Sunday, February 19, 2012

Debian Squeeze 3.2 kernel update

I've been meaning to upgrade my kernel to the new 3.X but don't want to spend half my day going thru the options...so I installed the squeeze-backports version. Change the image and header file to fit your cpu and version. I added the headers, you don't have to.

1. Update your /etc/apt/sources.list to include the backports
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main non-free contrib

2. sudo apt-get update

3. sudo apt-get -t squeeze-backports install linux-image-3.2.0-0.bpo.1-686-pae linux-headers-3.2.0-0.bpo.1-686-pae
...or linux-image-3.2.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 if you have that :)

4. say yes if you're sure you want to add the additional packages.

5. don't walk away...you need to press the OK button for something and quit a section on non-free stuff.

6. reboot and hopefully you'll have a new list in grub and then boot'er up! wheeeeeeeeze!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Changing mp3 file bpm/tempo for use with Mixxx to reduce slowing/bogging/sluggishness

Just had a good idea of minimizing cpu usage while using Mixxx. The best idea I came up with was to resample the mp3 to increase/decrease the tempo (w/o affecting pitch).

sox original.mp3 newfile.changedBPM.mp3 tempo 1.025

This will give it an increase of 2.5% where 1.1 would give 10%. and the opposite is 0.9 would give -10%.

However if you want the pitch to change as well, just replace tempo with speed. Now instead of Mixxx dealing with the BPM change and slowing things down, just get the files as close as possible to each other and play DJ w/o the slow down.

I use a netbook so it's not that powerful and whenever I hit the "key" option to keep the same pitch and do a sync to beatmatch...all hell breaks loose and I get random sluggishness. So by changing the files beforehand, this should reduce the calculations needed by Mixxx. Haven't tried it yet as I'm at work but crossing fingers!

[solved] Behringer UCA202 low volume issue on computer speakers

So I bought one after hearing some reviews and finding out that it's compatible with Mixxx. However I was a bit disappointed when I connected the RCA output to my RCA input on my computer speakers. The volume was very low and I had to crank it up and the gain to hear anything. Then I read online how you need a preamp to get any usable volume.
But recently I bought an RCA to 1/8" phone jack Y-cable to connect [edit] from the Behringer's RCA outputs to my PC speakers' 1/8" inputs [end edit] and lo and behold the volume was fine! The line level volume was perfect and more importantly usable! No need for any extra equipment. Hope this helps you out!

Happy DJ'ing!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Binaural beats generation using soX

So yeah anyways if you don't know what this is...google or wiki it.

anywho...long story super short...here is a good one I've found for Alpha waves. Using 90 hz in one ear and sweeping from 93-103 hz in the other...

play -n synth 420:00 sin 90 sin 93-103

this is good for 7hours. Change the 420:00 to whatever length of time you desire.

to output it to an mp3 file...

sox -n 7hr.sleep.mp3 synth 420:00 sin 90 sin 93-103

if you get the MP3 not support not compiled, see previous entry to get it supported and working (Debian squeeze instructions tho).

just for kicks, here's how to get the starship Enterprise sound using sox...

play -n -c2 synth whitenoise lowpass -1 130 lowpass -1 130 lowpass -1 130 tremolo 4 gain 14

more variations can be found here. There were a lot of comments that the sound didn't have a pulsing beat so I added tremolo to the code and it did the trick. I like it at 4 but if you want to slow it down a bit try 2 and to speed it up go higher. Beyond 9 it's hard to tell.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Debian squeeze, sox w/ mp3 support

UPDATE April 19, 2021
So the original post was relevant to Debian Squeeze and Jessie but now that I finally updated to Buster, it is no longer relevant. Just need a single command and mp3 is set to go.
apt-get install libsox-fmt-mp3
-------------End update--------------
Original post:

So went about getting mp3 support on my soX since it is a "non-free" codec...found this link...but it was slightly outdated but was corrected in the comments section.

So basically this is putting the steps all in one ;D ...

note: I recommend doing this as root instead of sudo'ing everything...

1: Follow the steps and add the Debian Multimedia to your apt sources and install everything it says for your distro...in this case Squeeze. I'd get these as well just in case...some might not be needed but these helped me compile it better:
apt-get install libavcodec-dev liba52-0.7.4-dev libdc1394-22-dev libdirac-dev libfaac-dev libfaad-dev libschroedinger-dev liborc-0.4-dev libtheora-dev libx264-dev libxvidcore4-dev

2: Make sure you have sox already installed.
apt-get install sox libmp3lame0 libmp3lame-dev

3: cd /usr/src

4: get all dependencies.
apt-get build-dep sox

5: get the source file
apt-get source sox

6: (replace 'z' with your version #) extract source file.
dpkg-source -x sox_14.z.z.dsc

7: cd sox-14.z.z

8: Use vi or whatever editor you wish.
vi debian/rules

9: "DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS := --without-lame ..."
change the "without" to "with"
"DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS := --with-lame ..."
the "..." won't actually be there...I just didn't want to type out the whole line.

10: Build the package.
dpkg-buildpackage -b

11: go back up a folder cd .. then install all the shiny new files you just created.
dpkg -i *.deb

12: test er out...just showing "sox -h" won't really work since before I had mp3 support it already showed it in the list. so do a test (e.g sox -n out.mp3 synth 5 90) if it doesn't complain then [edit] voila [end edit]! you're good to go.

cheers.