Rob the Fiddler

I bought a Midibuddy a year or so back on ebay with the intention of using it to trigger loops in Ableton. I had hoped it was as easy as plug-n-play but no such luck.

I gave it another try last night and after banging my head against the wall I finally figured it out.

The problem is that need the midi buddy only sends out song selects and program changes. These are not suitable to trigger scenes in Ableton. The solution is to use the free programs Midi OX and Midi Yoke.

The instructions are a little on the lean side but once I figured it out, it all made sense.

First you need to install midi yoke. This is basically a virtual patch bay. Next you install the Midi OX.

This program allows you to capture Midi info and filter/modify it to your liking. In my case, I needed to convert the Program changes to CC messages. Some care needs to be done there too though because to get the toggle to work, you need to set the value to something high too like 99 or else ableton seems to ignore the message. It makes sense. For example, on the MAudio O2, if you want the control buttons to trigger a scene, you need to program the board to send something like 99…otherwise it just sends 0 and increments.

Here are some snapshots of what I did.

After the yoke is installed, you pick the midi input from the soundcard or USB (an Uno in my case) and send the output to the Yoke. I sent it to 3.

The mapping was done like this.

Basically it says grab all the Prg Changes and send them as Ctrl messages on channel 2. Send a value of 99 all the time. This worked for me.

Now on Ableton just take the input as yoke 3.

From there, you sends should be heard from Ableton and it can learn in Midi Mapping mode.

Had a fun weekend for Memorial Day. After all that food in China, I felt that a food based day trip was in order. Plus, Memorial Day just wouldn’t be the same unless I was in East Texas somewhere. Pine Mills was actually going, but nobody told me about it. So I drove close to the farm, but headed on past for MudBug Madness in Shreveport, LA.
Its pretty much like taste of Dallas, but for the most part, its about the Crawfish. The band was fun. Jeremy and the zydeco hot boyz. I had only two things I wanted to do. Hear a Zydeco band and eat some buggers…and we did both.

It was the first time Elijah had crawfish too!

Everybody danced. The crowd was really nice.

One of my pictures caught the attention of a local blog and she put a picture that Elijah took on it.

Shreveport Faces

E thinks this one is better though. She prefers the less “posed” ones.

Afterwards, we went to Caddo Lake to do a little hiking. I love the moss hanging from the trees, but the bugs were unbearable.

Sunday night was our second “HOUSE OF SUES” night at House of Blues. It was awesome. I made a giant S that turned the sign into ours. I wired it for three circuits, but the light guy went a little crazy and rewired it for 6. It looked pretty neat. We also had matching Tuxedos because we wanted to make the evening as special as possible for everybody that came.

Seems like I was having problems with wordpress after ipower upgraded its mySQL servers. Unfortunately I was in Beijing so there was little I could do about.  I upgraded to 2.5.1…soo….Im hoping that fixes everything.

Came across Wu-mart.  Its like Walmart, only they dont pretend everything is made from China.

Actually, many stores here carry the “Great Value” brand. Im kinda confused if they are a competitor or what?

Its been fun eating here. I hope I didn’t end up with any food issues. I generally stuck to places that outwardly looked pretty clean. I only ate from a street vendor once, and the food was in a boiling broth. It was duck blood on a stick, so it couldn’t of been that bad.

Some of the more notable dishes I had were found in an area North of center by the Drum and Bell tower. This was one of the more interesting parts of town. I did not see any tour groups which was a start.

Probably the best wings I ever ate were found here on Gulou Dongdajie (1 km SW of Andingmen station where Nan Luoguxiang drops out). The menu had them billed as chicken “Swings”. I was just going to look at the menu but was swiftly sat at a seat. The swings were grilled on skewers as were the shrimps and mushrooms wrapped in tofu noodles. A good snack at 28 RMB.

Another cheap and tasty surprise was a Shaanxi restaurant on Dianmen Dongdajie (55-2) where Beiheyan Dajie intersects it. (1km NE of JingShan park). CHEAP eats. Jia Mo is the first thing on the menu. Its what they called a hamburger, but its a thick unleavened bread bun (like nan guess), crispy and filled with shredded pork. 7 RMB. A big bowl of homemade noodles was 12 RMB. Total bill under 3 bucks for a meal that lasted me till breakfast. Shaanxi is the breadbasket of China and most everything is wheat based. Noodles and breads. Many items were vegetarian too.

The last day of work, we were taken to another hotpot. This one was very good. The service was amazing. Again, I got to try duck blood and esophagus. This is easier to eat than it sounds. We also had noodles made fresh right at our table. It was a fairly athletic display.

The spiciest thing I ever ate was at this place north of the 3^rd ring just off of Andingenmen. Im not really sure where it was. It was not HOT hot, more of a continuous simmer really. The kicker was the fennel. You know that bowl of fennel seeds you chew on when you leave an Indian restaurant? There is that crunchy stuck in your teeth texure. This dish had it.

Fennel, Red pepper and sesame. On a bed of Cilantro for good measure. Very crunchy texture.

In addition to that dish I ordered what I thought was minced pork and green beans. This was my safe dish. Nope, these were not green beans…but peppers. Again, it was not like stupid hot, but the spice content was a little over the top.

I had seen a few posters in the music stores for Bowling for Soup. In fact, they were the only American band that I ever saw a poster for.  They were getting good promotions for their new album.  The music stores catagorize pop music a little differently here. First by country (China, Japan, Korea, other, US+Uk) then for each of those it goes bands, songstressess and finally male singers. 

Turns out that Bowling for Soup had a show on Sat.  I was not sure if I could rock-star my way into it as there was a considerable language barrier, but that whole crowd are best friends with Elijah. I had set out for the day early on…so it turned out there was a ticket arranged for me at will call, but I didnt hear about it until I got home. Nuts.

Still, the best part was seeing a two story high poster of Bowling for Soup. As I walked around the building I was eyed eagerly as a potential member. I could see a lot of puzzled looked as they where discussing if I could be one of the members.

The weekend had some of the best walking.  If your ever in Beijing and are looking for some off the beaten path adventures…this is what I did.

First I went to the zoo to see the Pandas. Its a big zoo, but you can cover what you want quickly. 

Go to the subway and take line two to Guloudajie.  This is the station just north of HouHai and the Bell and Drum Tower.  YOu can walk past all the Hutongs till you get to the tower. Its a steep stair climb.  From there, go due east on Gulou Dong Dajie.  (the names are easier than you thing.) It went on for what seemed a mile and a half of endless stores. Much more interesting as in kitchy. Some live music venues. Tons of places to eat and about 20 music stores.

When you hit Andingenmen, go north to the gate (subway). Again, its a much more interesting stretch of road. Tons of smells, tastes, sights.

Sunday I hit the Dazhalan area. This was even better. I had planned to see the Tongrentang. Its a herbal drugstore that has been in the same address for 300 years.  It was several stories and had all the deer heads, $100000 Ginsing roots and jars of whatever that you would expect to see. They had an exchange center and several payment windows too. They were not too keen on the pictures though.

This is the street where you will find your cheapest jade or jade-like materials. Dirt cheap. Is it jade…dunno. Prices were all over the place, but there was a gift for every budget.

The most exciting part was when I headed due west into the Hutongs. Its a whole different world. You have to just pick an alley and get lost. Tiny alleys with small stalls are dotted with random businesses, bakers, snack vendors, internet cafes and people just doing whatever they do. Its not uncommon to be going down a dark alley and peer into a door that houses a modern pharmacy. Plenty of toilets too. It was just neat!