Category: Music

Thursday, March 16th 2023… If at first you don’t succeed… keep on suckin’ till you do succeed…

Gotta love a good “Three Stooges” quote. Well, I finally got the M50 to both have an external device and rip a CD. I just need to figure out a bunch of odds and ends now from a procedure perspective. I feel like dancing. The exFAT format worked in lieu of the FAT32 format. They are supposed to be similar, but I wasn’t confident. It’s not ideally what I would want, but at least I now have external storage. I am still going to try and work out how to get my external storage addressable via the network. Currently, it can only be seen via the M50. I now have to get my Carver and speaker fixed. Hopefully, it won’t cost too much.

-Rat

Monday, March 13th 2023 … I had a brainstorm.. or was it drizzle?

If it’s not one thing, it’s another. I was running out of outlets, so I just left a couple of components on instead of turning them off – this is because, once upon a time I decided that switched plugs were the way to go. The long and the short of it is – I am short on non-switched outlets. Have to fix that. So, I think my amp had some thermal issues, since I cranked up the MTBF numbers. I don’t see anything fried. But one of the sides of the amp seems like its dying. I pulled the amp out to let it cool off. Hopefully it will return to operation. If not, I’ll have to troubleshoot it.

I think I am going to try a couple of different tactics on the storage side. I investigated FAT32 and found that it’s a “USB” format and really has a 32GB file size limitation, but on the partition size, a 3TB upper limit. I am going to look at my buddies NAS and see how it’s set up and mimic that setup. Also, I’m going to try and use a single drive, formatted to FAT32 and hook it directly to the M50 to see what it does.

-Rat

Monday, March 6th 2023… Nope, not surprised…

Nothing works like it’s supposed to. I was supposed to be able to rip a CD from my NAD M50 streamer to my NAS drive which I configured last week. First of all, my iTunes server that was installed, works like advertised. I never knew that there was such a thing – nice. The Twonky media server looks into the iTunes and indexes it in Twonky as a DLNA compatible file. Both work. What I still have to figure out is how to keep iTunes from changing it’s .ini directory hierarchy on the C drive on the laptop, or my backup device on a separate drive. I need it to cement it to the NAS drive. Also, I need to figure out how to rip CD’s to my NAS attached to the M50. One thing at a time 🙂

-Rat

Thursday, March 2nd 2023…Sometimes, even I am surprised…

So, I got the new NAS drive and set it up on the network yesterday. I added Twonky and iTunes server. Twonky is a DLNA-compliant media server that runs on the Western Digital platform. It will, if directed also reach into iTunes and index all your iTunes stuff and allows you to play music and whatever on your DLNA receiver. In my case, on my Pioneer Elite SC-72 Receiver (glorified pre-amp). I can actually send music there and it automatically plays. I can also push it to my NAD M-50 streamer. It works “just like downtown”. Amazing. I am hoping that I can figure out how to rip CD’s to the NAD and consequently to the NAS drive. That’s my next hurdle. iTunes server is supposed to allow you to share or play your iTunes content on other devices without the need for a MAC. We shall see…

-Rat

Friday, February 24th 2023… Everything is always a project…

So, I grabbed the NAD M50 streamer from my buddy for a song (bad pun) and am trying to get it connected to my network. I got it connected and it seems to be working well, except that I cant see any way of ripping CDs since it only seems to play them. In the meantime, I think my old “MyCloud” NAS died. I was planning on using it on the M50 as an external storage device. Now I have to troubleshoot it and see if it’s worth saving, or just buy another replacement NAS drive. Everything’s a flipping project.

Update: So, I get home from work Friday night only to find my small NAS drive dead – I had a sneaking suspicion. I saw that it has a USB 3.0 male plug so I went on Amazon, just for kicks and ordered a male-male USB 3.0 cable. Got it today (Saturday) and got my NAS drive working. My concern is for how long? I am currently copying all of the files off onto a backup drive and ordered a new NAS.

I did get a painter’s diary though from “Jerry’s Art Supplies” for my watercolor paints. I also got some extra paints that I was running out of – cerulean blue, cadmium red, and alizarin crimson. I still need to order burnt umber. I’m fixing 3 of my last 4 pictures. Little changes – fixing things that bugged me. I’m also working on a picture from about 2 years ago that I never finished. As a matter of fact, it was only about 40% done with it. I’m interested to see how it finishes. Looking at it with my current eye, I think I was very timid with my tones and colors when I walked away from it.

-Rat

Sunday, February 12 2023… Happy flipping’ New Year…

I can’t believe it’s February and I haven’t posted since September of last year! Holy Crap! Today is supposed to be sunny and nice (50F for a high). There is a grove of interesting trees that I wanted to photograph. I’m going to bust out the hybrid and go for a short ride. There have been some interesting changes and some interesting things going on.

The basement is slowly getting cleaned (-1.0 bummer:very cool). I haven’t done anything with photography (bummer). No Tai Chi (bummerx2), but I have been researching while I’m getting my area cleaned (-0.5 bummers). I hooked up the Ohm’s to the Carver amp (TFM-25) and nixed the old receiver (CT-3) for a “new” Pioneer Elite (SC-72). My bro gave me all his old CD’s so I’m going to throw them in the carousel. That said, I am starting to seriously consider the BlueSound Vault 2i Network Streamer. I’d really like to rip all my CD’s and store them on a NAS and put away all my CD’s for good. Once upon a time back in 2007, I ripped them all up to iTunes. I’d like to get away from that since Microsoft is not developing it anymore and its “iffy” sometimes. It’s all a project. A buddy of mine has a NAD M50 streamer player and is willing to sell it to me for a good price. I’m also considering that direction. I don’t want to be stuck with CD’s with no way to play them or degrading disks. I’ve been keeping up with painting watercolor (fun). Since I’ve posted last, I’ve done 3 watercolor paintings that I can remember – 2 koi (16×20), the Niagra river (16×20), and a sunflower (10×12). I’m also working on fixing/finishing a painting from last year (32×40). I’ve started prepping/training for the upcoming riding season. Losing some weight (a priority) and working on my cardio and strength. Ill post pix’s next time because I’m working this morning, and on my work laptop, so I don’t have my graphics and web tools.

Speaking on working, I’ve been working like a dog. That said… I finally got some help. It’s been a blessing. We moved offices to a new location – closer to my house so my commute is now 15 minutes tops.

-Rat

Tuesday, January 5th 2021… What to do?…

I am trying a different WordPress theme. Nevermind, I had to revert – the theme was short lived. It seems like I couldn’t figure out how or where to read an actual post. Don’t know what to think. It was smooth but lacked usability. Something to try in development and staging. I like this WordPress block editor now. I wouldn’t like to go back to classic at this point. Started some basic categories and will retrofit all my posts with them. Should make it easier to sort. I need to create 2 things for the site – a logo and a site icon. I think I’m going to utilize a yin-yang symbol for the site icon and I don’t know what to do with the logo. Well, I have a basic idea, Heh, heh, heh.

Was hanging some of my art for my wife today. New and slightly old stuff that i never framed. Downstairs, I found all kinds of blank paper that I forgot I had. Getting back into it again. Watercolor class starts Wednesday night. Bought a new sable watercolor brush yesterday and unfortunately trashed a beautiful, long handled, flat, hog hair brush with purple acrylic paint (forgot to wash it out). I am pissed about that one. I liked to use it for oils. I just needed one in a pinch for some quick, basic touch-up on a acrylic paining that I never finished to my liking. Was pressed for time and forgot to clean the brush. We shall see.

-Rat