hodnick.com

Twin Cities Dev Guild - Silverlight Audio Synth Slides and Code

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:50:00 -0600

Thanks to all who attended my presentation on Silverlight digital audio synthesis last night. Code and the slide deck from the presentation can be downloaded here:

TCDG.SilverlightSynth.Hodnick.zip

Inetium Wins Microsoft InfoPath Contest

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:14:00 -0600

….but it isn’t just InfoPath. It’s InfoPath + Silverlight + SharePoint 2010 + CRM. As Microsoft states, it’s a “bewildering array of Microsoft technologies”.

Announcement of the contest winner and other entries can be found here: http://blogs.msdn.com/infopath/archive/2010/03/08/and-the-winner-is.aspx

I was fortunate to design and develop the Silverlight user interface for this application - with help from Kris Nyreen on the styling, graphics, and colors. The app is very unique - using Silverlight as the front end search and visualization tool. It is an internal Inetium application used to help employees tie together relationships between projects, people, and skills.

See for yourself how it works:

I also have to mention that the soundtrack for the video was also done by yours truly!

She had fought the robots with ease since she was young, leading battles and turning the war’s...

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:25:43 -0600

She had fought the robots with ease since she was young, leading battles and turning the war’s tide. But she couldn’t defeat what she couldn’t fight: scheming humans who greedily lusted for control and power. With integrity and commitment to the fight she defeated both the robot and human foes.

minisaga.1

My computer, wombat

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:18:39 -0600

TechSupport: hello?
TechSupport: What's your computer name?
Me: mpls-wombat
TechSupport: seriously?
Me: yep
Me: let me double check
Me: yep
TechSupport: so, you're not using mpls-mhodnick?
Me: no, it's mpls-wombat
TechSupport: Thanks!

This made my day

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:40:53 -0600

My friend Jake sent this to me earlier today.

SilverSynth: a Silverlight Audio Synth Library

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:17:00 -0600

Introducing SilverSynth, a digital audio synthesis library for Silverlight. http://silversynth.codeplex.com Straight from the project description:

Quite simply, SilverSynth is a Silverlight library used to create awesome sounds in a web browser. It can be used as a core library for developing music-based applications or for just generating noise that annoys your co-workers. It supports synthesis of sine, saw, square and triangle wave forms, frequency modulation, amplitude modulation, panning, volume control, and dynamic envelopes.

Much of the core wave form generation code is based off of Charles Petzold’s work.

Silverlight developers can use the library to create a wide spectrum of custom sounds and attach a custom StereoPcmStreamSource to a MediaElement:

Perhaps the coolest feature of the library is the ability to create signal chains using a fluent API syntax:

The source code also includes a demo app so you can see how the library is used.

Happy noise-making! Well - before I conclude I should say that aside from noise that annoys your co-workers, you can create some cool musical applications with this stuff too.

With every breath you become less human…

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:12:59 -0600

With every breath you become less human…

Automated Azure Deployments with TFS Build

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:37:05 -0600

I recently had the pain pleasure of setting up automatic Azure deployments as part of our TFS build process for an ASP.NET MVC app. There is a fair amount of documentation out there already on the tasks required to get this working, but you have to connect a few dots and correct a few problems along the way.

First read Dominic Green’s post on the topic: http://blogs.msdn.com/domgreen/archive/2009/09/29/deploying-to-the-cloud-as-part-of-your-daily-build.aspx. For the most part, his post covers about 90% of what you need to know.

One “gotcha” is with certificates and the TFS build server. You will need to create a certificate on the build machine and upload it to Azure management API certificate area. However you will likely run into an “Anonymous” scheme error and will need to follow the guidelines that Alexander Strauss lays out in his post http://blogs.msdn.com/astrauss/archive/2010/01/28/tales-about-working-with-the-azure-service-management-api-chapter-i.aspx:

…in my first try I run into an error that I was not able to get my Service Management API requests authenticated. The service always returned:

Error 403 (Forbidden): The HTTP request was forbidden with client authentication scheme ‘Anonymous’.

