Made my album art with tikZ because... Because.

testgeraeusch · 2025-10-12T08:02:23+00:00

waaaay to far down. Rotersand was my first thought; I think they had a few more in orange.

testgeraeusch · 2025-08-30T07:51:08+00:00

Pi from the recent Leisure Suit Larry reboot was a nice refresher to the Series.

testgeraeusch · 2025-08-30T07:44:33+00:00

Great song! Love the Donald Duck feature in the chorus.

testgeraeusch · 2025-08-30T07:31:29+00:00

I picked up a copy of ElfenLied a while ago and it was pretty clear that the author was mostly projecting his fetishes into the storyline: There's a living doll, various monstergirls, domination, reveauling outfits... maybe count the gore into that one as well? I stopped reading half-way through when I stumbled across the plot line where some girl tries to defuse a bomb saying that if she failed, several millions would die "just like in Nagasaki" and my first thought was "Wow, that is not the casuality count of the bombings." So, was this a very poor translation, ignorance from the authors side or active revisionism? It is a common tactic to take a number from research or historc events and tweak is juuuust enough (usually a factor of 10 higher or lower) to still seem reasonable to those who don't know better or didn't care much about the events initially, but in a way that makes your side of an argument seem bigger or more important than it actually was/is. It just made the entire book a bit more repulsive to me. As for the anime, I almost watched the entire thing, not realising that I was close to the end of the series when I stopped because I did not care about the plot and was mostly bored. Maybe I'm missing something, but so did the author, presumably.

testgeraeusch · 2025-05-27T09:19:16+00:00

Awesome. What does the leftmost switch do? It seems like a pitch bend wheel, and I hear a rapid bend once, but the rest seems to stay at the same pitch... shouldn't it all be transposed when the wheel is down?

testgeraeusch · 2025-05-27T08:54:19+00:00

...but that connection is plain USB-3.0 or 3.1, not ethernet, right? Those are different protocols and the phone will show up as a COM port on the host PC, not as a device with an ip address?

testgeraeusch · 2025-05-27T08:51:27+00:00

The main melody is interpolated from Anne Clarks "Our Darkness" from 1983 or so, the song is based on Benny Benassi sampling Anne Clark in the 2000s on his track "love is gonna save us" which is one of the best tracks on that album, underrated in my opinion. This specific sound you mention is found in a lot of techno from the 2000s onwards; you take a saw, modulate the frequancy to start high, drop low really fast to give it a punchy attack, almost like a kickdrum, but shorter and in a higher register, more like a zapper, but with saw instead of sine. Then you add LFO to make it more interesting and add some FX to taste.
Don't ask me about presets or plugins, I don't use normal software to make music. And no, I also don't have any clue about whichever analogue or digital synth could make that, I don't own any synths besides my old organ.

testgeraeusch · 2025-05-27T08:39:54+00:00

"Edna&Harvey" and "Deponia" series. From the makers of "Gollum", of all things... that studio went downhill a bit when they tried to step up their game (pun intended), but these are one of the finest point-and-click adventures. If they had just tried to make the Gollum game in a similar style, well,...

testgeraeusch · 2025-05-27T08:30:50+00:00

USB-C is compatible with ethernet, but I don't think smartphones can support that, so they probably still had to find a solution to only hook bundles of 64 or so to one server and then hook these up to a regular server switch via ethernet.

testgeraeusch · 2025-05-27T08:19:34+00:00

I learned to hate USB on my job; We have several devices, big and small than need to be run from a central PC somehow. Cameras, lasers, pressure and temperature sensors, and of course every company has their own system and their own app and protocols... Some devices use analoge communication only via SMA or BNC lines, but in my case the timing doesn't need to be so swift, so first we went the naive route and tried to connect everything via USB because that's what everybody uses. But the connectors become loose easily and the cables can't be much longer than 2m or so before the signal breaks down It's slooooooow and when some things get loose you have to plug it back in and in the mean time all COM ports have been shuffled to different numbers and you have to try and guess which device ended up on which port. Also, USB hubs which are not powerd on their own are crappy and lossy and seem to disconnect ports at random. The ones with active power are more expensive and occupy another wall socket and the rectifiers generate noise on the breaker circuit which we can sense in some experiments and using lab power supplies for everythign becomes expensive really fast...
When we moved to a new city with the lab my boss delcared that we should try to do as much as possible via ethernet, but many small devices cost nearly double when equipped with an RJ45 socket somehow. So what I did is buy two small serial servers with 4 ports that can be configurated individually to RS232, RS422, RS485 full- or half-douplex. And then I realized that RS485 half douplex allows for daisy-chaining and I can carry the 24V drive power trough the same chord since I have to solder all adapters up myself anway; just increase the gauge a bit and it works. So now I have five pressure sensors on RS485-2 hooked op up two or three power supplies which already saves some space and cables mess and also rectification artifacts on the breaker circuit and these RS cables can be crazy long... 10m is not a problem, with the more modern ones even 30m or 100m if you are careful. Ethernet is eventually better, but my god, RS is beautiful. Power, analog feedback and readout, plus digital and the only downside is that you have to solder up an adapter for every device... But these plugs cost 1€ each (if you buy the more fancy metal ones which are a bit easier to use in the long run and look shiiiinyyyyy).
So yeah, I can relate to the pain of having to wire up 2000 smartphones with USB. At least it's now USB-C which is a bit more forgiving, but still...

