Well, since my last post, I did return to the previous connection port, but no luck.
However, the whole affair has turned out for the better. Here's why:

My (external hardware) Motif synth is a really powerful machine. Yet I have always had a problem with it that I couldn't get around: the insertion effects that can be applied to the sounds only work one voice at a time. That meant that if I made several tracks on the internal sequencer, only one of them had the full insertion affects applied. Obviously, if several tracks needed the effects, only one would get the full benefits.

Well, I've connected the Motif through the audio-in jack of the PC. Audacity is a good audio recorder that can handle realtime recording pretty well. (Ardour I know is also good.. perhaps better.. but it relies on Jack, and it's the interfacing between Jack and Alsa that I'm stuck on at the moment..)

So by using Audacity, I can record one track on top of the other, each one with all the insertion effects that I want the Motif to use, and none of it is lost! Then when I'm done, save the project, and export the audio in Flac or mp3!

So I'm getting the best of both machines: the Motif for the voice capabilities and quality, and the PC (Audacity) to record track on track to get it all put together.

-What sayest thou?


brian

Magick and poetry! It's always a puzzle, but in the end, I learned to write everything down for future reference. My problem is, however...that I cannot find any notes back when I need em...

But, all in all...


Thor

I write things down, too. And lots of study. -I've only been at it for about 8 months now!

brian

You've just gone into it for the rest of your life ...the study comes pretty easy for me. I use several older PC's (mostly second-handers and hand-me-downs from relatives) to install-try-mess up-and-repair, or in one simple word: learn.

Having a secondary machine around (or several in my case) can be pretty safe...it keeps you from having to experiment with your main system...

How ironic! I'm writing this response from a second-hand PC running AntiX on 512MB of RAM. Great! And fast, too!
In fact, I rarely need more than half a GB of RAM.

By the way,

do you think it's possible for someone selling a secondhand PC to place some type of "spyware" in the machine that would send out info about the PC over the Internet, even if I installed a completely different OS?

I imagine it's possible, but I don't know if it actually happens..

brian

No, it's not possible. Consider that spyware is part of the package you install. What's the first thing you do when you get a PC? Install Linux. What does the installed do? Partition and format the drive. In one swoop: byebye whatever was there.

However, rootkits can be installed. The best way to avoid that is to update the system on a (very) rergular base...

Believe me...that's SciFi. Dont let anyone fool you in thinking otherwise.

That's Linux...very frugal with its resources, unlike **dows that keeps demanding more to do less...

Thor

Well that's good to hear!
There's a lot of new stuff coming out all the time, so it wouldn't surprise me if there existed a piece of hardware (not software) that could be inserted somewhere by a curious individual wanting to collect data...

Not that I have anything to hide. On the contrary!

I've done a lot of thinking about Linux in recent months. People ask me, what is it about Linux you like so much?

My answer: the creativity remains in the hands of you and me (the users). It's simply amazing and beautiful to think of all the people who are using their abilities and talents to make computers do whatever they want. I think this is the direction of the future. The creativity needs to remain in the hands of the people!

Brian

That woudl mean physical access to the PC...and the interest to choose YOUR PC to get info...as you mentioned, there's nothing to go for...no individual PC has any info worth hacking for.
Remember, there are two "black" (bad) hackers: the ones out for the kick/distruction (do an update and they're out of the picture) and the ones payed by criminal organisations, but they're to well paid to waste time on our PC's. They'll go for the banks, or maybe Obama's laptop, but not the PC's of us "mere mortals"...

It always has been. Da Vinci, normal guy. Marie Curie, normal girl. Einstein, normal. Torvalds, normal. But they had a path outwards to bring it to the world...that's all...

And in the end, the real heroes are always the ones that remain unsung...

Thor

Yes. My curiosity was about the fact that I bought a used PC from a guy I don't know. I suppose if he wanted to "spy" on people, there is probably some small piece of hardware that could be installed that might go undetected. Just a thought..

True, true. Hooray for creativity in the masses! (sites like jamendo.com are really fun!)

By the way, there used to be a website that would have provided a solution to your paradox about knowledge. It was called "weborandom." I discovered it when I was wondering, "ok, the search engines are good for searching for what I want to find. But what about what I want to find but don't know exists????"

Someone made a youtube video about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ9WhpQhv8g But the website isn't up anymore. Pity..

Brian

Probably...but it would'nt be small...to "spy" on people like that, you'd need access to the hard drive, that in itself requires a computer/microcontroller, it would have to be wired to the network card, as it is not intergrated in the system. The lead of the hard drive should have to pass by the card first and then on to the mainboard. That in itself would slow the system down to a crawl. You'd simply throw the PC away because it's too slow . You'd notice the "double load" in network traffic. Since it could not be integrated on the motherboard, it would have to be a card occupying a slot. Such a card would be a massive piece of (very expensive) kit, you'd notice this right away. By the way, if you do get one of these: congrats! There's no limit to what you could do with something like that: a super-mini-all-round-computer.
Again...unless you're Obama, or James Bond , this approach is way too expensive to use on us (mere) mortals...dont worry.

This weborandom is nice! The main use would be to "discover" sites you'd never think of in the first place...

Thanks for the reassurance! These days, nothing surprises me anymore (at least as far as technological advances are concerned..)

Yeah; that's why I liked it. I tried it a couple of years ago. It was neat. I saw a lot of stuff I didn't know existed.
Strange that it didn't "take off." The site seems closed down, and I don't see any others like it.
It was neat: you could also select a topic area (ie. politics, pets, gardening) and then click the button: it would spit out 20 random sites related to the area of interest. Hovering the mouse over one, the homepage would appear. If it was interesting, clicking the page would open it in a new tab.
If none of the sites were of interest, just click the button again, and another 20 random sites came up. Kind of like playing the lottery. You never knew what you'd get.

But also a great way to learn about what you didn't know that you didn't know!

brian

Hi Thor,

have you posted any of your music creations? I'd love to hear some!

Brian

Hi!

...no such luck. Everything went down the "chute"...it was all on tape and the masters were as good as demagnetised - so I have to "reconstruct" whatever I've got (if the Muze still loves me that is) on the gear I've got now...

Sad, innit?

Thor

Oh.. I'm sorry to hear that.
You didn't make any digital copies then?
I'm sure you can remember the ideas and re-record them somehow, no? At least the basics. Sometimes new ideas happen and bring old stuff back to life again!

brian

We're talking mid-nineties...digital was a word used in the movie of Tron only back then...
Lemme dig up my ol' Fostex multitracker and put a picture online, then you'll know what I'm on about...

Sure I can, in fact, why dont I use this "nudge" as an excuse to do something else besides what i've been on about all the time...
Ah, how I miss my Muze...

Thor

Edit - I found my old multitracker, it's a Fostex X18 ...
It used cassettes to record stuff and employed a technique known as multitracking, it relied on a feature that was inherent to tapes at that time.
There was an A and a B side, both stereo - two mono tracks parrallel to each other. The Fostex (as any other multitracker) used the A side (or B side) only, that way it "looked at the tape as if it were four independent tracks. The "operator" would plug an instrument into the selected plug to record on a certain track (plug 1 for track 1 and so on) play a section, rewind (yes, tape needed to be rewound, and you had to wait until it was fully rewound), set the recorded track(s) to "play", plug the instrument into the next plug, and "play along"...
Downside, there were only four tracks. Nowadays, a medium bit of kit (PC, software and so) can get you round about 100 tracks with dozens (or more) hours of recording space...