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Music stand
12/08/2018 at 08:18 • 0 commentsAnyone serious about music nowadays wouldn't bother with paper. A full computer monitor is a lot more economical than an ipad & easier to read. There's a 4k monitor for $180.
https://www.amazon.com/Sceptre-3840x2160-DisplayPort-Speakers-Metallic/dp/B073X6G4DZ/
Just whack a raspberry pi on it. The minimum resolution for a page of music is around 1600 vertical. There are many used monitors in the 1600 pixel range for $50, or the 1920 pixel range for $60. Stand one on its side & the deed is done.
There are 2 surviving 15" laptops from years ago. A 17" one which contained one of the very 1st 64 bit opterons is gone. If the electronics are rearranged, they might become displays.
Reading a single page at a time is not ideal, but the lion kingdom has gotten by with an ipad. There will always be the memory of viewing 4 printed pages at a time.
The trick is a stand for it. Even better would be a music notation program for it & a way to draw annotations.
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The recordings
07/05/2018 at 23:11 • 0 commentsThe stand was 1/2" too low, but as suspected, it was real hard to adjust. Ended up just living with it being too low. There's either drilling new holes or putting wood spacers on top of the springs, which of course, would change the spring behavior. Pedaling is real hard, when standing. Even damper pedaling alone is not as precise. You have to practice more with pedal.
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Music stand for an electric piano
06/04/2018 at 21:13 • 0 commentsMomentarily used a cardboard box for the laptop. It was a pain to set up, but worked. The only use was capturing MIDI in Finale, which was a painful program to use on a Mac.
Stand bolted to piano: What lions used before. Too small for the laptop. Holds 4 printed pages at a time, or a tablet. The time required to develop a laptop stand could be used to write a better MIDI capture program for the tablet. No existing program works.
Ultimate stand: a 32" x 16" digital display bolted to the piano.
This guy won the internet.
Looks the best on camera. A TV would need a steel floor stand. Floor stands need a lot of space. E-ink costs more than a stand made out of money. Portable projectors stop at 1280x720 & cost a lot.
Head mounted displays are another idea, but are the flying cars of generation millenial.
The lion kingdom has a donated ipad pro, but as popular as they are, they just show 1 page at a time & have a limited lifespan before they have to be replaced.The current project being what it is, the solution was cardboard stuck with magnets & forgetting about anything electronic.
A much better one could be made, while still relying on magnets.
It's a bit of a downer to do something as manual as playing music in a time when the BFR is under construction. On the other paw, running instead of driving is a very manual from of transportation, but lions still do it.
Running for lions is a bit more mechanized, where the machine enhances the capability. The electric piano only degrades the manual process, so it's like a cave lion way of doing a century old method.
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Finishing the stand
06/04/2018 at 07:49 • 0 commentsAfter years of picking the moment, it was time to permanently lower the stand. It would no longer be convertible to an X format & would always have to be at least 4" lower.
The dirt cheap chinesium was easier to cut with paw tools than aluminum. It was more accurate to measure & drill square rods from both sides than a single pass from 1 side. Lowered it 5.5". This provided 2.5" of margin around the bolts & is the right height for a 5'10" lion. Given a few hours, more holes could be drilled to adjust the height.
The next step was isolating it from the floor. The C-812 spring was the best solution, an idea emerged for damping it, & the lion kingdom could always avoid playing music at the resonant tempo.A simple bolt/washer anchored the springs. The mane requirement is resisting rotation.
Stuffing pipe insulation down the springs actually was a very effective damper at the expense of reducing isolation. Was surprised how effective it was, despite being easily crushable. The damping could be adjusted with different foam densities.
Slipping off the springs is a real problem. Gorilla tape is decent, but rubber would be better. The Xeroshoes might recover some of their $40.
As far as the lion kingdom can tell, it works as well as the bubble wrap used to. The dog downstairs didn't seem to notice, in testing. The only sound was someone opening a door outside. High notes actually transfer more energy to the floor, because there's less mass in the keys. A more massive instrument is another way of reducing noise.
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Death of a magnet
06/02/2018 at 04:06 • 0 comments
$6 later, the magnet idea looked like it would get a $65 million investment on Sand Hill Rd, but was a failure, at least with the readily available magnets. The keyboard effortlessly pressed them right together, even with 2 magnet assemblies. Previous experiments showed the repulsion distance doesn't change significantly until you get into life threatening sizes. Undamped systems have bigger problems.Another $5 & the mighty C-812 spring managed just a low enough stiffness to do the job with 1 spring. Unfortunately, power chords at the right tempo made explosive oscillations. Damping systems can quickly become absurdly complex.
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Wishlist
06/01/2018 at 06:51 • 0 commentsDiscovering https://www.youtube.com/user/EnchantingMusic David Hicken motivated the lion kingdom to look into this again. He's probably on his way to being widely covered by better musicians, but for now, there are a lot of poorly played good ideas which no-one is covering.
The #1 problem is isolating the keyboard from the floor. With the human population moving to condensed vertical housing, this problem will be solved by commercial solutions in the near future, but for now, there's just dreaming. 40lbs have to be supported by 4 corners.
Bubble wrap previously was the best solution. 6" thick columns with 1" diameter bubbles were required. It quickly flattened, took a lot of space, & had to be replaced. It allowed a lot of sideways motion.
Pool noodles look good, but probably are too stiff. Any foam is going to either be too stiff or compress over time.
Compression springs of the required diameter to resist horizontal motion are expensive & many would have to be tried. Too stiff & they don't cushion at all. Too loose & they flatten. Too narrow & they flip over.
The latest idea is pipes with repelling magnets. Magnets are cheaper than springs. They have no minimum pressure before they start cushioning & they offer cushioning all the way up to bone crushing pressure. The pressure can be adjusted by stacking more magnets. The tubes would need plungers with some kind of felt to defeat friction & match the diameters. The magnets need to be attached to prevent them from flipping over.
The #2 problem is lowering the stand, manely a lot of drilling & sawing. The #3 problem is sideways motion of the stand, but perhaps some struts would do the job.
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Attempt 1
03/12/2018 at 04:45 • 0 commentsThe starting point.
A few hours later, it was done. Bolted it with 1/4" bolts, slightly smaller than the 5/16" bolts it originally used. Getting it that precise with paw tools was very slow & error prone. The holes just happened to be close enough.
At 40", it was slightly too tall for a bipedal lion & there wasn't enough room for adding cushioning. It didn't matter that it was for standing only. There's not enough room in the apartment for a sitting arrangement, anyway. Making the height adjustable is actually possible, but would take a long time. The legs have to be cut & holes have to be drilled, all with paw tools. It probably needs 6" taken out.
Another idea is making it into a trapezoid. In the X format, the legs had to be nearly vertical to reach lion height, so a trapezoid might work. It's surprisingly stable. More material can be bolted on the feet.
Suspect it would survive the worst earthquake the apartment could. It represents the same amount of material used in $60 table stands, but building it made it clear that the $60 offerings would neither be high nor stable enough. It would need more like the $100 KS7350 or the $200 K&M Omega.