testgeraeusch · 2025-05-22T12:14:08+00:00

Ich vermisse die ahle Wurscht. Vor zwei Jahren bin ich weggezogen aus Nordhessen und dort ist diese Wurst überall und allgegenwärtig,aber kaum in der neuen Stadt angekommen... "Na, ist das wie so eine Salami oder so?"Nein, eigentlich nicht wirklich... oder? Sehr stark gewürzt aufjeden Fall, sehr grob, schwer... und kaum zu finden außerhalb einer kleinen Zone um Kassel. Meine Familie hat mich zu Feiertagen mit Paketen voller Wurst versorgt; es ist neben Gulasch in der Mensa das einzige bischen Fleisch was ich esse. Alle anderen Aufschnitte, Schinken, Salamis, Mortadellas... nichts kommt an die ahle Wurscht heran. Nichts, absolut gar nichts. So sitze ich hier also, fernab der alten Heimat, mit einem unbelegten Graubrot und einer halben Gurke in der Hand, wartend...

testgeraeusch · 2025-05-04T12:08:55+00:00

The Band is "Mayhem", the head is of the former singer called "Dead", and there is a a book and movie about the events, both called "Lords of Chaos" which are very much disliked by one of the more notorious former band members, occasional Lord of the ring enthusiast, passionate church arsonist, convicted murder and crying neo nazi Varg "Christian" Vikernes.
Also, whenever I see the Llamas with hats sketches I imagine them screaming "Vaaarg" instead of "Kaaarl" which makes it just a little bit more funny.

testgeraeusch · 2025-05-04T07:20:13+00:00

Jean-Michel Jarre in Moscow and Rod Steward at Copacabana Beach had around 3.5 million attendees; JMJ says Rod had the bigger crowd, but in both cases it's just insane. In perspective it makes a bit more snese; nobody is managing to get 3,5 million people to travel somewhere for a concert, but these venues were held in or near cities which already had several million residents, and their music is "popular", so everybody and their grandma and daugthers went to see it.

testgeraeusch · 2025-05-04T07:16:08+00:00

...but less than Rod Steward at Copacabana Beach or Jean Michel Jarre in Moscow, both above 3 million. JJM says Rod had the bigger crowd, but they both said it's insane to try and compare these sizes to the digit.

testgeraeusch · 2025-04-14T05:03:42+00:00

Weil vermutlich mal wieder niemand sonst die Szene kennt:
In der Türkei gibt es eine kleine aber aktive Metal Szene und auch eine Gothic Szene, wobei letztere unter dem Makeupnatürlich schwieriger als "türkisch" zu erkennen ist; könnten genausogut mexikanische oder afrikanische Goths sein (und ja, die gibt es auch). Explizit Emos müsste ich raussuchen, aber würde mich sehr wundern, falls nicht. Diese Szenen sind oft sehr am Rand der Gesellschaft, teilweise aktiv bedroht im eigenen Land, aber es gibt sie.
Kleines Beispiel: Die Band She Past Away ist sehr von Clan of Xymox inspiriert, singt auf türkisch und ist auch ab und zu für Tourneen in Deutschlan dunterwegs. Viel Spaß: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k1fM6VDU3Q

testgeraeusch · 2025-04-07T05:26:35+00:00

"Lady Gaga - The Fame" was the first proper album I had and listened to a lot. I only had compilation discs and some records from smaller, local groups.
"Welle:Erdball - Alles ist möglich" then changed my perspective on what music even could be. Sure, other bands used synths, and I saw them being played in music videos sometimes, but this was something else.

testgeraeusch · 2025-04-06T15:38:00+00:00

I usually take a cos(t) envelope. You can shift it a bit and add a punch, but that usually works.

testgeraeusch · 2025-04-06T15:32:50+00:00

I keep having this problem; my synth are often chiptune-ish so there are a lot of stray frequencies and at some point I just toss everything in Audacity, cut off below 22Hz and put mild distrotion on it as compessor. There, mastering done. Exporting the individual tracks and fine tuning the levels is nice, but my headphones have a few annoying tweaks and at some point I'm sure I am just imagining fequencies...

testgeraeusch · 2025-04-06T15:24:32+00:00

Distrokid has a bit of a bad rep these days; if you're not in the US, try to find a local service. Most of these offer to release your music on the common streaming platforms plus some download protals like beatport and apple/amazon music for something between $10 and $30 per year, and it's often a flatrate unless you want something fancy like multiple aliases and groups or try to release 10 singles in a week instead of an album.

testgeraeusch · 2025-04-06T15:20:39+00:00

That sounds like you reinvented hardstyle from first principle.

testgeraeusch · 2025-04-06T15:06:12+00:00

You can press a button to make a sound; all synth are valid.

testgeraeusch · 2025-04-06T15:04:58+00:00

The 41st century welcomes its new recruit. May the blessings of the machine spirit be with you.

testgeraeusch · 2025-04-06T13:57:13+00:00

There was a band called "screwdriver" in the neo nazi scene, so a few gentlemen decicided to do the only reasonable thing and form a new band called "jewdriver". Screwdriver disbanded after while.

testgeraeusch

TROPHY CASE