Life’s been busy – really busy. Many of you have been bugging me to record some material and I’ve been trying. But life on the road has made it very difficult for me to record. The answer: I’m taking time off from touring. For the past 3 years I’ve been non-stop traveling and playing shows and, frankly, it is time for a break. My goal during this “time off” is to finally lay down some tracks. I have such a backlog of material to choose from and quite a few irons in the fire, so I’m aiming to bite off manageable chunks.

Scott Troyer

If you’re not already a fan of my music on Facebook, go ahead and do so now. I keep in touch with everyone really well that way. Here’s an update I sent to my fans a few days ago that talks about one of the many “irons I’m heating up in the fire.”

This past weekend I had the pleasure of spending some quality time in the studio with my old bandmates. Our band, called Rudisill, formed in 2003 and performed under several monikers. In 2005 we put out a full length album called ‘Carbon Paper Treaties’, which featured 10 of our songs. We had many more songs (arguably some of our best) left to record when the band was forced into an indefinite hiatus due to our lives taking separate geographic directions. Though we’ve been apart for about 3 years, our hearts have always been in this music.

If you knew us back then and want to keep up to date with what’s happening in Camp Rudisill, click the link below to become a fan. Or if you are new to our music, but want to find out more about what I was involved with in the past (and hopefully will be in the future), click the link below.

Rudisill

Recently I was in Washington, D.C. and was wondering what a certain building near the Washington Monument was. (It was beyond my sight at the moment, but it happened to be the Department of Commerce.) I wish I could have snapped a photo of the building and tagged it with #solve via my phone. Then within minutes the Twitterverse would have returned the an answer like: “@scotttroyer #solved Dept. of Commerce. Have fun in D.C.!”.

I’m not sure about the answer being tagged #solve or #solved. Using different tags for questions and answers could help separate them, but it might be nice to see them together as well. What do you think?

This type of crowd sourcing could be used to identify objects (architecture, species, products), solve math problems, translate phrases, get pricing information, etc. The potential is limitless. Let me know what ideas you have for this proposed use of Twitter or if you’ve know of some sort of method already in use. Either way, start using the #solve hashtag to solve your problems now!

08.0khz (Everyone) [See post to listen to audio]
10.0khz (60 & Younger) [See post to listen to audio]
12.0khz (50 & Younger) [See post to listen to audio]
14.1khz (49 & Younger) [See post to listen to audio]
14.9khz (39 & Younger) [See post to listen to audio]
15.8khz (30 & Younger) [See post to listen to audio]
16.7khz (24 & Younger) [See post to listen to audio]
17.7khz (24 & Younger) [See post to listen to audio]
18.8khz (24 & Younger) [See post to listen to audio]
19.9khz (24 & Younger) [See post to listen to audio]
21.1khz (24 & Younger) [See post to listen to audio]
22.4khz (24 & Younger) [See post to listen to audio]

And under Contact you can send me a note or even some music in my Dropbox. Hot hot hot!

EasyTip screenshot

Alright peeps, check it: my friend Aaron Heise made a sweet tip calculator app for the iPhone a few weeks back and it’s officially available on iTunes now. It really is “impressively simple” as he claims. No whiz-bang whirlygigs, just plain old useful tip calculation. You can click here to buy it on iTunes for a mere 99 cents or just search for ‘Aaron Heise’ to find it. For more about the app visit the micro site Aaron has put up here.

Buy it! Do eet niow! Get een zee choppa!

The primary purpose of the veggie tray is provide hungry dinner guests with a simple-to-prepare appetizer. Veggies are served because they are healthy and every responsible host wishes to provide his/her guests with good options. The trouble is that the veggie tray is not about the veggies. No matter what good intentions may lie behind the preparation and serving of a veggie tray, the focus always becomes the dip. Regardless what type of dip is served, the veggies simply become a variety of vehicles to shovel more dip into the eaters’ faces. It struck me today (while transferring mass amounts of ranch dressing from the tray to my mouth), that while all veggies are able vehicles for dip transfer, some are obviously better than others. Below is my analysis of several veggies I sampled and their ability to carry ranch from serving dish to gullet.

Carrots
Well rounded performer. Stick formation allows for deep dipping and copious coverage. Surface texture is smooth, but enough to grip the dip. 3/5 stars.

Broccoli
The big dipper! Voids between the florets, turn this heady veg into a sauce sponge. Stem acts like built in handle. 5/5 stars.

Cherry Tomatoes
Not a team player. While delicious on their own, this slick sphere is hard to grip and sheds dip. Enjoy them sans ranch unless you’re willing to dive in after them. 1/5 stars.

