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By Krell, 2020 March 31 5:18 pm

Hey all – long time no see. Sorry ’bout that.

So for some time, I had been thinking about getting back into Second Life. All the previous blocking issues dropped by the wayside one by one. New place is not really new any longer. All the accumulated stuff has found a place to stash. I have reliable Internet now (kind of mid-band rather than true broadband, but it’ll work).

But I guess corona kind of sealed the deal. All foreseeable RL gigs are postponed, if not cancelled. We’re all staying in. No longer out and about, interacting through physical music venues. But I still have some stuff to share. I miss seeing all y’all. Can’t gig RL, so online seems the proper venue.

So while the circumstances and reasons are somewhat troubling, we don’t need to let this new normal keep us apart. I’m planning on again being a regular participant in the Second Life music scene. I have a lot of new tunes to share, new skills to enhance the fun, and new gear to keep things sounding great. And a purpose-built studio to serve as my creative space to do it all in.

And people, I think, can use another entertainment outlet. When you’re suddenly spending an additional 50 hours a week at home, that’s a fair amount of time to fill. And passive video watching grows mind-numbing after a bit. I’m thinking the participatory nature of SL might be a decent draw for many. Perhaps SL will return to growth mode? We can push for it.

I’ll be just one more inworld option.

See you around the grid!

——————————-

Did Pranksters’ Pickin’ Party last Sunday eve. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Prankster%20Isle/94/125/52

Was somewhat of a record, perhaps. I arrived two minutes before event start, and all the stage seats were taken – I had to wait to get a seat on stage. I can’t recall ever having seen that many musicians lined up there to share their gifts.

After a bit, a seat opened up. Even at that, I waited over two hours for my first turn to play two songs. And even better: lots of revelers on the lawn as well. I see this as a good omen.

This Thursday, I’ll be appearing at Woody’s Bar at the Juggy Trailer Park: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/ForestKnolls2/17/236/22 – 7PM SLT

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By Krell, 2014 September 16 3:10 pm

Turns out DruTim has some time ago put up an entire Krell Karu machinima channel – thanx Dru!

Here’s a more electrified selection from that oevre:

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By Krell, 2014 April 3 8:56 pm

The following was shot by my friend Drutim Bates at the Whisky Go Round:

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By Krell, 2012 August 31 3:49 pm

So I traveled to Salt Lake City UT to join in the Utah Jam. We (Vette and I) had a great time. It was truly a treat to meet IRL so many friends from SL. Here’s some video:

Looking forward to the next time.

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By Krell, 2009 December 3 12:43 am

So a while ago, I posted about a guitar that meatspace me has played from time to time for our SL gigs. You can find that post here. As it stands, Courtesan DeCuir has been after me for some time to get a new guitar. Courtesan is the Live Ambassador for OD Designs, who make some damn fine instruments. As I thought I may again be faced with meathead playing that guitar, I figured I’d commission OD to create an inwolrd inworld copy. I threw together some quick ideas, and sent them on to Ortho Vargas, the CEO of OD.

Well, as it turns out, OD was not interested in bringing a full custom job in house. However, Courtesan forwarded my inquiry to Reyrey Clawtooth of R & R Guitars. I knew Reyrey previously, as she often plays bass with Electric Brit, with whom I often share a stage. However, it had somehow previously escaped my attention that she was a guitar builder. My mistake.

Long story short, Reyrey took on the project, and delivered a guitar beyond my expectations, all at a very low price. Indeed, at a price about equivalent to a generic (though top quality) off-the-rack instrument.

Here is an excerpt from the original letter that started the project:

For whatever reason, I take some perverse pleasure in ensuring the guitar I play inworld is a close representation of the guitar being played by that other guy out in meatspace. The guitar I typically play inworld is a slightly modified KLP F512 — modified to be almost a dead ringer of the Guild F412 12-string jumbo acoustic in the RL.

I recently found myself controlled by that human while he was on the road. He doesn’t take his Guild on the road. Accordingly, it caused me some consternation to be stuck playing my KLP, while that human was playing a radiacally different axe.

It seems logical to assume that that guy will do this again in the future. So I’d like to acquire another doppleganger. The problem is that this second guitar is quite distinctive — a custom thingy. I’ve not seen anything like it inworld.