In order to have the requests working you need to meet two prerequisites for your certificate:

The certificate needs to be installed in the certificate store of the client machine from where you send the requests to the Service Management API.
The certificate must have an associated private key.

Certificates in Windows are kind of magical to me and I’m glad there are folks out there who have already dug in to that stuff.

Last, you will need to modify the source code of the csmanage.exe tool referenced by Dominic. You can get the csmanage.exe tool here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=windowsazuresamples. The problem with csmanage.exe at the time of this writing is that it incorrectly returns an exit code of “1” when the operations run successfully and an exit code of “0” when there are errors. In the Main() method of csmanage.exe you can find this code:

The problem is that Program.ExecuteActions() returns a bool that represents a “hasErrors” value internally. Thus, if “hasErrors” is false, then the program should return “0”. You can simply modify the source code and change the condition to deal with this:

Happy deploying!

ready whip.

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:09:55 -0600

ready whip.

TC SLUG - Silverlight Audio Synthesis Slides/Code

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:17:00 -0600

My slides and code samples from today’s presentation at the Twin Cities Silverlight User Group have been posted:

Hodnick.SLDigitalAudioSynth.zip (1.26 MB)

The other apps I showed are listed below:

kSynth
kSynth.b
kSynth.Drone
Music Balls - uses the Farseer Physics Engine
TwitterSynth

Finally, check out Charles Petzold’s Simple Music Sequencer for Silverlight as well as his Programming Windows book.

sledding weekend

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:47:32 -0600

sledding weekend

Craziness at the Hodnick household after dinner.

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:16:27 -0600

Craziness at the Hodnick household after dinner.

New Music: Hostile Robot Takeover

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:10:29 -0600

I present to you:

Hostile Robot Takeover, by The Skill Druids

Hostile Robot Takeover is a musical suite written, performed, recorded, and produced by myself under the Skill Druids moniker (more info on that name can be found here). These songs are permanently located out on HodsAudio, but you can just download them directly here below (don’t miss the lyrics/story a little farther below).

These songs are also available here on HodsAudio.net: http://hodsaudio.net/Album/Details/17

Credits

Directly or indirectly, small or large, in some way, shape, or form, this album has been influenced by (in no particular order): me, robots, Keelhaul, Helmet, 311, Melvins, Dr. Richard Lindeke, Lee Sackett, Jason Bock, Neil Iversen, Jake Good, Steve Digre, Nicole Hodnick, Pantera, and Static-X. Yes, I said Pantera. I’m not going to bother explaining, but trust me, there are some specific Pantera influences on Escape.

If it weren’t for Jackie and Greg Gerten, I probably never would have even started this project.

The Plot

You can view the full lyrics here

The lyrics speak for themselves, but here is a more descriptive summary. The story is told in the first person, but I really don’t picture myself when listening to these songs. Anyway, first I’m abducted by robots from my home. I’m taken to some sort of facility where I, along with other human captives, are placed in a crude prison with blue force field walls. Some humans try to overcome the force fields and become injured. In the meantime, two other robots consider the possibility that the humans might rise up and resist their captivity. We secretly talk to each other and plan a resistance. We find our chance to fight and bring it to the robots. We do considerable damage and use the chance to attempt escape. We fight our way to the doors through a robot defense, but ultimately we fail. Meanwhile, two robots consider the damage done and reveal that they have enslaved the humans. We concede that we lost our opportunity to escape and that we must now obey and yield to our robot masters.

Mike’s Take on All This

By far this was one of the most enjoyable solo musical projects I’ve worked on in a long, long time. I think part of it was because four out of the five main tracks have been incubating for some time and I was able to focus just on recording and writing lyrics rather than arranging the music. Tunes like Abducted and Captives have been in the works since about 2002. Wow that’s eight years ago. Tunes like Escape started around 2003 and Fight was probably around 2005. Fight actually appears in a different form on the Skill Druids’ “The Drow”. Slaves Forever was the only “new” song I composed for this collection.

