Saturday, April 25, 2020

Audio Mixer as Opposed to Social Mixer

You'd think with Shelter in place I'd have a lot of time for electronics noodling around, and I do, but I am not sure my heart is fully in it. I must be more social than I thought.



I finished a 4x1 mixer I designed back in 2005, but mixers are so simple that I can't really say "designed".  For whatever reason, I replaced the 2005 era module in my rack with an new version, complete with new PCB and Front Panel Express expensive front panel. 

Whatever.

The original idea goes like this:


Nice schem eh? Um...no. Have I improved any in 15 years?  15 years ago everything was hand drawn and then built on perf. I look back at this work and marvel that it ever worked.  So maybe I've improved a bit, at least I don't duct tape things together nowadays, at least not often.

Anyway I replaced the hand built mixer module with the one you see on the left, the new one looks a bit more pro perhaps?


I dunno I kinda like the one on the right. 

Anyway with all this time I should be building tons of stuff but instead I find myself reading about politicians telling me to drink disinfectant. Pass the Lysol, Elmo! That's the good thing about electronics--unlike people, they work, or they don't, always in the same way, and above all they don't golf.



My psychiatrist girlfriend's college and high school kids are trapped at home, feeling sad and ripped off, and blame us old farts for all of shelter in place, their missed graduation, their boredom, and everything else. Maybe they are right about that. 

But we gave you iPhones!



My mom and dad talk to me via Zoom each week--they have been holed up at their place in the Central Valley for years, so what the hell does Shelter in Place mean to them anyway?  Their lifestyle hasn't changed much in the past few weeks compared to the last five years. But they are old and I worry about them.  



It's oddly quiet and peaceful outside, when I go out to buy groceries or whatever everyone is walking around with masks on, giving each other suspicious looks. I'm coughing because I breathed too many fumes and they look at me like I am contagious, but no, I explain: it's not those kinda fumes. 

 I am not so sure how bad it is out however, in my neighborhood I can hear birds sing better than before, there are less trains rumbling by, and less planes flying over my house all the time. As long as we all stay healthy, and not go crazy, perhaps it's a tiny bit OK.




I get some comfort from the universal language of the schematic, and the idea of things being mixed together kinda reminds me of what we, as humans, aren't doing right now. Wait, no, that's crap. This all appeals to my need for order maybe?  Banishing life's chaos? For sure: it makes me realize how much I love anything with right angles.

 There is something comforting about it, so maybe I'll get back into it today.

Anyway it beats ingesting UV light sources. Whatever you're up to, I hope you are surviving this very strange time with a degree of sanity.  Hang on kids, because the ride is just starting up.





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