Atari ST How it came about Back in the early 90′s I was happily making music with an Atari ST, Roland MT32, Casio CZ-101 and a Roland TR-707. It was quite a powerful system for the time given it’s relatively low cost. As I have always done, I had converted a spare bedroom into a makeshift home studio to be able to setup my ever expanding collection of musical equipment. I was writing some of my own original music, was...

I’m following the suggestion to make 1st Aug “How I got started in ColdFusion” day (How I got started in ColdFusion Day). To set some context, I was employed at The Daily Express (I was there for 14 years) and moved into some web based applications as we were looking at replacing our in-house Unisys A-Series mainframe based advert booking system with a bought-in system. As part of the bidding process we created a...

The deployment of this and a couple of other blogs I am currently working on was delayed as I struggled with the “broken image” issue most people have been encountering when deploying a multi-site WordPress 3.1 blog to a Windows IIS7 based web-server. There are some really good articles out there going into great detail about getting WP to work reliably with IIS7, especially using the URLRewrite add-on for IIS to emulate the...

So here it finally is. At last I’ve got up off my arse and have launched a personal blog. It’s as near as I am ever likely to get to fulfilling a New Year’s resolution. The general idea is to give myself an outlet for all the rants and ravings that have hitherto been solely delivered to my long-suffering cat, Bowie. I think publishing these ramblings might prove to be a bit more cathartic and, just possibly, a little bit...

Another update. Construction is now complete. I installed a heatsink on the regulator in the volume control board, that issue is now solved. I picked up a new voltage regulator board for the PSU from the kit supplier Conrad. Installed that and power is now working correctly. I also picked up a programmable remote control on eBay for the price of a couple of pints to give me a smaller and rather more ergonomic remote control than the one...

Quick update: I’ve now finished assembling the unit. Several hours with a CorelDraw template, a centre punch and a variety of drill bits in my pillar drill resulted in a case with all the holes prepared. The wrinkly appearance of the front panel is purely down to the protective film that’s still stuck on until the unit is finished: Next was a test fit of all the components to ensure the drilling was accurate or if any...

I’ve finally made a start on building a passive monitor controller. I’ve had a good look at the various options available on the market and decided that I can build the kind of spec I’m looking for much cheaper than I can buy one. It will have 4 selectable inputs, where the selected one can be routed to 4 selectable outputs. In the middle of this routing is a volume control. I’ve opted for a stereo balanced motorised...

I’ve spent the last few months building a new MIDI control surface specifically for controlling EQ plugins. It was an idea I had last year. I actually pitched the idea to Novation, along with a mocked up image of what it could look like as I thought their rotary encoders with the LED rings along with their Automap software would make for an impressive package. Sadly, it seems they filed it under “R”. That left me with my...

The more or less finished control surface I have had this one planned for a while… I was just waiting for something suitable to turn up on eBay and last week I managed to snag a used EPOS keyboard for £5… woohoo! It’s a USB keyboard and is the TM_KMR128A made by Tipro (product info). All the keys are programmable and each can be programmed to issue a single character or a string of keystrokes. To the right is a...

I finally found some time to finish the internal wiring of the preamp. Next job will be tests and VU meter calibration. I only need the meters to give a useful indication rather than accurate metering… more important is that they are both closely matched to each other. But other than that, the build is, to all intents and purposes, now complete. Here’s a couple more pics.