What the heck is up with the NVidia 8800's in Mac Pros?
08:32 PM Jun.08, 2009
Back from the brink of disaster. My
Mac Pro just returned this evening from its one week “vacation" at
the Apple Store when the Nvidia 8800 video card died for the third
time!
Seriously, how many times does this have to happen before they replace it with something that works.
Thankfully I have AppleCare, so I’m not too concerned. I guess if I didn’t have AppleCare to take care of it, I’d have to demand my money back for this lemon card.
Seriously, how many times does this have to happen before they replace it with something that works.
Thankfully I have AppleCare, so I’m not too concerned. I guess if I didn’t have AppleCare to take care of it, I’d have to demand my money back for this lemon card.
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Unitor8 Pref Pane Version 0.9.2
09:43 PM Jun.01, 2009Filed in:
Software
A new version of the Unitor8
Preference Pane is now available.
Thanks to the awesome help of panel user Art C., the panel is now known to be working with 8 devices chained together. That means you can now configure 128 MIDI ports! Read More...
Thanks to the awesome help of panel user Art C., the panel is now known to be working with 8 devices chained together. That means you can now configure 128 MIDI ports! Read More...
Unitor8 Driver FAQ
03:20 PM May.23, 2009Filed in:
Software
A lot of people have be sending me
emails asking how to get their Unitor8 or AMT8 working correctly.
Just to be clear, the Unitor8 Preference Pane is not a MIDI Driver.
If you can’t see your interface in any midi applications, then you
have a driver problem.
To help people out as best as I can without having to answer a million emails on it, I’ve written an FAQ about how to install the drivers correctly for each type of Mac. I hope its simple to follow.
To help people out as best as I can without having to answer a million emails on it, I’ve written an FAQ about how to install the drivers correctly for each type of Mac. I hope its simple to follow.
A new favorite
12:03 AM Apr.30, 2009Filed in:
Blogs
I recently discovered a new blog/video
blog/forum that I absolutely love.
The Fat Man And Circuit Girl
Awesome stuff! Each week they meet up for a video chat and do hacks, and lots of tinkering, and teach little tidbits of knowledge about analog and digital circuits, pinball machines, and music. It’s much fun to watch.
I’ve watched every episode, and just love it all. Feels like I should be there with them working on all this stuff. People that love DIY exploration, music and games.. my kind of people.
An update on the Unitor 8 Pref Pane: It’s still coming along. I haven’t had time recently to put the finishing touches on, but it’s more than usable currently, so give it a go and let me know if you need something fixed.
The Fat Man And Circuit Girl
Awesome stuff! Each week they meet up for a video chat and do hacks, and lots of tinkering, and teach little tidbits of knowledge about analog and digital circuits, pinball machines, and music. It’s much fun to watch.
I’ve watched every episode, and just love it all. Feels like I should be there with them working on all this stuff. People that love DIY exploration, music and games.. my kind of people.
An update on the Unitor 8 Pref Pane: It’s still coming along. I haven’t had time recently to put the finishing touches on, but it’s more than usable currently, so give it a go and let me know if you need something fixed.
Status Update: Unitor 8 pref pane
03:02 PM Apr.12, 2009Filed in:
Software
The end is in sight!
I’m still plugging away at the Unitor 8 preference pane. The SMPTE timing panels are very difficult to deal with. There are lots of customs bytes with lot of small pieces of data all packed together, and many values that are only valid when other values are set.
Of course, I want to make sure I don’t make any stupid mistakes and not make any rash decisions that might cost me time later. I’m estimating a day to two to completion, depending on whether I get distracted playing WoW.
I’m still plugging away at the Unitor 8 preference pane. The SMPTE timing panels are very difficult to deal with. There are lots of customs bytes with lot of small pieces of data all packed together, and many values that are only valid when other values are set.
Of course, I want to make sure I don’t make any stupid mistakes and not make any rash decisions that might cost me time later. I’m estimating a day to two to completion, depending on whether I get distracted playing WoW.
Unitor 8 Version 0.8.5
03:15 AM Apr.04, 2009Filed in:
Software
What’s new:
Version 0.8.5 (current)
Go check it out!
This may seem like only 3 new items, but this is really a huge deal. You can now configure up to 1024 midi channels!
16 channels per port * 8 ports on each Unitor/AMT * 8 Unitors = 1024 !!!
Version 0.8.5 (current)
- Support for AMT8
- Support for 8 chained Unitor8’s or AMT8 in any order
- Improved support for the actual Unitor8 midi specification
Go check it out!
This may seem like only 3 new items, but this is really a huge deal. You can now configure up to 1024 midi channels!
16 channels per port * 8 ports on each Unitor/AMT * 8 Unitors = 1024 !!!
Unitor 8 update
01:32 AM Apr.01, 2009Filed in:
Software
Thanks to a very kind gift from the
gods out there, I now have pretty much all the information anyone
could ever want about the midi protocol for the Unitor8 and the
AMT8.
I’m in the process of updating my code to better support both devices as well as 8 of them chained together!!
The excellent news is that I haven’t found any errors with the protocol as I’ve understood it so far. So it’s pretty safe to use. Even if you have an AMT8 attached. The UI will just be all grayed out while it seeks for a Unitor.
If you have been thinking about getting one of these interfaces on eBay, and you have a newer mac with 10.5 or greater on it, now is the time to buy them. By the time it arrives, you’ll have a working configuration app, even if you buy 8 of them.
I’m in the process of updating my code to better support both devices as well as 8 of them chained together!!
