Hello again. I recently took up boxing and injured both wrists making me unable to type, work at the bench efficiently, or play musical instruments. These are a few of my favorite things..... Bummer!
I thought I’d use this downtime to (literally) record ideas I have for upcoming projects.
Then augment this post in coming weeks and months as untyped content aka SPTKTO, aka a Single Place To Keep Things Organized.
If this post reads like I’m talking into a mic it’s
because I am--the illustrations in this post were created with AI but my prose never will be.
Control/Alt/Delete?
First things first--on my Windows 11 system how do I make Voice dictation
work--remember: for now I can’t type....
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| Is voice dictation in Windows 11 included for free? Nothing in Windows 11 is included for free. |
After getting the internal microphone for my W11 computer working, I said into the mic “voice access wake up” and Windows took me through a quick wizard; surprisingly it worked right after that.
To toggle the dictation feature off and on I clicked on the mic icon at the top left of my main screen:
To kill the feature entirely I right clicked on the main Windows icon then Settings > Accessibility > Speech > Voice access:
I read online that the "Windows Key" plus H also turns voice dictation on and off. Oddly, I could not get this feature to work on two different Windows 11 machines. Tried to fix: many steps here, here, here, and here (and here as well as here).
After all this and several reboots one of the two started to work vis-a-vis this feature; now I can toggle voice dictation on and off with Windows key + H.
What fixed it?
Turns out to make Win + H work, you have to turn voice access (the button shown in the screenshot above) OFF.
This is because Windows has 2 competing systems for this: "voice access" and "voice typing" and one clobbers the other. Yeh, I knew this--ChatGPT didn't help, it led me down a path of nonsense ("the longer it takes the more this guy makes") and the many links above didn't mention it? they all did, and I missed them? Whatever--time wasted--about 1 hour.
Overall, Window's ability to accurately transcribe voice worked surprisingly well but The Windows Plus H issue drove me nuts.
Shut up and list the audio projects!
As an audio attenuator it works great, but I have other ideas for this interesting chip--using it perhaps as a rheostat, for MCU programmable variable gain using an op amp, in all-pass filters, and/or as the basis for a perennial favorite: analog multiplication.
My always-patient and always-enthusiastic sponsor, PCBWAY, have already fabricated a never-ever-breadboard-again PCB for future rheostat experimentation.
Meaning: a post about the rheostat application is coming when I can solder again and vet that the board doesn't turn into charcoal. Stay tuned.
SBC's
DEE-ES-PEE?
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| Any primate can write DSP Code with a $200/month Claude Subscription. But what about the layoffs? |
My interest in learning digital signal processing never sleeps.
I created simple proofs-of-concept using Python (here) but (doh!) I have a complete sh*t-ton more to learn.
A scary smart tech "Borogrove" in my audio Discord group turned me on to a freely-available PDF that will motorize this pursuit: Hal Chamberlin's "The Musical Applications of Micro Processors"; find it online: here .
The book covers (along with other extremely useful topics) DSP basics that are spot-on for what we do-- not overloaded with math; containing examples (this is an old book--code fragments are written in BASIC!!) that are reasonably easy to follow. Borogrove leveraged the book's code samples to create a professional sounding -24db per octave low pass VCF he brought to a recent meeting.
7-25-26 update--the YT vid here is first in a series where the content creator does basic DSP proofs-of- concept with an RP2350/Pico2 and some popular breakout boards. He includes C code and schematics. I have some Pico2's and both breakout boards in my junk box and would like to breadboard or better yet, create a PCB for experimentation based on his videos--but when Scotty, when?
STRING SYNTH?
Another: creating an analog string synthesizer based on top octave generation, frequency dividers, and some sort of mega-attenuator (probably based on aforementioned DS1881's).
For the project the super-talented TJimmyChonga from the BAM Discord group created working C++ firmware for an RP2040-based top octave generator and shared it with me--TJimmy's DIY kung fu is stunning!
Using that I breadboarded a TOG, frequency dividers, and ASR envelope control, creating a few working Solina notes on the bench. However, I’m not happy with the sonic results-- Nothing to post yet. The work continues.
BAAH-RINGER?
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| If Behringer can rip these guys off why can't I? |
In the same Discord group meetup: Tjimmy, Elton from Otter mods and I discussed jettisoning some of our commercially available recording and electronic music hardware and replacing it with prototypes we design and build. Time-wise this is an extremely bad idea but sounds like a challenge and maybe even a lot of fun.
For me: low hanging fruit are modules like my intellijel dual ADSR. I figure the basis of this will be the one-chip ADSR described in the post here--who knows.
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| Roland's amazing JP8 was designed by some of the greatest audio engineers of all time. If they are the big leagues can I swing in Single-A? |
As long as we are jettisoning months of our lives--how about a programmable single- or dual-voice PCB that can be expanded into an 8-voice polyphonic synthesizer. So reverse engineering something like a Jupiter 8 or Prophet T8. Why not--??
STOMPS
It’s been a long time, but many years ago I had fun making guitar pedals that sounded good but broke the first time I gigged with them. I might start building them again (my fab skills have improved a lot since 2002) to try to toughen them up.
ARTIFICIAL INSUFFERANCE
Of course: the 800-pound gorillas in the room. Ever-useful, ever-terrifying, ever-potentially-economy-busting AI tech has already changed every aspect of my 9 to 5 job. Actually it’s more like my 24 x 7 x 365 job where the VIP's let me screw around with electronics when they don't need me screwing around with AI.
How to best incorporate AI into DiWHY? And! How can I not have pages and pages of Di-AI-WHY ideas already?
Other than speeding creation of assembly BOMS and invoking sometimes-accurate-often-not OpenAI chats about electronics fundamentals, I'm coming up empty--figure I might wake up in the middle of night with something brilliant but so far: AI, for me anyway, is InfoTech automation 1000, AudioDiWHY 2.
A PLUG FROM URANUS--THIS BLOG'S SPONSOR: PCBWAY!
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| PCBWAY Community's servers are not in orbit (yet). Still--super cool. Check 'em out here. |
Once ideas are off the drawing board I’ll need prototypes made; for that of course I go straight to this blog's wonderful sponsor: PCBWAY.
My work can, at times, be e-waste fodder, sometimes even burning up on re-entry, but PCBWAY's work is always stellar!!
You can greatly help this blog by checking them out--using the link here.
OUTTRO
Enough for now, hopefully when my wrists are better I will start building things again.
Until later--don't spend all your tokens on one ride. See you next time.
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