I'm not terribly happy that summer is over, but so far, life isn't going too bad. I leave my current job in three days and then subsequently jet off to Japan for a day after that. Again, I shall reinstate the tired old introduction to my blog as I have not posted in over two weeks. I do always seem to have an excuse albiet not a very good one. I've been packing and moving all of my stuff over to Bobbo's (this is a nickname for him based off of him naming one of his students "Bob" and then always calling him 'Bobbo' and instantly remembering that it means 'stupid' in Korean. All in good fun.) house by way of bus. I've been moving a few boxes at a time because in the long run, it's still cheaper than a moving truck, and I don't have enough stuff to justify a truck (save for the piano that I will move with quickservice). I only have a few items left to take over there, and I plan to take those on moving day. I've been working on this moving thing for about two or three weeks. I spent 추석 cleaning my apartment and throwing shit out. I've never once cleaned under my bed or behind my piano. YEEAASCH!
In any case, I got everything set for Japan so that I don't lose my ID on the way. Bobbo will take care of JoMo for the week since Leaf has ear mites and I will come back and be roommates with him for two nights and then I will take over as lord of that manor. Soon after I get settled, I hope to throw a nice housewarming party (hopefully before winter sets in).
I've done a bit of recording. I've gotten Dickin' Around With the Michaels almost finished and have started on others. I still need to figure out how to get the actual recordings louder. Compared to other files, my recordings are just not that loud. In any case, I was able to find out about a great site called
Bandcamp where I was able to put up my simple site and host music. I only have one song up there now, and I plan to keep it kind of that way (until I can get the master versions of the tracks from 3rd Wave Ska... off of my old computer) until I finish my new album.
Speaking of music and stuff like that, I've been thinking that it would be great if I was able to walk around on stage able to play my keyboard and guitar without being stuck at a keyboard stand and a table. The way to do it would be a keyboard stand that wouldn't get in the way of the guitar, so it would be positioned waist level or below the waist. Originially I thought of some sort of stripped down bicycle frame that I hacked the top bar off of and strapped between my legs with some sort of strong belt... but then I realized how cumbersome and heavy it would be and gave up for a couple of days until I had the revelation that it could just come from the belt and swing out from the side.
Again, I wasn't thinking in the right direction and kept thinking about a curved bar that would be attached to some sort of belt that would come out and hold the keyboard at just the right position. Then I thought of my old desk. The desk that I had when I was a child had a blue lamp attached to it. This style of lamp is known as a
Luxo Lamp, and is just the type of arm that I need for this type of project. It moves on three axises (but I could restrict it to two), it's lightweight, and the arm is not affixed to any specific mount, so I could potentially design or find a mount that would have a belt clip. This would allow me to play it and move it around and whatnot to accompany whatever I'm doing. I could even have someone else play it while I play guitar.
This all sounds good in theory, but there are still a few problems with it.
- First, the weight of the arm and synth would pull down on the belt causing the arm to not be on a level plane with myself. I'd imagine that the fix to that could be as simple as an adjustable shoulder strap attached to the clip.
- Second, the weight of the keyboard would be pushing down from the front and put terrible strain on the clip. This I don't quite know how to resolve, because if you attatch a strap to balance the near part of the arm, you defeat the purpose of having it so that you can play guitar at the same time.
- Third, my microKORG weighs 2.2Kg. Normal Luxo microphone booms can take about 1 Kg apparently (I saw a few on ebay, but I haven't researched it heavily). getting into stuff that can take heavier stuff will be heavy in itself (which adds to the balancing issues) and cost a lot more.
Overall, I think this is a doable project, I just have to find some junk parts and stuff like that, but it would be really awesome if I could have this thing to use. Right now, I've been on hiatus to record my shit that I've written and I'm realizing that my cables and shit like that are going to shit.
There's more stuff to tell, but I'll tell it later.