dig through menus or walk over to the flashes themselves.  I think this may be the one feature that sold me on the system.  The lighting designer in me is quite pleased.

Unboxing

As soon as you take the lid off the boxes, you are greeted by a big note that tells you to update the firmware on all the units first thing.  It was pretty easy.  You can download the Pocket Wizard Utility for free from their site, and USB cables are included.

Batteries are included as well.  This is good.  I hate getting a new toy, then having to hunt all over the house for batteries before I can play with it.

First Test

I put a TT5 and the AC3 on my camera, and put my flash on another one.  I turned everything on, took a picture, and the flash fired.  Wow, that was easy.

On to the Advanced Stuff

Next I hooked one of the units up to my computer and started digging through the utility software.  It was pretty boring until I checked the “Advanced Mode” box.

HyperSync is a feature that forces your flash to fire a tad bit early, allowing you to shoot at faster-than-X-Sync shutter speeds.  I do quite a bit of outdoor flash photography and am always looking for ways to outshine the sun, so I headed right for the HyperSync/HSS tab to check it out.

The basic idea is that you can adjust the offset timing so that you get the fastest shutter speed possible without the shutter cutting off the top or bottom of the frame (the D200 has a mechanical shutter).  I went through the HyperSync timing adjustment procedure, and came up with the following settings:

• Camera: Nikon D200
• Flash: SB800
• HyperSync Offset Setting: -200
• Fastest HyperSync Shutter Speed: 1/400

Before I could only go up to 1/250, so that’s not bad.  (Don’t forget to enable Auto FP on your camera.  The camera knows it’s talking to a flash and it won’t let you go over X-Sync speed otherwise).

Found a Bug

As I said earlier, I want to use the AC3 to manually control flash power.  I tried it out and it worked great up to 1/250.  When I tried using manual control with my newly-found shutter speeds, however, it didn’t work.  The system instead went into High-Speed Sync/FP mode, which causes the flash to do a quick series of flashes so that it provides light the entire time the shutter is open.  I didn’t want this since HyperSync was taking care of the timing for me.  I wanted to be able to do a nice full-power pop at 1/400, but it wasn’t letting me.

The utility has a couple of options for either setting the shutter speed where it switches to HSS/FP, or disabling it completely.  None of the settings would work.

Finally I decided to try upgrading to the beta firmware (version 2.146).  I was excited to find that this fixed the problem.  Not only does the new firmware fix the HyperSync bug, it also detects which camera you are using and automatically sets the HyperSync offset for you.  No more experimenting to find the right setting (you can still tweak it if you want to).

A Neat Trick

With HyperSync I can now shoot at all powers all the way up to 1/400.  As I was playing around with manual power control, I discovered that if I set the flash to full power, I can shoot all the way up to 1/2500 without the edges of the frame getting cropped!  I’m guessing that popping at full power just dumps the entire charge into the flash tube and the IGBT circuit doesn’t bother cutting off the power after a certain amount of time like it does at lower powers.  I must be catching the tail end of the flash because as I move through faster shutter speeds the image gets a bit darker.  A little less flash efficiency for being able to shoot at 1/2500?  Take that, bright sun!  I’d better get more rechargeable batteries if I’m going to be running at full power though.

Field Test

I took my new FlexTT5 setup out on a photo shoot to give it a proper shakedown.  It was an outdoor shoot for an actress who needed some head shots.  It was evening, so the sun wasn’t too bright, but the extra two stops really helped me balance the flash with it without killing my batteries.

Once I started shooting, I didn’t really even think about the PocketWizards.  This is a good thing.  They worked so well that I could concentrate on making sure my model was comfortable and that the pictures were coming out good instead of messing around with the equipment half the time.  The AC3 was especially helpful.  I could soot a picture, look at the LCD on the camera, decide that a little more flash would be nice, then turn up the dial for the flash a notch or two.  No causing the subject to lose focus while I waded through menus or hiked over to the flash and back.

Conclusion

I’m quite pleased with the Pocket Wizard ControlTL system for Nikon.  It works reliably and has some very handy features in addition to basic remote triggering.  I did have some problems at first, but they were easily solved with a firmware upgrade.  The folks at PW really seem to listen to their customers and work to fix problems that they are having.

Here are some parting tips:

• Install the beta firmware.  It seems to fix more than it breaks.
• If you’re into creative flash lighting at all, get the AC3.
• On the FlexTT5, put the antenna up!  One would think that using two units 3 feet apart wouldn’t require this given their maximum range, but it’s not the case.  I don’t know if the metal USB connector right under the antenna throws off the tuning or what, but they’re very unreliable with the antenna down.
• Consider getting two (or more) FlexTT5s instead of buying a MiniTT1 as one of your units.  The TT5 takes AA batteries rather than watch batteries, which you’ve probably already got a ton of for your flash.  Plus they are much easier to find in a convenience store in a pinch.

You might be wondering where all the articles went.  I got tired of having NucleusCMS break stuff all the time so I’m porting everything over to WordPress.  Don’t worry, the articles will come back as I get them moved over to WP.

Update: Okay, I’m mostly finished moving everything over.  Some articles didn’t make it because half of the content mysteriously disappeared and not all of them were cool enough to dig through SQL backups to recover (shock, I know…).  Also, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to transfer comments, so they’re all gone.  The good news is that the comment notifications will probably work now and I’ll quit ignoring you!

It’s been bugging me for months. It seemed like every time I go to a site that’s running ads there is a picture of a delicious looking pile of- something? Are they tiny pastel-colored hamburgers? Are they soap? I hope not because they look like I should be eating them. Clicking the ad only takes me to the Groupon sign up page.
The other day I was poking around in Flickr and I saw a picture of some of these mystery items that someone had taken. I clicked on the picture and the caption held the answer; they are French macaroons.

I feel better now that I know what they are (and also that I didn’t have a strong desire to eat soap).

I’ve been giving the new Tron soundtrack by Daft Punk a listen the last couple days and I have to say it is rather awesome. I would describe it as a unique blend of ambient and orchestral; definitely way more on the symphonic side than I was expecting. I think I need to quit playing it though because all it’s doing is making me wish the new Tron movie would hurry up and open.

If you’re looking to get the soundtrack, be warned that the US version is missing a few tracks. It only contains the following:

1. Overture
2. The Grid
3. The Son of Flynn
4. Recognizer
5. Armory
6. Arena
7. Rinzler
8. The Game Has Changed
9. Outlands
10. Adagio for TRON
11. Nocturne
12. End of Line
13. Derezzed
14. Fall
15. Solar Sailer
16. Rectifier
17. Disc Wars
18. C.L.U.
19. Arrival
20. Flynn Lives

In order to get the complete Tron soundtrack, here’s what you have to do:

Buy the non-US limited 2-CD version. This gets you these tracks:
Encom Part 1
Encom Part 2
Round One
Castor
Reflections

Buy the two tracks that you can only get on iTunes:
Father and Son
Outlands Part II

Buy the final remaining track that’s available at Amazon:
Sea of Simulation

That gets you the whole thing. Unfortunately not everything is available on CD so you’re stuck with some MP3 lossyness, but hopefully this will get you through until the movie opens.