Monday, April 19, 2010

My whereabouts

I last reported about the new soundcard that I purchased. The PCI-Express X-Fi Titanium is working rather nicely. I've already submitted the rebate, so let's hope that gets processed without too much drama.

One tangible benefit with the new hardware is that it can handle my drumkit signal. Yes, I've adjusted the volume levels on the three pieces of equipment involved to get a live stream into Second Life. I'm tempted to close out my next DJ gig with a drum solo...

In other news, I read for a part in a SL Television series. Apparently, they make TV shows in Second Life, too. Well, the directors like me for the role of Zepplin - he's the teen love-interest in the series. Go figure.

I've also got to formulate an entry for a photo contest. I was supposed to go on a vacation to Europe, this week, but the planet had other intentions for me and my family.

Friday, April 9, 2010

New sound, we hope

A few months ago, the onboard audio on my Gigabyte motherboard suffered what I can only describe as an unrecoverable, electrical anomaly. Once that happened, the soundcard portions of the motherboard were unresponsive - no detection in windows, no reinstallation of drivers, etc...

As a temporary fix, I had to install an Audigy 2 PCI card. This was capable of handling routine audio (playback and dj duties), but I was getting a lot of distortion trying to stream my drumkit live through this method.

Fast-forward to today: NewEgg has a special on the Creative X-Fi Titanium PCI-Express card.

Of course, I was in the market, but I also needed to do some research, quickly...it has drivers for Windows 7 - 64-bit, it's got 96kHz sampling, user-selectable parameters, HDMI pinouts, and some optical interfaces. The PCI-Express bus will offload audio processing to the dedicated Creative hardware, hopefully lowering latency further. Apparently, no one else has been insane enough to specifically stream live drums through the X-Fi Titanium - but we can't have it all now, can we?

The card usually retails for $99. Using the promo code, EMCYRYW45, and sending in a $25 rebate, the final cost is $49.99 delivered tax-free. This promotion ends on 4/14.


Monday, April 5, 2010

How can you not...


..give her absolutely everything she asks for?

Hope you had a very happy Easter.