Celery
Step up to the trough! Like the carrot, this stalk is easily handled and dipped, but holds a distinct advantage: the U-shape, which proves great for shoveling fattening dairy product. 4/5 stars

After some trial and error, I managed to finally get it working really well. Now I can use my remote live to change presets, change tempo, turn effects on/off, and mute the tuner. This is really useful. I’ve found that I can place the remote in my pocket and still activate through my clothing, so I no longer have to reach down to my MacBook or stomp those loud footswitches on the Rig Kontrol (also available from Native Instruments).

1. Foot Controller Setup
Guitar Rig works with several different foot controllers and is fully customizable. You may have your foot controller set up differently, but for the sake of this blog, I’ll show you how I have my Rig Kontrol 2 set up.

RK Pedal: Usually volume, expression, or blend pedal (Sound)
RK KickDown: Effect parameter 3 (Sound)
RK Switch 1: Effect parameter 1 (Sound)
RK Switch 2: Effect parameter 2 (Sound)
RK Switch 3: Metronome Tap (Global)
RK Switch 4: Not Assigned (RK3 only)
RK Switch 5: Prev Sound (Global)
RK Switch 6: Next Sound (Global)
RK Switch 7: Tuner Silent Mode (Global)
RK Switch 8: Not Assigned (RK3 only)

2. Guitar Rig Hotkeys

Sofa Control needs hotkeys to function with Guitar Rig, so first I had to assign hotkeys to my Guitar Rig setup.

To assign a hotkey, go to Controller under Options. Find the switch you want to co-assign a hotkey to and click the Learn button. Press the key you want to make the hotkey. Repeat this process for any additional hotkeys. Hotkeys don’t necessarily need to be connected to foot switches. Additional assignments can be made that are not linked to switches and are hotkeys only.

This is how I assigned my hotkeys:
RK Switch 1: ,
RK Switch 2: .
RK Switch 3: t
RK Switch 5: [
RK Switch 6: ]
RK Switch 7: m

3. The Sofa Control Script

I’m no programmer, but I was able to figure this out. I kept things simple by only mapping the pressed buttons. I may add functions to the held buttons in the future, but for now, this works great.

This gives my Apple remote the following functions:
Menu: Tuner Silent Mode Toggle
Play: Metronome Tap Tempo
Plus: Previous Sound
Minus: Next Sound
Left: Effect 1 Toggle
Right: Effect 2 Toggle

Note: Feel free to take this script and modify it as you need.

Open Sofa Control. Under File, select New Script. A new window will pop up. Select all the code and delete it. Copy the code below and paste it into that window.

(*
Description: Guitar Rig 3 Script for Sofa Control
Author: Scott Troyer
URL: http://www.scotttroyer.com

Mapping:
* Menu: Tuner Silent Mode Toggle (RF Switch 7 - Global - m )
* Play/Pause: Metronome Tap (RK Switch 3 - Global - t )
* Plus: Prev Sound (RK Switch 5 - Global - , )
* Minus: Next Sound (RK Switch 6 - Global - . )
* Left: Effect 1 Toggle (RK Switch 1 - Sound - [ )
* Right: Effect 2 Toggle (RK Switch 2 - Sound - ] )
*)

on rcActivate()
ignoring application responses
tell the application “Guitar Rig 3″ to activate
end ignoring
end rcActivate

on rcPlay()
simulate keystroke “t”
end rcPlay

on rcMenu()
simulate keystroke “m”
end rcMenu

on rcPlus()
simulate keystroke “["
end rcPlus

on rcMinus()
simulate keystroke "]“
end rcMinus

on rcLeft()
simulate keystroke “,”
end rcLeft

on rcRight()
simulate keystroke “.”
end rcRight

Once you’ve pasted that code in, click Verify. The code should reformat the text size and color.

Make sure both of these options are checked. Now select ‘Guitar Rig 3′ from the pop-up menu. The application icon will automatically be added to the box on the right and Guitar Rig 3 will be added to the Sofa Control menu.

Save the file and close the window. You are now ready to use Sofa Control with Guitar Rig 3.

Let me know if this post was useful to you! Merry music making!

Well, no. At some point you realized that sometimes your photos look a lot better in the preview. Apple was kind enough to give us a simulated “flash” to help light those dim homes we live in, but the flash doesn’t always give us great looking photos. If you’ve tried adjusting your screen brightness all the way down to black, you’ve discovered it still doesn’t stop the flash.

Today, you suffer no more. I present a solution. Simply hold ‘Shift’ while clicking the camera button. Photobooth will count down from 3 and make the usual beep, but your photo won’t be tainted by that garish blue cast of an Apple simulated flash.

Before (with flash)

After (without flash)