A Word About USB Audio Hardware

by

I have had some issues dealing with “experts” at local music stores and even reviews of products online; in particular dealing with USB condenser microphones used for music recording. I though that since I could see how so many people claim to be experts, yet give misleading information, I should do my part is dispelling some myths about USB audio hardware using a particular example.

Even some “experts” at the music store will have no clue what they are talking about, so let me enlighten you something so you won’t fall prey to their stupidity.

I like to record music from time to time on my computer.  Nothing special, a riff here or there on the guitar, or a cover song or something. I wanted to have the simplest method for recording so when I chose to, I can focus on recording music instead of setting things up.   I found the MXL USB.006 Condenser Microphone to be perfect for my application, however everyone and their brother advised me against it. Even the guy who sold it to me at “Guitar Place” said it wasn’t as good as running a standard condenser mic through a mixer and using a USB sound card. The one he recommended was the Behringer UCA202.  So I bought them both to see the differences.

Read more

NC Maker Faire – A Teacher’s Perspective

by
Scrap Exchange

Now that some time has passed, I am able to reflect thoughtfully and professionally over the Maker Faire that was held in Durham on Sunday, April 25th.

From a teacher’s perspective, four makers in particular presented things I just “need” to have in my classroom.  This is my wish list:

  • Classroom Visits for “Scrap” from the ScrapExchange
  • Leatherbound Books
  • ShopBot Tyro
  • DIY Multi-Touch Screen

Find reasons and more information about each of my choices after the jump.

Read more

Maker Faire: NC in Durham this Sunday

by

Come see our light-following robots and other SheekGeek products!  SheekGeek is making the drive from Charlotte to Durham this Sunday to run a booth at the Maker Faire: NC.  We are excited to finally have a MAKE event somewhat nearby and couldn’t miss out on the geeky festivities.  Sadly, because we will be running our booth, I’m not sure how much time we will have to visit other exhibits, but we will do our best.   There are lots of cool things to see, from book binding to CNC fabrication.  It looks to be a promising day!

Add Automatic Reset to Your FTDI-232R Cable

by

I’ve had a FTDI cable for a while for testing serial communications between my microprocessors and my computer and for that job, it works great. However, I recently grabbed a couple Ardweenies from Solarbotics and decided to use my FTDI cable to program them.  The FTDI cable doesn’t have an automatic reset, so you have to push the reset button on the board at exactly the right time when trying to program it from your computer.  This causes tons of frustration.

Oddly, a few days of experimenting with the arduinos, my cable got a short in it. While fixing the short, I was surprised to find out that the FTDI cable uses the same chip as the Sparkfun Programmer (which has automatic reset) so I went about modifying my cable to include this feature.

Modifying the cable is much easier said than done, but since I got it working, I figured I’d do a write-up on it in case anyone else wants to give it a shot.

Read more