Accordingly, I’d like to explore the idea of commissioning a reproduction of the guitar in question. Of course, being your typical ignorant muso, I have no idea how much effort would go into such a thing, so I do not know where the cost/benefit analysis may pull me back to virtual earth. Perhaps I can describe it, and you can respond with what you may think practical.

So this is essentially an ‘acousticaster’:

- General body outline of a strat, though being fully hollow, it is not contoured in profile.
- Bookmatched spruce top, bookmatched maple back.
- 3 color sunburst top and back, dark (orangey-black) sides.
- Maple strat neck & fretboard, simple black dot inlays, small strat headstock shape.
- Figured rosewood  headstock overlay with bird inlay.
- Bill Lawrence pu in neck position (picture a black strat pu, but with no visible polepieces)
- Oval soundhole
- fairly simple glued-on tortoise pickguard
- bridge is typical steel string acoustic construction – simple rounded rectangle, bridge pins, bone saddle
- three black strat-style knobs on upper bout – on the the edge or side rather than on the face
- back signed in black Sharpie by John Elway (the football guy) and Debbie Davies (the blues gal)
- pick rash on the top

Let me know if you have any interest whatsoever in building such a thing. Maybe you can ballpark a L$ cost for various subsets of the above wish list. If you are interested I’ll have that human out in meatspace snap some shots of the physical guitar for your reference.

Again, see this post for the RL version.

And some pictures of the final result:

Krell's Acousticaster by R & R Guitars

The happy artist with his new toy.

Krell's Acousticaster by R & R Guitars

Detail from above

Krell's Acousticaster by R & R Guitars - signatures

Even cloned Elway’s and Davies’ signatures!

Yup – slam dunk. Thanks Reyrey!

Edit 20091203 – spelling

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By Krell, 2009 December 1 5:19 pm

I gig in Second Life (duh). The other day, I had a gig at a venue. The owner told me in advance that due to an RL schedule issue, she may not be able to be there. She said she expected to have a deputy there, just in case she couldn’t make it.

Well, she was not there, deputy was not there, and the venue’s Music URL was set to a stream to which I had no access. Further, I was unable to change the parcel’s Music URL, as I had not been granted rights. As I could not access the Media URL, the normal Second Life mechanisms were unable to link my music with the listeners present – they could not hear me.

On the spot, I managed to figure out a way to ‘go around’ SL in order to pipe my music to the avs in the venue. However, this required a long-winded explanation for each new arrival.

Later, when conversing with the venue owner (who apologized nicely), I indicated it would make sense, if she were to be absent in the future,  to add me to the list of authorized parties for changing the Music URL. She then mentioned that she did not know how to do so.

So here is one way to do so.

Firstly, your land needs to be group owned for this to work. If you have land that is not group owned, you should change that right away, anyhow. Create an alt to be group co-owner if you need to. There are many benefits in having your land be group owned — not the least of which is that you get a percentage discount on tier. [1]

Now that your land is group owned, you need to create a new role in that group.

• Open up your Group Info
• Go to the ‘Members & Roles’ tab
• Go to the ‘Roles’ sub-tab
• Click ‘Create New Role…’
• Give the new role a Name – like ‘Music URL changers’
• Give the new role a Title – I chose ‘I’ll bust your ears!’, but you may wish to be nicer
• Give the new role a description, so you can remember why you created it a decade from now
• In the ‘Allowed Abilities’ pane, scroll down to ‘Parcel Settings’ and underneath that, to ‘Change music & media settings’ check this box.
• Click ‘Apply’

SL Group Role: Change Media URL 1

OK, so now you have a role created. All members of your group that have this role will be able to change the Music URL (and media URL) for all properties owned by this group. Now you just need to assign this role to the members you trust with this power.

Still on the Group Info properties:

• Keep the ‘Members & Roles’ tab selected
• Select the ‘Members’ sub-tab
• Find and select the name of the Member you trust with this role
• In the ‘Assigned Roles’ field, find the name of the new role you just created (e.g. ‘Music URL changers’) and check that box

That av now has the power to change the Music URL for the group-owned parcel. If, in the future, you cannot be there to switch the stream for that av’s gig, he will be able to do the switch himself.

