DIY Mic Shock Mount

For the past couple of weeks I was looking for a cheap microphone shock mount and the cheapest I saw that was available in my country was around US$160 so I decided to build a cheap one. I only spent less than $6 and a 2 hours of my not very precious time.

Before I left office today, bought materials and tools to for my DIY shock mount which are a piece of 4”-diameter PVC pipe coupling ($0.50), a set of hair ties($0.40), set of stove bolts ($0.50), a set of coping saw frame and blades ($2.5).

First, I decided to cut the PVC coupling so it would look like Rode SM3 shock mount’s frame.

  

Then I used the section of the PVC coupling that was removed to be a attachment brace to the original mic holders base and bolted it to the base of the frame. I had to heat that part so could bend it to a desired angle.

 

And then cut slots on the edges for the rubber suspensions (hair ties).

 

Right after positioning the suspensions, i found a problem. The rubber bands slip every time i attempted to position the mic. So, I decided to use the extra stove bolts to serve as the stopper of the rubber band slit, and it worked.

Here’s the finished product. I spent only two hours to complete and its worth it. Just $6 and I have a universal shock mount. I may have to paint the whole thing black.

Now that it’s complete, I just hope this makes a difference in my recordings.

UPDATE: I have decided to do a black spray paint makeover.

TSO’s Christmas Eve Sarajevo

Trans-Siberian Orchestra (often abbreviated as TSO) is an orchestra founded in 1996 by Paul O'Neill, who brought together long-time friends Jon Oliva, Robert Kinkel, and Al Pitrelli. The band's musical style incorporates progressive rock, symphonic metal, and heavy metal, with influences from classical music. (Wikipedia)

Just a few days ago, my fantastic guitar-playing friends and I were recording our cover of the TSO’s Christmas Eve Sarajevo piece using an M-Audio Midi keyboard and two guitars.

I recorded the the Percussions/Drum lines, bass lines, orchestra ensembles (strings) and the piano parts using Midi keyboard and VSTi instruments while two of my friends, Paolo Espeleta and Conrado Cruz, played and recorded the guitar lines. We’ve recorded the tracks independently from different locations and then mixed down the tracks using Cakewalk Sonar recording software.

DIY Sustain Pedal

For the last couple of days I was looking for a cheap sustain pedal for my M-Audio Keyrig49 keyboards. The cheapest I found was an M-Audio SP-1 which is around Php1,300 (US$27) but I don’t find it cheap because i figured out that sustain pedals are just simple SPST(single-pole-single-throw) switch. So decided to build one for only Php300 (US$6).

I used materials available at from the nearest hardware. I used surface-type switch box, a door bell switch (momentary push button), and an extra cover plate.

I cut out the base of the box with a hack-saw so it look more like a switch for the foot. Then I positioned the push button switch in the cover plate.

The second cover plate does not have any hole for switches in it. It’s  a cover plate for covering unused junction box in a household electrical installations. I then bolted the second cover plate only fixed in one end. In the other end of the second cover plate bolted it from the inside the box making the head tail of the bolt protrude and serves as a motion guide. After attaching the second cover plate this is how it looks like.

 

The wirings are simple. The push button switch has only two terminal and the phone cable has also two terminals. So it’s common sense for non electrical/electronics people.

Although it looked like a medical equipment ‘coz it is white… :))  The most important thing is that it works.

Enjoy!

Fun with HP Printer Display

While searching for a programming solution, I stumbled into an article claiming that they can change the default displayed message of your office printer to whatever message you want. The message that will replace the conventional “Ready” message. I got interested, so i took time to read it. When i searched about it in Google, I was amazed that lots of articles where already written about it. Articles that offer a program the author wrote himself to make you do change the “Ready” message of your printer to some more humorous such as “INSERT COIN!”. Some articles suggest that you need to learn the language to do that. I learned pearl just to understand what those line of code does and found out that it’s just simply sending a string of character to an opened TCP socket to the printer on the network. The program exploits the PJL (Printer Job Language) to send a command to the printer to replace the conventional “Ready” message to something else. The command is “@PJL RDYMSG DISPLAY = “ YOUR MESSAGE”.

I didn’t like the idea of using a program written by somebody else, specially if you don’t understand what it really does. It could be a “keylogger” that could secretly grab your passwords. So, for just a simple one-way socket communication, I figured out a pretty easy way to do it without even writing a program or using a new one. I was able to change the network printer’s display at the office saying “WALANG HIMALA!” (No Miracle!) by only using the telnet console application available in all Windows box.

To do it, you only need to run the following in the command prompt:

telnet <the IP address of the printer> 9100

If the command prompt clears out to black screen after issuing the command above, this means that your have successfully opened a TCP socket to the network printer and that you just need type the following text in notepad to change the message:

@PJL RDYMSG DISPLAY = “INSERT COIN!!!”

Then paste what you typed in notepad to the command prompt and then press “Enter”. Bingo, your done, check your printer and leave it there until some officemates notice and starts laughing. I enjoyed observing their reactions the moment they noticed that the printer saying something addressed to them :).

The message will be reverted back to default which is “READY” after a power cycle (Printer reboot). So, no worries.

Enjoy!

Coron, Palawan

About three weeks ago, my friends and I went to Coron, Palawan for some out of town adventure. We arrived at the dive resort at mid day then went to try the salt water hot spring. The hot water plus the salt in it said to be good for the skin. I don’t really mind that, what was important to me back then was to get out of my daily routine which is waking up early for work and then going home tired. One unforgettable experience was the shipwrecks. I also have managed to dive under water for a photo shoot.

This ship wrecks were used to be Japanese war ships destroyed by Americans fleets during the World War II.

The sceneries are fantastic. White san beaches, virgin islands, mangrove forests and coral mountains. I didn’t realize I like nature until then.

The people are very nice. The dive shop owner happened to be from my school so got along easily and offered us a place for Karaoke and Tequila.