Notes from James

Maya 44 USB Vista Drivers

Finally - there appear to be drivers for the Maya 44 USB sound card for Windows Vista. After a few months of waiting, they seem to work. Finally, I think I have a complete Vista system. I did try them out and they seemed to work ok in ASIO mode.

Radio Free Paraquat

Here's a playlist on RockErie of the Paraquat Songs. Hopefully the search engines will pick up on this one as well!

Update...bummer, deep linking is not allowed. Here's another try.

Paraquat in RockErie

Here's the site for my band Paraquat at RockErie. Hopefully, we'll get a few songs up there soon.

Edit Mar 28: Ooops...wrong website.

Waves Photographed in a Wine Glass

Ok, the wine glass made music, and this is sort of a science experiment. I filled up a wine glass full of water and ran my finger around it to make a musical tone. I then used my camera to take a picture of the waves. The thought was that I could determine the tone that was being played by counting the waves and doing some math with respect to the circumference. Well, I didn't do any of the math, but got a cool picture of the waves around the outside of the glass.

Hurra Torpedo

Check out Hurra Torpedo, the world's leading appliance rock band, from Norway. They have a guitarist and two guys who bang on freezers, stoves, and other assorted kitchen appliances. Quite an amazing sound for such a strange makeup.

Yamaha UX16 Midi Driver Installation Problems Solved

I had terrible problems. No matter what I did, I could not get the drivers or the updated drivers to install. I sent an e-mail to Yamaha:

I have been trying to install the drivers for the ux16, but always get the same error: Cannot install this hardware: there was a problem installing this hardware: Yamaha USB-MIDI Driver ... An error occurred during the installation of the device. The system cannot find the file specified. I have tried many different versions of the device driver, but cannot get it to work correctly. Maybe an older version of the driver corrupted the registry?

I received a quick response that seemed to work!

James,

The problem is not the driver.

In most cases people will download the driver, place it on their desktop and try to install it from there. This won't work because the Windows install process will reference the C: drive or a directory on the C: drive. When it cannot find the driver in a provided directory (nor on the root directory, because the driver's info's on the desktop) that error will be triggered.

In other cases clients will have multiple directories, or try to install it from a abnormal directory structure. Either way will trigger the same error.

Nontheless, our driver is simply being affected by 'A' problem, but is not 'THE' problem.

I have included the install process for the UX16, as well as a way to clean out your DM.

_______________________

UX16 to XP unit.

1.Place the UX16 disc into the PC. Make sure you connect UX16 to you keyboard (or other midi device) 'in to out' and 'out to in'.

2. Connect UX16 to PC USB port.

3. Windows should now search for a driver, and after finding it on the CD, should proceed to install it.

4. When running XP you may get a notice saying that the driver has not been tested. Microsoft charges to test drivers. We can test our own, they work, so it's ok to click on the 'continue anyway' button.

5. Windows may want to reboot after this, so go ahead and let it.

6. After windows comes back up, go to control panel/sound and audio, and then to the audio tab. At the bottom, change the selection to Yamaha-USB-01, then make the same midi device change in Cool Edit Pro's midi set up.

UPDATED DRIVER INFO

You are more than welcome to download the latest drivers from the download section at: http://www.global.yamaha.com/download/usb_midi/index.html#00004

Select: USB-MIDI Driver for Windows(R) XP/2000 and download: um220xp2.exe

Download and update the driver.

To update.

1. Double click on downloaded file.

2. Windows will ask when you would like to extract the files to. Type in c:\

3. Go to device manager, and double click on ‘sound, video, and game controller’

4. Double click on Yamaha USB midi driver, and go to the driver tab.

5. Click on ‘update driver’, and select the bottom selection (install from a list or specific location).

6. Click on ‘next’, and then select ‘include this location in the search’, and the ‘browse’ to the C:\USB-MIDI_Driver\Driver directory.

7. Click next and finish.

_______________________

Here's a way to clean out the device manager of Yamaha drivers not being used.

1. Go to START/RUN, and type in CMD

2. Then type C:, press enter.

3. Now window type: set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1, then enter

4. now type: start devmgmt.msc, enter again.

Device manager will launch. At the top of DM, click on VIEW and click on SHOW HIDDEN DEVICES.

Now go to sound, video, and game controllers. Remove all the greyed out (seen but not being used) yamaha usb driver info.

5. Type Exit (to exit) when finished, and reboot least twice.

2007 Walk to Cure Diabetes

For the Northwestern PA Chapter of JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation)

The 2007 Walk to Cure Diabetes in Erie PA will be held on September 23, 2007, at Presque Isle State Park, starting at Waldameer Park.

Hope to see you all there!