[1] If you need an explanation of how to pass your land to a group that you control, let me know, and I’ll write another article.

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By Krell, 2009 November 14 5:16 pm

Here’s some snapshots of a RL guitar that guy in meatspace recently played for one of my inworld gigs.  Kinda blurry — I just got a new cell phone, and I’m still learning the camera aspect of it.He calls it Old Number 7 because it’s been singed by John Elway — ex-#7 of the Denver Broncos. The other sig is rumored to be blueswoman Debbie Davies.

Also including one snap of the guitar meathead usually plays. You’ll no doubt note it bears a strong resemblance to the one I usually play.

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By Krell, 2009 September 28 1:10 pm

I’m backfilling some older information here…

So I started listening to some of the multitrack recordings I made during inworld performances. The intent was to mix them down to yield a couple of demos. in the process, I wanted to add some reverb to the tracks, in order to add some natural ambiance.

Upon working with these one of these tracks, I wanted to add quite a bit of reverb on the guitar, and not quite so much on the voice.  In doing so, I discovered that, in my guitar track, there was almost as much voice as guitar. Accordingly, by sending the guitar track to the reverb, I was also getting substantial reverb on the voice. Not good.

Fortunately, there is very little guitar leakage into my voice mic.

You may recall a while back, when I described how I chose my mics specifically to minimize this leakage problem. I guess I should have tested the setup to make sure.

The guitar mic I had been using was an AT4031. This is a small diaphragm condenser from Audio-Technica that was discontinued shortly after its introduction. It was supplanted by the AT4041. These are both cardioid pickup pattern mics, meaning they tend to pick up sound from the front, not so much from the sides, and very little from the rear. However, I guess the mic’s side rejection is not enough to overcome the volume of my voice.

Digging back through the mics at hand, I came up with my StudioProjects C4 mics. Last time I sent these back for repair (long story for another day), SP sent back a pair of additional prototype Hypercardioid capsules. These are also nice small diaphragm condenser mics, much like the AT4031. However, with the hypercardioid capsule attached, the leakage from my voice into the guitar mic is attenuated considerably.

I also tried a large diaphragm condenser, set to figure-8 pattern. The leakage in this case was almost non-existent. However, with the mic placed well for a good timbre on the guitar, I keep banging the mic with my picking hand.

I guess it is time to hunt down an end-address mic with a figure-8 pattern. If anyone makes such a thing.

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By Krell, 2009 September 24 5:37 pm

I need to update everyone on the status of my TC Electronic Konnekt Live computer audio interface.

When we last discussed this thing, it was at TC’s N American service depot. This was suggested by the TC TS department, when they were unable to guide me in getting the unit working on any of three computers.

Long story short, service found nothing wrong with the unit. They sent it back to me with no repair performed.

Shying from my Windows boxes, I tried it on my Hackintosh. Hey! It seems to work! After days of uptime, using it intermittently, I encountered no issues.

Encouraged by this, I got a different FireWire PCMCIA card from BestBuy. This was the Dynex DX-FC202 – their house brand. I used this in my IBM R40 laptop to try to connect to the Konnekt, instead of the integrated FireWire chip on the motherboard. Hey! This seems to work too! Curiously, the (non working) integrated chip is a TI chip, which is the solution recommended by TC. The chip in the working PCMCIA adapter is a Via chip, which TC says to stay away from. Whatever. At least it’s working. The particular chip is a Vendor ID 1106, Device ID 3044.

I’ve now been using this for several weeks with exactly zero BSODs. All is not wine and roses – there are still a few issues with the system. If I leave the TC mixer applet up for more than a couple of minutes, while running a DAW, it will lock up the audio subsystem. To get resolve this, I need to break the FireWire connection, kill the applet and the DAW, reconnect, then restart everything. Still, it’s a damn sight better than a BSOD. Plus, I can work around it by not leaving both the DAW and the applet up at the same time.

But hey – I’m working with it, and I’ve gotten rave reviews on the improved sound.

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By Krell, 2009 September 10 9:48 pm

My RL counterpart has done business with the Wyoming Entrepreneur Biz group. Today I got the WyoEnt newsletter indicating that the group has set up an outpost in SL. I think I’ll try to look them up. You can find a blog dedicated to their exploits at http://secondlifewyoming.blogspot.com/