PVC Fig Rig

This is my version of a project I found here that aims to mimic the so-called "Fig Rig" created by the film director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas). Made from PVC pipe for around $30, it is much more economical than the retail version which sells for around $300.

The whole idea of this device is to allow your arms to act as shock absorbers, creating a poor man's steady-cam for use with a hand held video or still camera. I painted mine flat black to disguise the look of the PVC. To paint the plastic I had to use special plastic spray primer before applying the finish coats of regular spray paint. While I don't have a true video camera, this is a fun project to use with a regular digital camera since most of the newer still cameras also take fairly good quality video.

Vacuum Tube Audio Amplifier

I have been somewhat interested in vacuum tube projects for awhile now after I refurbished an old AM radio from my grandmothers house. Although a simple project, involving cleaning the radio and replacing the old tubes with new ones, I think the main draw of a tube project is that distinct retro feeling you get when you fire up the project and it starts glowing, but in a good way. While looking around for a simple, beginners tube project I stumbled upon a fairly large community of people who had built and subsequently modded the K-502 audio amp kit from Antique Electronic Supply.

I purchased the kit and built it in a couple of hours. It is a very simple project to complete, consisting of only about two dozen parts. I had originally planned to assemble the kit in an enclosure, but my final assembly behaved poorly (I think in part due to improper grounding). I reassembled the parts on the pine board which comes with the kit and it now performs flawlessly. The amp takes a standard left and right RCA style audio input and can output up to 8 Watts of power. This may not seem like much, but with efficient speakers it gets loud enough for any common usage around the house.

I would still like to put some sort of cover over the board to minimize the risk of myself or others from coming into contact with the line voltages present. Although not the most inexpensive kit out there (compared to some solid-state kits), it is cheap compared to other tube based audio amplifier kits which can run upwards of $300. Definitely a fun project, especially if you need an extra audio amplifier.

Music Management in Linux

Recently I have been dealing with my music collection a lot more than usual after I purchased a Sandisk Sansa e280 MP3 player. This player works with linux (unlike many other MP3 players) because it can be set to interact with a computer the same way a usb thumbdrive does, as a universal mass-storage device. I had considered a couple other players that also operate in this manner, but the Sansa is the best value for the money due to its built in MicroSD slot for easy expansion. With this new piece of hardware in hand I decided it was finally time to get my music files in order. As you may or may not know MP3 files have a tagging system built into them that allows you to provide MP3 playing software and devices information about the song being played (artist, album, track, song title, year recorded, etc.) beyond that provided by the filename itself. Since most of my music library I did not copy and encode from CDs myself, the tags in each file are not consistent in quality. This creates a problem when songs are loaded onto an MP3 player or into library based music software (iTunes, Songbird, Amarok, Rhythmbox, etc.). For example I have a folder of music by The Beatles; but the artist tags for these files range from Beatles, to The Beatles, to Beatles, The. So instead of one band listing, I have three; definitely not a desirable situation. I also wanted to find some good music ripping, encoding, and converting software for linux to deal with any new CDs I want to add to my collection. After a fair amount of research on the web I found a lot of very useful programs built into the Ubuntu Linux repositories that can perform all the tasks I need.

Tagging Tools
EasyTag - Scans your music folder(s) and can use simple scripts or CD databases to fill in missing tag information

Tag Tool - Similar to EasyTag, but with a simpler interface, faster performance and less features

Since the Sansa does not easily support playlists when used in UMS mode (just try a Google search and see the insanity people have gone through to try to get this to work), I need to get my MP3 tags in order because this is how the player organizes the music placed in it. Not being tied to playlists also frees me up to use better music playing software that automatically updates it's database without requiring me to make a new master playlist (like I would have had to do in WinAmp or XMMS, etc.)

Ripping/Encoding, Converting Tools
Sound Juicer- Installed in Ubuntu by default, can encode to FLAC and OGG Vorbis out of the box, can't encode CDs to MP3 format without additional libraries installed, fast

SoundConverter - I use this to convert FLAC to MP3, very simple to use, reasonably fast

You may be wondering why I don't just rip my CDs directly to MP3. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an open-source compression technique that maintains the audio quality of the original CD while being smaller in file size. By ripping CDs to FLAC I then have the flexibility to later convert them to whatever format I wish without having to re-rip the CD. I had considered another music player that plays OGG Vorbis files (an open-source alternative to MP3), however, the overall value of the Sansa won me over.

Update (9/14/07)
I recently tried the Rockbox open source firmware for my Sansa. It is head and shoulders above the original default firmware on the player. Check out my other blog for my article detailing my experience with it. It is very easy to setup (regardless of OS) and improves the player in every aspect.