beer and midi keyboards do not mix

December 10th, 2010 by marshalserna

m-audio radium 61

Here’s one way to spend an entire Saturday: Pour beer onto your midi controller, then disassemble the whole thing to clean it up. GREAT FUN.

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Pack Your Kit

December 6th, 2010 by marshalserna

This is the trailer for a video series I did quite a bit of work on. Technical editing and production, glidecam, some video editing and more.

See the whole series here.

These were shot and edited in the Fall/Winter of 2009, using Canon 5D Mark II cameras. It’s amazing just how far the firmware for the 5D has come since then. At the time there were very few examples of HDslr video. Editing and syncing sound required a high level of wizardry. And that was just a year ago! These episodes have been viewed over 21,000 times now, and the 5D/7D have become ubiquitous with film making.

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DIY Oktava 319 Mic Mod – Part 2

December 4th, 2010 by marshalserna

Stock MK-319 (right) and my modified version (left)

Stock Oktava MK-319 (right) and my modified version (left)

This is my second post on modifying Oktava MK-319 microphones. See part 1 here.

I’ve always been fascinated with Russian engineering and technology. This was my first opportunity to hack into some of it. I’ve used a few relatively inexpensive Russian Oktava microphones on several recordings. While not quite Neumanns, they sound surprisingly good on a lot of sources. For a few years they were the featured discount condenser mic at Guitar center, so they are easy to find on eBay and elsewhere. It turns out the capsules and transformers in these are pretty nice, but the supporting components and circuitry are often compromised. Also, the design of the microphone’s body causes some strange resonances. As I mentioned in a previous post, there are at least a few techs who have built businesses out of modifying, upgrading and drastically improving the sound of these microphones. After doing a bit of research I decided to try making some of these modifications myself. For about $50 I was able purchase all of the parts and materials to modify two Oktava MK-319 mics, with some components to spare. A few of the parts were hard to source, and it took about a month for everything to be shipped. These modifications are based directly on this article by Scott Dorsey, Micheal Joly’s Oktavamod.com, and also on forum discussions including Bill Stitler and Jim Jacobsen. I take no credit for the ideas, but offer my insight as a kind of newbie at DIY audio and recording hacks.

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Getting Started with Arduino

November 7th, 2010 by marshalserna

This is becoming a new obsession…

I first saw these when I was doing research on the Perspective Aerial quad-copter. This little board is an open source microcontroller (with 14 digital input/outputs and 6 analog inputs) that is programmed via USB. Complete, assembled boards can be found on eBay for about $30. Just add a power supply or battery, connect whatever you want it to sense and/or control and write code to make it function however you want. Some people are making robots, some are making UAVs and others are making cool lighting effects. The possibilities are wide open.

I received an Arduino Duemilanove a few days ago, and have done some of the basic tutorial projects I’ve found online. I have a few more serious projects in mind though… One I’m getting stared with is a reproduction of a visual metronome I saw several years back in a Bjork video.

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quad rotor flying camera platform

November 5th, 2010 by marshalserna

I saw this on the great dSLR blog Cinema5D a while back:

It may be hard to tell from this picture, but that is a Canon EOS 5D Mark II shooting HD video from a remote controlled, microcontroller stabilized quad-helicopter. This particular platform is by Perspective Aerials, who are doing some very impressive things with the technology. Check out Canon 5D Mark II Aerial Drone – Autonomous GPS Position Hold. The microcontroller has been integrated with a GPS so the copter can hold position and altitude automatically while the remote camera operator pans and tilts the camera.

Seeing the possibilities of this inspired me to check out what can be done with microcontrollers, and has led me to a new obsession with the Arduino… but that will have to be for another post.

Check out the super fast MikroKopter – HexaKopter. Elevator Mode….

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My First Music Demo, 1988

October 26th, 2010 by marshalserna

These are my very first 4-track recordings. I made them in the spring of 1988, then dubbed and distributed a bunch of demo cassettes under the name M. Scott.