Rocking Band from Old Navy Commercial

Finally found Everybody Else, a band that I thought sounds a lot like Blur, especially the lead singer who seems to sound like Damon Albarn. They play the Christmas tune in the Old Navy (and Target? Why do I keep thinking this) commercial. Here's the Old Navy commercial. Here's a bit of the lyrics for those of you trying to figure out who these guys are, like I was:

"Reindeer on the Front Lawn"

You wanna party 'till dawn
With Friends that you can count on
Everybody just wants to gooooooooo
Get your Fashion!

I'm going to have to check these guys out a bit more.

Coverville Idol 1986!

Finally! Coverville Idol 1986 came out! Download it here!

I'm the 4th song in, playing Sly Fox's Let's Go All The Way. Support me for the win! Vote here!

I really don't care if I win or not...it's all in the competition. However, I hope I get at least in the top 3 so they play the entire song. In any case, on to the next Coverville Idol: 1973.

Details here as I figure out what I'm going to play.

Paraquat - Initial Entry

Adding a new category today for Paraquat, the band that I play in. I wanted to throw down a note here and there as to what I'm recording, to maybe provide some sort of time frame in the future when I'm trying to figure out what happened when. I guess it could fall under music, but I wanted a separate grouping.

Did a second mix of "Unfortunate Delay" - the drums were too quiet, the bass wasn't boomy enough, and I think the guitar needed a bit more punch. Hopefully this mix will turn out better than yesterday's mix.

Oh yeah... Happy Halloween!

Coverville Idol Update ... More bad news

From Brian Ibbott:

I thought I'd better be the first to let you know. One of the judges came down with a cold, and emailed me that he won't be able to record tonight. We're going to see if it works to do it during the week this week instead of having to wait for Sunday.

Believe me. As disappointed as you are, I am as well...

Well, having just recovered (well, recovering) from a bad flu illness, I can understand that, and I'll be lenient. :-) Either way, still looking forward to it!

Coverville Idol Update

Per Brian Ibbott:

I've gotten confirmation that my judges will be able to record tomorrow night. Crossing my fingers!

Thanks,

Brian Ibbott

Crossing my fingers as well...let's hope my tune sees the light of day!

Third Rail - The Performance

The performance by Third Rail at the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes at Presque Isle went off spectacularly...or at least with no major problems. We all got there at 6am and set up. Karla Mullenax and Scott Wludyga provided commentary between songs. Well, it was mostly Karla -- I don't recall Scott saying more than a few words.

Got quite a few positive congratulations and comments from people that I saw on the walk. It makes it all really worthwhile to get positive feedback and appreciation for the work that we put into it.

Until next year...

Third Rail - JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes on Sunday

Weather permitting, Third Rail will be playing in the band shell outside of Rainbow Gardens (at Waldameer Park, Erie PA) on the morning of Sunday, September 24th, supporting the JDRF's Walk to Cure Diabetes. I'll be playing guitar with a touch of bass. If the weather doesn't hold up, we'll hopefully play indoors. However, I'd greatly prefer to be outside under sun and fresh air.

I especially look forward to playing a reggae tinged version of Come Together/Riders on the Storm. It was a lot of fun during rehearsals, hope it turns out nice onstage.

JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes - Erie

The JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes in Erie PA will be held on Sunday, September 24, 2006 at Presque Isle. The plan is for the GE band, Third Rail, to play there again!

Paraquat - Live at MSG

Well, it's not official yet...

Third Rail

Well, finally I did it. Made copies of the Third Rail concert from last years JDRF Walk to find a cure for diabetes. Came out pretty good. I guess I just had to get off my butt and make the copies.

CelebrateERIE

Went to CelebrateERIE on Friday to see the Beach Boys. I wish I brought my camera...hundreds of people were taking pictures with their cell phones...I feel pretty far behind the times! It was a good time, and the perfect price, though (free).

Julkalender 2005

Well, that's the end of William and Johanna's Julkalender 2005! It was fun putting it together and learning a lot about podcasting. I'm going to miss it, and don't have plans for any new podcasts now. I don't want to put something together and just be in the bottom of the major podcast hitters. There are tons of tech podcasts, couples podcasts, etc. that I feel that I'd be just another redundant voice in the ether. I'll very likely put another one together next year, but, until then, I'll be just another listener out on the net.

I'm going to keep working on Escapepodder as necessary since I think it's a good tool that is missing today out in the pod-o-sphere. Hopefully we'll see more of that stuff.

Thanks to those who listened!

Music on Podshow

I uploaded some music to the Podsafe Music Network. Here is a link to go check it out.

JDRF Walk for Diabetes Part II

The JDRF walk for diabetes went quite good -- Team William raised $270. I played guitar with a bunch of guys from GE in a band called "Third Rail". Here's a pretty cool picture from the stage.