The excellent news is that I haven’t found any errors with the protocol as I’ve understood it so far. So it’s pretty safe to use. Even if you have an AMT8 attached. The UI will just be all grayed out while it seeks for a Unitor.
If you have been thinking about getting one of these interfaces on eBay, and you have a newer mac with 10.5 or greater on it, now is the time to buy them. By the time it arrives, you’ll have a working configuration app, even if you buy 8 of them.
Unitor 8 Pref Pane now listed on macmusic.org
09:11 AM Mar.27, 2009Filed in:
Website
U8PP is now listed on macmusic.com.
I’ve also submitted it to be listed in the Apple Downloads section, but they say it takes up to 90 days for that to happen if it ever even does! Yowsa.
** Update: now listed on Apple.com Downloads in the Audio section .
I’ve also submitted it to be listed in the Apple Downloads section, but they say it takes up to 90 days for that to happen if it ever even does! Yowsa.
** Update: now listed on Apple.com Downloads in the Audio section .
New version of Unitor 8 Preference Panel
12:33 AM Mar.26, 2009Filed in:
Software
What’s new:
Version 0.8.0 (current)
Go check it out!
Version 0.8.0 (current)
- IO patch editing works!!!
- Patches can be named (names are only stored in the preferences).
- 32 customizable IO mappings.
- Copy, paste, and initialize IO patches.
- Displays the Unitor version number when valid input and output are selected.
- Recognizes most settings dumps that are sent from the Unitor.
Go check it out!
Building apps that few will use
While I continue to build midi apps that
few people will use, I’m building a software architecture
behind scenes that will allow me to basically piece large portions
together to create new and interesting midi applications.
Read
More...
Unitor 8 Preference Pane Progress
06:50 PM Mar.15, 2009Filed in:
Software
This weekend I’ve made great progress
with the Unitor Preference Pane. I added patch configuration.
Unfortunately it’s brought my attention to the fact that I have yet
to request any information from the Unitor. The latest build
initializes all the patches and can copy, paste, customize, and
send them to interface, but it never requests what the interface
has. So if you have custom setting already stored, they’ll be
overwritten. I’m not posting this build because of this. If I was
certain that no one cared about their patches that are currently
stored in their Unitor, I would release it, but its better if I
just fix it first.
CocoaHeads meeting in Lake Forest
10:17 PM Mar.11, 2009Filed in:
Software
I should have read my own blog a
little better. I never noticed until now that the text for the
Unitor and microWAVE XT blog entries was all
mixed up (fixed now).
Anyway, tonight I went to the Lake Forest CocoaHeads group meeting to see what a discussion about using Cocoa to write games might be like. It was pretty cool. I wish I could say that my immediate future held doing anything game related with Cocoa, but it definitely does not at the moment.
Anyway, tonight I went to the Lake Forest CocoaHeads group meeting to see what a discussion about using Cocoa to write games might be like. It was pretty cool. I wish I could say that my immediate future held doing anything game related with Cocoa, but it definitely does not at the moment.
Unitor8 Preference Pane
01:58 AM Feb.21, 2009Filed in:
Software
For weeks I have been working on
creating a modern, functional, replacement for the Emagic Unitor8
MkII USB MIDI Interface. To accomplish this I’m reverse engineering
the midi system exclusive messages that are sent to the Interface
by SoundDiver and Unitor8 Control. Apple has made it clear by now
that this is near abandon-ware. While they have amazingly provided
Intel based drivers with Logic, the Unitor8 control and SoundDiver
applications have languished in such a poor state that I consider
them to be nearly unusable.
Follow along here.
Follow along here.
Waldorf XT Patch List Grabber
11:28 PM Jan.22, 2009Filed in:
Software
I’ve written an app that communicates
with Waldorf microWAVE XT synthesizers, requesting all the patch
names, then placing them on the clipboard or in files so they can
be pasted into Apple’s Logic multi environment objects.
Read more about my work on this application here.
Read more about my work on this application here.
High resolution optical encoder
Last night I wrote some code to allow
a high resolution optical encoder to work on the midibox platform. Here’s a link to my post there.
Midibox - Tascam MM-RC
11:31 PM Jul.08, 2008Filed in:
Midibox | Electronics
Today I began taking apart a Tascam
MM-RC remote tape control and using the Midibox hardware platform
to assume control of all of the functions on the device. You can
view the conversion process here on the midibox.org
forums.
Added Audio
05:07 PM Apr.12, 2008Filed in:
Website
Under the Studio menu I've added Music
that I've worked on. Nothing too special.. just for fun stuff.
Redoing the website once again
03:12 PM Apr.12, 2008Filed in:
Website
I think this is the third time I've
redone my website from scratch. I keep searching for easier and
easier ways to deal with the content. This time I've chosen
RapidWeaver since iWeb was running way to slow and I didn't really
feel like upgrading it to the '08 version.
RW feels like a step up, but I've definitely already noticed that it does have it's bugs. Take this entry for example. I can only type this text in the blog summary panel since the Main Entry panel is bigger than the box it draws in.. ie: the top 5 lines of test are impossible to view since they are chopped off above the text box and no scroll bar is offered. Technically there shouldn't even be a scroll bar until the text goes off the bottom of the panel, but anyway.. Read More...
RW feels like a step up, but I've definitely already noticed that it does have it's bugs. Take this entry for example. I can only type this text in the blog summary panel since the Main Entry panel is bigger than the box it draws in.. ie: the top 5 lines of test are impossible to view since they are chopped off above the text box and no scroll bar is offered. Technically there shouldn't even be a scroll bar until the text goes off the bottom of the panel, but anyway.. Read More...