Next, I plan on taking the tracks from this release and slicing them up and remixing them into some ridiculously complex breakcore. Not sure how that is going to go…

Hope you enjoy the music!

I secretly dance while my code compiles

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:51:53 -0600

Halo 3 FlagDrag/BombDrag

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 08:38:36 -0600

Halo 3 is over two years old, but it’s still a fun game. Fun enough that each Monday night there is a small group of us who get together and play it.

A staple of our Monday evenings has become drag racing:

We’ve modified this track and have been playing it for months, but now the excitement is starting to wear off. I think we all love the insanity the drag race map brings to the table, but we’re getting a little bored with it.

I decided to create a similar variant that combines the drag racing insanity with Assault/Capture the Flag. Here are some screen shots and descriptions:

Overhead view of the map. Notice the attacker starting point on the left and the defending base on the right:

Attacking team starting point:

A few goodies along the way for the attackers to pick up:

At the end of the strip, the launch point we’ve all come to know and love:

Attackers have an alternate side route. Vehicles can only leave from the base on these routes - not enter:

Defenders have a chain gun available to spray bullets on attackers as they launch:

Better view of the defensive base:

A big, tall back wall is provided to try and keep the lightweight Mongoose ATV’s from flying out. I’d say it’s about a 50/50 chance they will stay in bounds! During play-testing, I found that the ATV’s just fly super far into the air with the exploding fusion coil plus grav lifts at the launch point. I kind of like the randomness of not knowing if you’ll make it as an attacker. The bigger Warthogs make it in without risk almost every time.

Secret route to rocket launcher. Approximately equi-distant between offense/defense:

Hopefully we’ll play this on the coming Monday. After some play testing with the group - I’ll try and remember to make this map available for download.

WaveEdit - a Silverlight wave form editor

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:10:00 -0600

Introducing WaveEdit - a Silverlight gadget you can use to craft your own sound wave form:

The purpose of this app is purely just to have fun. So, enjoy!

OFF THE AIR

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:35:00 -0600

I introduce Off The Air - a Silverlight audio gadget. Download the source code.

I intended this to be an entry in the MIX10k challenge until I learned I could only submit one entry.

Enjoy!

Video

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 20:24:29 -0600

The Home Studio is Officially Complete

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 20:21:23 -0600

This moment has been about eight years in the making. Eight years ago we moved into a new house with an unfinished basement:

Goal number one was always to “finish” this space and create a small music studio. This goal was achieved within the last year or two. However, a secondary goal was to replace my custom-built studio computer (used for recording and music production) with a much better-performing machine.

The old computer (watch the video to hear how unbearably loud it ran - not good for a studio):

The old computer was a Pentium 3 running at 733 Mhz with about 700 MB (or so) of RAM. When I built it, I also purchased Cakewalk’s Sonar (version 1) recording software. Back then in the year 2000 (or so), I could record one stereo track of drums, a few guitar tracks, a bass track, and a few vocal tracks and mix them down with a few effects running and the computer could get by.

Eventually I started doing dynamics processing on each track (EQ and compression) and wanted to record more tracks for my drums. The old computer just became obsolete. I eventually purchased a Yamaha AW16G hard disk recorder:

This recorder allowed me to perform dedicated dynamics processing on each track and also allowed me to record up to eight simultaneous tracks of drums. This little machine is extremely useful, but by today’s digital audio workstation standards on a computer it has a clumsy user interface (it basically lacks a keyboard, mouse, and display).

Thus, I always wanted to get a replacement studio computer that would have enough horsepower to perform a good amount of effects processing on a large number of tracks. I’ll still utilize the AW16G for recording in some circumstances, but not for mixing or final production.

Now the new studio is complete with a new Dell (under the table on the left):

The new Dell has plenty of horsepower with a Pentium Core 2 Duo Quad.

I’m still running the first version of Sonar, believe it or not. It’s almost a 10-year old product. Maybe someday I’ll actually use some non-ancient software!

Anyway - this new Dell purchase pretty much finishes up the original studio plans. Hopefully I’ll crank out my next project soon and you can hear the results!

Photo

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:17:40 -0600