squigg (u/squigg) - Readit News

squigg commented on Building a TB-303 from Scratch loopmaster.xyz/tutorials/... · Posted by u/stagas

stagas · 4 days ago

I think you're right. We have a `pwm(hz,width)`[0] but I didn't try it. Was more focused on the ramp/sawtooth. Can't decide which one sounds better.

[0]: https://loopmaster.xyz/docs/generators/pwm

squigg · 4 days ago

Always the square for classic acid house - the saw is better for more modern (and worse ;-) distorted acid techno

squigg commented on Building a TB-303 from Scratch loopmaster.xyz/tutorials/... · Posted by u/stagas

squigg · 4 days ago

TB-303 owner here. If my TB-303 sounded this bad I'd set fire to it ;-)

Really this is just an implementation of a basic oscillator, filter and envelope. No harm in that all and it's more than I could manage - it's fun and nice, but it's nothing like a 303. "Building an acid synth" would be fairer.

The accent and glide are core components of the sound, as is the really quite unique sequencer control - from the strange bendy growls to the classic acid bark the accent brings out. Would have been nice to see a deeper dive into why that is and why it's different from implementing a normal portamento-style glide as many other synths do, like the SH-101 - which cannot sound that close to a 303 due to that glide. Well it's also got a different oscillator and filter, with no accent either, but I don't want that to ruin the story ;-)

squigg commented on Building a TB-303 from Scratch loopmaster.xyz/tutorials/... · Posted by u/stagas

torusle · 4 days ago

The fun thing was the Roland Sync. You could sync up all the TB-303, TB-909 and all the others with a 5-pole DIN cable. The sync was badly implemented. It lagged, it had latency.

However!

As soon as you cabled all together their imperfections added up and they started to groove like nothing that has been heard before.

squigg · 4 days ago

Owner of all (ALL!!) the classic Roland x0x boxes here, which are connected together using DIN Sync - the sync was not badly implemented at all - they sync together perfectly.

The sequencers in each of the machines have a bit of nuance, which is where that famous groove comes from!

You might be confusing this with the sometimes hilarious midi timing of the 909 and 707.

squigg commented on Network of Scottish X accounts go dark amid Iran blackout heraldscotland.com/news/2... · Posted by u/TiredOfLife

janandonly · 2 months ago

The UK is a lot more then Scotland + England. The Welsh, northern Irish and Isle of Manx would like to have a word with you, to name a few.

squigg · 2 months ago

The Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom

squigg commented on Creative Technology: The Sound Blaster abortretry.fail/p/the-sto... · Posted by u/BirAdam

patwolf · 6 months ago

I wish the article had gone into detail about SoundFonts. I had an AWE64 back in the day, and the SoundFonts were a relatively inexpensive way to do sampling. CPUs were generally too slow to do sampling without dedicated hardware. I still remember the day I got the memory daughterboard and was able to load bigger SoundFonts.

I also remember working a summer job to save up money for a Nomad. I would come home from work every day and check their website to see if it was available for purchase, and it never was. I eventually gave up on getting a Nomad and bought an RCA Lyra instead, which was a regrettable decision.

squigg · 6 months ago

EMU samplers used Soundfonts as well - I occassionally use them to load samples onto my ESI2000 sampler over ZuluSCSI ... so the format lives on!

EXMP is the outstanding editor for all things Soundfont and EMU

squigg commented on The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video] youtube.com/watch?v=UVf7r... · Posted by u/keepamovin

fellatio · 9 months ago

Ever see the military choppers doing their exercise? Amazing and scary.

squigg · 9 months ago

Yes! We lived in a penthouse apartment in Surry Hills (the old hat factory) for 2 years from 2010 and the first time the choppers came in and dropped troops off on the rooftop opposite I was terrified! Became a regular source of entertainment, to sit on the terrace watching them be dropped off

squigg commented on A note on the USB-to-PS/2 mouse adapter that came with Microsoft mouse devices devblogs.microsoft.com/ol... · Posted by u/luu

Minor49er · a year ago

You might have luck finding connectors on Buyee.jp. MSX was huge in Japan, and Roland is a Japanese corporation

squigg · a year ago

I never thought to check the Japanese auction houses - I have a workmate there who can purchase locally as well. There is one for sale, but it's a bit expensive - I'll keep my eyes open thanks

squigg commented on A note on the USB-to-PS/2 mouse adapter that came with Microsoft mouse devices devblogs.microsoft.com/ol... · Posted by u/luu

squigg · a year ago

I have an old Roland S760 sampler from the early 90s. One of the innovations Roland made in this (lower cost) space was to add the ability to hook up a monitor and a mouse, to make chopping samples and programming patches much easier than peering at a tiny screen like on an Akai S1000 of the time (which I also have), or even worse on the S760's tiny two-line display

The mouse connector is MSX, which are very difficult to find these days, so mine came with a DIY MSX->PS2 connector. Sadly the PS2 mouse it came with was on it's last legs, so I wanted to replace it with something more modern. All I could find at the time were MS mice that came with a USB-PS2 connector. When I plugged it in, it barely worked and I could never understand why.

I did finally manage to track down a NOS PS2 mouse and it worked perfectly again. Until this post, I never understood just WHY it didn't work, so thank you!

The S760 is a fantastic sampler. It's kinda like a JD990 but as a sampler and without the full synth engine complexity. Made famous by Daft Punk and a lot of others as the S760 digital multimode filter became one of their signature sounds.

squigg commented on European govt air-gapped systems breached using custom malware welivesecurity.com/en/ese... · Posted by u/tagyro

guenthert · a year ago

For the old SunRay thin clients one could disable the USB ports by policy (and enable for certain users, iirc). That was an important feature there, as one intended application was as public kiosk systems, e.g. in a library.

The same is possible in Windows 10 and 11, but the users will revolt, if a sysadmin were to enforce such (the same users who insist on using Windows instead of a more secure system).

squigg · a year ago

> For the old SunRay thin clients one could disable the USB ports .... >The same is possible in Windows 10 and 11, but the users will revolt, if a >sysadmin were to enforce such (the same users who insist on using Windows instead >of a more secure system).

Can I add a little more colour here (and have worked in and designed-for very secure environments) - users will revolt if removing the USB ports makes their life more difficult. This can work if there is an effective feedback loop that makes sure the users can still do their jobs efficiently in the absence of USB ports, and corrects for them when they can't. Users won't go around something unless it gets in their way!

squigg commented on How a Gas Compressor Station Works kimray.com/training/how-g... · Posted by u/teleforce

djaychela · a year ago

It also means large storage tanks (known as gasometers in the UK) aren't needed. A couple of hundred meters of pipe at high pressure holds the same amount of gas as one of them.

squigg · a year ago

As someone else who grew up seeing these across the UK, it was never clear to me why they disappeared - this explains it perfectly, thank you