Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
Were at it again… The startup bar is back in full force.
This time we have 4 djs, starting up at 9pm and finishing at 2am. This Friday (22nd June) and every Friday (except maybe next week, 29th July TBC).
If your in Manchester and out on Friday night, you can’t do much better than experience the House, Electro and Trance played by some great up-shots in the Manchester scene… Feel free to RSVP here.
Hope to see you all there…
This should be a easy task but Tonium did something to a later version of the free pacemaker editor, so it no longer worked. In the meantime I personally have been running a virtual machine just for the purpose of taking tunes on and off my pacemaker. No one could work out what they changed in the later version but although you could get the software to work, it wouldn’t recognize the pacemaker device at all. I even stuck it on WineHQ to see if that might help…
Many people tried different ways to get it working but none of them worked. Tonium unhelpfully said it was only supported on Windows and Mac.
But they came back with…
Yeah i am aware of this. ubuntu runs a program called ‘wine’ that emulates windows so you can still run windows only programmes such as this. was just wondering if anyone out there had experienced similar problems…
i have looked on ubuntu forums and pacemaker should run fine, apart from it being a bit fiddly to unmount sometimes.
Then today I had a good think about the problem and started thinking out of the box/experimenting over lunch. Last night I was convinced I would need to install a Github version of Wine for the USB to work and thought I’d install wine from source while eating my lunch.
But before I got to remove Wine, I thought I’d have a online search again and look through the wine settings again. Surely someone must have the solution. I found someone who suggested there might be a read/write problem with the pacemaker and suggested the following.
chown yourusername /media/yourpacemaker
chmod u=rw /media/yourpacemaker
After that I thought for a while, surely theres nothing magical happening. I mean Tonium are using open methods for most of the software and the build of the pacemaker. Even the config files are simply .xml files. The only illusion so far is the stm files which seem to be the analysed raw data stuffed in xml files. So we’re talking low level methods to make it all work, surely this would extend to the way Tonium did the method for putting tunes on the actual device. In actual fact, Musicinstinct2 had already started building a manager for linux and got it mostly working except for the stm file part. Then I had a moment of genius…
My thoughts I documented on the pacemaker getsatisfaction help list.
I got thinking that Windows simply mounts the Pacemaker then the Pacemaker Editor simply looks at a certain drive letter. The problem we’ve had is as default Wine sets the Pacemaker hard drive as drive E: as default. Windows from memory allocates drive letters from Z backwards. That or Tonium through they would be clever and use a letter which wouldn’t normally be used!
I also thought about upgrading my Wine to support USB better but I started thinking, wine can see the pacemaker as a drive if I select it. So it must be the editor which is at fault.
So the first thing I did was mounted the drive under Z: Y: X: then used different advanced options to see if that made a difference. By pure chance on the 1st time I loaded up the pacemaker editor it automatically showed the contains of the Pacemaker. I thought it was a mistake and decided to close it down and load it up again. Bingo! Exactly the same thing. So I did some crude operations like copying files, renaming files, etc. They all pretty much worked.
At this point I had to share my joy with the world by posting up this post.
After this I did some tweaking so it could see my music collection, etc and discovered the option of type was essential to the whole thing working. I had by pure chance selected floppy disc on the correct drive letter. I also tried removing drives to see exactly which drive it was expecting, and discovered it was all about X: it seemed. Without waiting I wrote up the whole thing on the community maintained forum.
Mount the Pacemaker as usual by plugging it into a linux machine (I’m using Ubuntu 10/10 64bit edition)
I set the pacemaker to be writable using,
"sudo chown yourusername /media/yourpacemaker"
"sudo chmod u=rw /media/yourpacemaker"
*warning if you don’t understand the command don’t type it in… and I’m not responsible for anything which happens.
I’m assuming you already have Wine 1.3 and the Pacemaker Editor installed…
In the Wine preferences, setup a new drive letter X: and set it to /media/Pacemaker
Then set the type under the advanced options to floppy drive.
Now start the pacemaker editor with the pacemaker connected to the machine and it should come up and you can drag files on and off it.
Now in hindsight it might just be the floppy drive option not the drive letter and I’m unsure if you need to make the pacemaker writable using the commands above. But to be honest, I don’t see them harming anything and I’m sure someone else will narrow the instructions down soon enough.
The only question left is if Linux pacemaker users will see this or not? I certainly hope so…
This is my latest mix on my pacemaker. Lots of new tunes and some classics returns.
Its known as just the geometry set, but why? Well most of the mix has something to do with geometry in some way. If you think you can work out the link in each tune, feel free to comment below.
You may have noticed this is also a much shorter mix that I usually do but it didn’t feel the need to be long and drawn out.
Ladies and Gentleman, I present The Geometry Set…
The Geometry Set by cubicgarden
The wrong end of irlam walkabout mix by cubicgarden
Another mix by myself (Dj Cubicgarden). This time its the wrong end of irlam walkabout mix. As you can imagine I did this while walking around Irlam (yes its a real place, near Manchester) and I kind of got a little lost. It was certainly the wrong end of Irlam, as the kiddies started gathering wondering why I was there, and what this weird thing I was clutching was (the pacemaker). Anyway, I made it out of irlam safely but unfortunately without my scooter, which also now needs a new battery.
The mix is far from perfect but its an enjoyable mix of trance. There’s a lot of new stuff mixed in with some old favorites. The problem with walking around doing a mix is you can’t see the screen very well when selecting tunes and things like buying a ticket or showing the inspector your ticket can really put you off the pace of a mix.
Anyway, hope you all enjoy it, here’s the playlist…
The secret garden sunshine mix by cubicgarden
So my latest mix is online, I’m sorry to say I uploaded while at TedXSheffield (it was break time and the wifi was pretty fast). I got to take the wifi as it comes because it looks like I won’t get connectivity till the end of the month now.
