DURING Quarantine - anything going on?

[bluebunny]

22^o and sunny.  On a bank holiday.  In the UK.  Who'da thought?      (Sorry Mark.)

So apart from eating lunch in the sun (sporting my new DIYSB T  ), I've been drilling enclosures.  I sure know how to live...

[EBK]

For those of you taking up gardening instead of music:
Brian May hospitalized after injuring buttocks in 'over-enthusiastic' gardening incident

[Mark Hammer]

How long until we learn the injury resulted because he confused his behind with a hole in the ground?

[garcho]

I'm finally starting to play music again. Recording all kinds of stuff with musicians from all over, just trading files. I was having a great year before covid killed every job I have: gigs, sessions, teaching, etc., possibly for years, who knows. Luckily my friends and family are healthy but I was too depressed to pick up my instruments. But I've finally turned the corner, and feel like playing again. Did that happen to anyone else? Didn't feel like picking up a guitar or whatever it is you play? Anyone else recording at home?

[bluebunny]

Anyone else recording at home?

I had two projects in the pipeline before this all kicked off.  First some collaboration with an old mate who I've not played music with for years.  I learned that whilst he's a prolific song writer, he doesn't ever perform.  So we agreed we'd re-form a band from forty years ago and I'd record some parts over a couple of his demos.

I was also supposed to be recording some demos myself to send to a hotel, to pitch for a small job at Christmas.

In the intervening weeks, my whole routine has changed - like everyone else - and I've not done a jot, although I have carried on playing a bit.  But now I must get back to both activities.

[vigilante397]

Took the jetskis down to the lake today. Beautiful weather, so there were plenty of other people there, all politely parked at least 20m away from each other. Had a lovely time social distancing

[anotherjim]

Took the jetskis down to the lake today. Beautiful weather, so there were plenty of other people there, all politely parked at least 20m away from each other. Had a lovely time social distancing

You'd be in big trouble for that over here. It's not essential, it's not exercise -  and the real problem - do you expect to be helped by the emergency services if you need them? Every time an ambulance picks someone up, it has to taken out of service to be cleaned.

[aron]

I was able to get my good friend Ken Harrill, one of the bay area's best to play on a tune I wrote.

[vigilante397]

You'd be in big trouble for that over here. It's not essential, it's not exercise -  and the real problem - do you expect to be helped by the emergency services if you need them? Every time an ambulance picks someone up, it has to taken out of service to be cleaned.

And all of that makes total sense (though the level of soreness I end up with makes it feel like exercise). Our national and state parks are closed, but our county is small and secluded, resulting in relatively few cases, so they've kept county parks open with park rangers on duty both for safety and to enforce social distancing.

[PRR]

In north Maine we have a TV Nite Show. Traditionally low production values (recycled VHS), altho in recent years they get a local college's theater and media students to produce it. And then lockdown. Danny is in his basement SAMPLE doing bad jokes without a pretense of a laughtrack, Zoom-meeting guests, and also inviting bands to submit videos.

This was on tonite's show. I assume that like Aron's video one track sets a beat and each performer adds his own licks over that. While watching "live" we had the feeling the video is a lip(/pick)-sync job (no shame in that).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiebKCi9C7Y
I offer it as something musicians ARE doing while apart.

[aron]

Yep Paul. I made a music track with a scratch lead. Then Ken recorded his video responding to my original scratch lead. Then I recorded my video in response to his video. I didn't reference his video visually at all. I just played to his audio. Then after that, I resynced the video to the audio. A real pain and just a semblance of how live music is done. Oh well.

[anotherjim]

In England, it is now ok to go to work in construction & manufacturing. Also, travel to other places for exercise & sports is now allowed. Here in Wales, it's still lockdown stay at home. The reason is, being a sparsely populated place, there isn't actually the facilities for health & emergency to cover anything on top of the virus effects. In normal times, they are kept busy mopping up tourists who have fallen, drowned or crashed in our "challenging" roads, coasts & countryside. I can usually expect to hear emergency vehicle sirens (low crime so it's rarely anything other than an accident) and see the bright red air ambulance chopper on a mission whenever the sun shines especially during public and school holidays. During the lockdown, I don't think I've seen the ambulance chopper once and sirens are rarely heard.

[amptramp]

I have a schematic, a layout and a partially populated board sitting here and most days I take my copy of the schematic and add a few more red lines showing what I have connected up already.  It's going slow because I am lazy and I don't have every aspect of the design thought out yet.  When it is done, it will be unique but I am not ready to say what it is because it may or may not work.  I have about $40 worth of parts into it, so it had better work!

[EBK]

[bluebunny]

Fake news!!   

[BJM]

I finally finished my effects loop pedal. It splits the guitar signal in two, sending both signals to different effects loops. The returns are send to two other effect loops and then mixed to the output. So I have two parallel effectloops that go to two other loops which are also in parallel. Sounds more complicated than it is, if you're interested drop a reply and I will try to explain it in more detail. Maybe a nice project if you're sitting at home during the lockdown.

[amptramp]

I got another four resistors soldered in today.  Just enough to be able to say I did something.  I had to change the layout a bit, so I occupied myself with that as well.  Some people would consider this lack of activity to be a sign of depression but actually it is only a sign of laziness.  Or maybe it's just a sign that I don't have the design fully thought out yet.  Oh well, at least I have time.

I am beginning to hate components that came off a tape reel because there is always some glue on the far ends of the component leads.  Acetone didn't do much but contact cleaner got all of it off eventually.

[Phend]

This stuff works good.
Only problem is the bottle design is bad, it can tip over.
Be careful!!

[stallik]

I've been plugging my pedalboard into an Astrosim and using headphones to save annoying the missus who has her home workstation in my music room. Sounds great but there are cables running everywhere so I thoughts I'd order another board from Rob and integrate a sim under the board with the controls at the side.

While waiting for the board, I modded the ABY at the end of the chain, adding an AMZ splitter and two more outputs. One for the sim, the other for the sound to light led's on the front of the board (cause I'm pretentious and I can). Output from the ABY is located for the neatest patch cable run to the sim. Good planning see?

Got the board, started populating, ordered the resistors I'd run out of, ordered the caps I'd run out of, ordered more caps because I'd not noticed another value I didn't have, waited some more and finally completed the build. Looks very neat, takes no room on the board and sounds great.

Only thing is, I have to play sitting on a stool or with a bent back cause the headphone cable is too short. Good planning see? 

[amptramp]

Went to my favourite electronic speakeasy today.

At A-1 Electronics, you knock on the door and Glenn comes to the door but doesn't open it.  He asks what you want and you tell him.  He then goes and looks for it, brings it to the door and checks that you agree with what he has picked and if you are satisfied, he will go to the cash register and calculate the price.  He tells you to put the money on the table outside and then tells you to back off while he takes the money and then goes to the cash register and gets your change and puts it in the bag with the components and closes the door.  In this case, I was looking for two 0.1 ohm resistors and two 0.1 µF capacitors that came to a total of $1.70.

Does this sound like a drug deal to you?  I may be a low-roller as customers go but I wonder how much business he is losing due to people's inability to browse?