Tube amps!
MetaFilter has a round up and a great discussion on tube amps. Some cool little tube amps. The world’s smallest production tube amp and world’s Smallest Vacuum Tube hi-fi stereo amplifier. These are too cool. Link.
Music
Take your creations beyond the workshop and onto the stage with diy music instruments! Let us show you how these creations range from simple, basic setups that produce beautiful sounds to more complex projects that require a greater level of engineering knowledge. With these tutorials and examples, we’ll guide you on this journey to make your own musical instrument for experimental, artistic or everyday use – so whether you’re starting out new or a seasoned sound creator, come explore the wonderful world of making your own music.
Modding iTunes…
...organize classical music such that the composer appears in the artist field and the artist/ensemble appears somewhere else. The obvious choice would be to use the now vacated composer slot, and I do exactly that. I’ve modified iTunes to support this new paradigm and am VERY happy with the change. The final result looks like this… Link.
HOW TO Make Your Own $6 Microphone Pop-Filter
This article will show you how to make your own microphone pop-filter. A pop-filter is a small screen that goes between a microphone and your mouth to prevent sharp popping sounds (known as plosives) like “P” and “B” words from overloading the mic level and distorting. Commercially available pop-filters are expensive and can often cost 20 dollars or more. The pop-filter you can build here will cost less than $6 dollars. Link.
Build a Better Music Interface: Railfans (as in Trains)
Railfans are building life-size, full-scale railroad cabs that look and function like the real thing, then projecting scenery onto their wall. And for music, you can hack their USB controller to turn it into a music / video / VJ controller, using either the Windows SDK (for hard coding) or a Mac app called junXion (for simple MIDI, useful with Max/MSP/Jitter, audio and VJ apps etc.) Aside from the train controller interface, you could use their I/O box to build any controller you wanted. There are other I/O boxes that use USB, but theirs has an unusual number of ins and outs, saving you basic stamp programming. And it’s also comparatively cheap. They also make bunches of custom controllers, keyboards, everything… Link.
HOW TO Broadcast MP3’s, Podcasts and other audio over Google Talk
Yes, it is possible to broadcast music, MP3’s, Podcasts, etc. from your itunes, computer cd or whatever. Don’t limit yourself to a boring microphone… share your music! Link.
Arimaa is the first game designed specifically to be hard for computers to play, while easy for people. With its billions of combinations and push-me-pull-you gameplay conditional value strategy, it’s too much for brute force computing. And yet, it’s simple enough for a child to play [
Dave Matthews DRM workaround HOW TO
Dave Matthews Band encouraging fans to bypass DRM restrictions on new album (and, funny enough, petitioning Apple to ignore DRM restrictions in iTunes). Their HOW TO suggests burning a CD, then importing it in to iTunes, that’s wrong. Just hold down the shift key and/or disable autorun (here’s how). [via] Link.