As always the mix can be downloaded from soundcloud if the flash player doesn’t take your fancy or you want to listen to it on the go. I would upload a OGG version (the pacemaker defaults to ogg actually, so creating a mp3 version requires extra time and effort) but soundcloud don’t really support versions of the same stuff, I’m considering going back to blip.tv for media uploading. The playlist is below, Yes I really like Thomas Bronzwaer, he’s got a style of trance which really plays to my ear, this is also the reason for Collider twice.
This mix was recorded on my pacemaker while sitting outside in the sunshine of my new shared garden at Islington Wharf. Not my best mixing but entaining and well worth a listen. Thanks to Simon Lumb (@dirtysi) for the new Gouryella remix. I love Gouryella and this remix is pretty true to the original in lot of aspects. Enjoy…
I had a listen to all of my mixes I recorded while in Hospital, and this is certainly the best mix of them all.
This one is certainly the best sounding of the bunch which includes the the amazing recover mix, the outta of hope mix and of course the pulse of a nation mix. Its a good length too at almost a hour long. The mixing isn’t perfect but its good enough for a listen. The choice of tunes is also good, a nice upbeat selection, I must have had a good day the day I recorded this mix. As always enjoy it… oh an you can directly download this mix using this link.
The mix isn’t perfect, I almost dedcied not to release it and maybe even do it again, but I changed my mind as theres a lot of new tunes in this mix. Of course there’s classic ones too. Recorded in Bristol while waiting to go out one night, I’m sure yuo will enjoy it.
Its been a while since I’ve uploaded a new mix mainly because I’ve had some trouble getting the Pacemaker editor software working in Ubuntu. I tried to get it working using Wine but it just would not work. So I had to go back to using Sun’s VirtualBox which thankfully does work.
Here’s the playlist for the mix…
The sound of snow falling in sunshine mix from cubicgarden at Letsmix.com.
The whole thing is a joke I would say, I had pretty much given up to tell the truth. The NGDJ (next generation dj contest) has published a warning that all qualifiers to the contest will be scrutinized.
A quick note regarding the NGDJ Qualifiers: Leading up to the end of NGDJ Stage 1, we will be investigating all Qualifier mixes. Voting patterns related to accounts or mixes which are in breach of the NGDJ Terms and Conditions may lead to any of the following:
– Votes being retracted
– Mixes being denoted from Qualifier status
– The banning of Letsmix.com accountsIn addition to this we would like to inform you that this procedure might also affect mix rating averages and vote totals. All decisions and results following this investigation are final.
Voting issues, why? This is part of the problem,
For the stage 1
The NGDJ eligibility period will begin December 15th 2009 and will end on January 31st 2010, after which Stage 1 (“NGDJ Qualifiers Eligibility Period”) ends. To register and compete in NGDJ, visit http://www.letsmix.com and fully complete all required fields on the online registration form, and proceed to upload your DJ mix. Spread your NGDJ submission widely; you must gain a minimum of 200 ratings to be deemed a qualifier. The top one hundred qualifiers will then be determined by their average mix rating to remain in contest as Stage 2 commences.
Basically if you browse around the current qualifiers for the contest, you will find many examples of mixes which have something like 206 votes but only 60 actual listens. Go figure, obviously something is going on. What bugs me is that the legitimate mixes like mine (80 listens and 62 votes of a average of 4.8 out of 5) are going to lose out simply because I didn’t cheat like everyone else.
This comment sums up my thoughts too…
I don’t know why you didn’t make another voting procedure. My idea:
1. The vote button to be enabled only after the mix was listened at least 30 min
2. The rate of the mix to be shown only after the vote was placed.
3. The competitors shouldn’t be able to vote other mixes. The actual situation is not very good cause some of the “djs” here are not acquainted with the term FAIR PLAY and are not open minded.
4. The owner of the mix should be able to see a review of the votes he received on each day (how much stars has each vote).
So before the end of the month, if you’ve not voted for my mix, please do.
I’ve been thinking about the mix for the mix competition and decided to do a more upbeat tech electro mix instead of trance. I’ll post it on soundcloud very soon, just need to edit it a little because the pacemaker didn’t record the first mix correctly (again!).
Break dance to this mix by cubicgarden
What do you think? Shall I submit this one or stick to the trance?
Ok I saw this for the first time on the Gadget Show of all places the other day. They only showed it briefly but in that short 2mins I was blown away.
The Pacemaker is simply a digital mpeg3 mixer in portable form. In actually fact its dual mpeg3 players with a koas pad and mini mixer in one portable little unit. Simply amazing… what kills me is this device seems so perfect. Maybe this is the future of digital mixing? Finally something to separate the analogue djs from the true digital djs. The only thing which could make this device better is a drop in price, a real time waveform display, bluetooth 2.0 audio/input support and some tactile feedback.
Anyway enough chatter, go to the site and check it out. I'm number 2157 2738 in the queue for this amazing device.
Your queue number is No. 2738
This pre-booking is a non-binding reservation that guarantees you a specified place in line. To convert your pre-booking to a mutually binding order, we shall require delivery address information and full payment.
Your pre-booking includes the Pacemaker 120 GB pocket-size DJ system, line-out/RCA cable, power adapter, USB cable and quick user guide.
The price is 520 Euro, plus taxes and shipping costs. First shipments are scheduled for February 2008.
Before delivery, we will contact you with a request of delivery address details and final payment. Should you wish not to proceed with this purchase, your pre-booking will be cancelled and your queue number will be lost.
To view your queue number and booking status, log in at the Pre-booking section on www.Pacemaker.net