Updating Alesis DM5 drum machine firmware

I recently updated the firmware on my Alesis DM5. The update has been around for ages, but I didn’t have the interface between the DM5 and my PC. I was in limbo about it all – I was looking at the Midiman Midisport 2×2 but I felt a bit aggrieved spending some thirty quid on something I was likely to use once. (I already have a M-Audio Pro 44 keyboard that hooks the kit in to my PC.) I finally bit the bullet and trusty old eBay turns up a nice and cheap USB Midi interface – I was dubious about something for £0.98 – whether it would really work.

Well, it did – no issues at all. You don’t need to spend £30 just to get this working!

On OSX, the process is dead simple. With the interface plugged in to your Mac and the DM5, and the DM5 switched on:

1) Download Sysex Librarian
2) Download the DM5 firmware update
3) Unpack the firmware update
4) Launch SysEx librarian
5) If your interface is working OK, you’ll see “USB cable” in the list of sources
6) Click Add, and add the downloaded update file
7) Ignore the warning message
Press play
9) It will start transferring the files to your DM5; the screen on the DM5 will change
10) Wait, and cross fingers

After that, the DM5 has been updated.

The pros of the update are more than the cons. The triggers are more responsive and there’s seems to be far less crosstalk between the triggers, and they seem to work far better with Surge cymbals. The major cons are that you have to reset any custom changes you’ve made which is a bit of a drag – and although there are all new kits on there, they’re all a bit weird. One of the defaults is a quite nice “double kick” – where the input for the hi-hat is converted to a kick sound, so you can double kick if you want.

Ultimately though, it seems like it’s worth doing.

DM5 pro kit

How to remove a Datatool System 3 from a Honda CBR600FX

Way back when, I thought an alarm on my motorbike was a good idea. My bike had just been vandalised by a drunk and I had become a bit paranoid. And, in fairness, since having it, my bike was never stolen. Admittedly, I’m not certain there were actually any attempts to steal it. The times that the alarm did get triggered was always me, or an ant looking at it and setting off the motion detector, and even on those occasions, any passers-by in the vicinity barely gave it a glance before moving on and ignoring the apparent attempted theft of my bike. Had I been trying to steal my bike, then I doubt the alarm would have done much to prevent it. Seems to me that alarms are pretty ineffective nowadays. Moreover, I can think of at least one easy way to completely disable it with very little fuss.

So when I recently had to replace my battery again due to its inability to maintain a charge – no doubt caused by the permanent drain that the alarm system puts on it – enough was enough, the thing was coming out. It was surprisingly easy to do, which made me wonder about its status as Thatcham approved and all that. It took the installer quite a few hours to put in – he did do a proper job – but I’d say it took me around 20 minutes to get it out. Not something you’d do on the side of a road in order to nick it, but still, surprisingly easy. And to think I paid around £400 at the time.

This isn’t supposed to be step by step instructions and I won’t describe how to dismantle your bike or get at the particular pieces – if you can’t work out that much on your own, you probably shouldn’t be doing this. And needless to say, but it needs to be said, this is what I had to do to my own CBR600… no guarantees it’ll work for your bike or be the same or anything. And I’m by no means an electrician. So if you permanently immobilise your bike – it ain’t my fault! And note that my alarm was functional but I had taken a rather unconventional route to completely disable the bike before I did this (took out the main fuse for the bike) – so the alarm actually wasn’t alive.
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An observation about geeks

I was reading a blog today where a geek rather nicely explained the mechanism for getting a Lexmark printer driver to work under Ubuntu. It was quite a techy sounding answer and in the comments on the blog was the question (allegedly from the chap’s father), “How do you KNOW this stuff!!?”

The blog owner’s answer: I know how to use Google.

Which is such a valid point. The vast majority of “geeks”, aren’t, in fact, true geeks at all. People call me a geek, and yes, on the face of it I probably look like a geek. I have a whole raft of computers and whirry buzzy things in my house doing seemingly cool (and pointless) things. And let’s face it, I’m writing a blog, about techy/geek things. But in the same manner as the guy above, I only worked out how to do that stuff by pretty much copying / adapting what someone else has already done before by hunting it out on Google. And no doubt that guy copied / adapted it from someone who copied / adapted it from who copied / adapted it who, maybe, just maybe, got it from the person who actually figured it out in the first place. Those guys are the true geeks… and without them the world would be a pretty sorry looking place.

Canon IP5200R wireless printing + OSX 10.6.* Snow Leopard

If like me you found that your previously perfectly working Canon IP5200R wireless printer is broken after upgrading to Snow Leopard – don’t worry, there’s (now) an easy fix. The long and the short of it is – in 10.6 they included an old version of the Canon printer driver. Useful, huh?

These tips are for UK based people – if you’re elsewhere, you should find the appropriate place on the Canon website to get the updates.

If you don’t have it, get a copy of the Canon IJ network tool v2.6.* from here.

Now, get yourself a copy of the latest printer driver, currently 10.26.1

If printer previously working fine

Install network tool (if you don’t already have it)
Restart machine.
Install printer driver.
Go to System Preferences > Printers. If your Canon printed is listed, but as USB, then remove it by cliking the – icon in the pane.
Next click the + to go to the Add Printer screen. Make sure the Default panel is selected.
Wait for about 30 seconds – your Canon printer should appear in the pane – you can then add it – and after that, all should be right in the world.

If you’ve never installed the printer

As above except that you’ll need to configure the network settings before trying to add the printer.
Plug the printer in to your Mac via USB (if you have Growl installed, you’ll hopefully see a notification)
Navigate to Macintosh HD > Library > Printers > Canon > Utilities > IJ Printer tool
Run that – it should find your printer on USB
Use the Network Setup to set your wireless settings. I won’t go in to the details, but by far the most reliable method I’ve found is to give your printer a static IP rather than DHCP.
Once you’ve done that OK the dialog to commit the settings to the printer. If all goes well, the above advice should work for you.

Hope that helps. Hands down, the first I’ve ever had to install a printer during my Mac career!

How to access iTunes Store from restricted location

I recently posted about how it was impossible to access the iTunes Store if you were in one of the Channel Islands such as Guernsey or Jersey. Specifically, when you were updating your account details, it used to be possible to enter your postcode in lower case, or, enter a valid e.g., UK mainland postcode to get around it. This stopped working and all workarounds were essentially dead – the only explanation was that iTunes now uses some geographic IP address matching to check you were physically where you say you were. So it seemed like there was no way around it.

However, I’ve found a way around it.

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Guernsey iTunes store hack patched?

If you live in the Channel Islands – Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm – you are not allowed to use the iTunes store. Entering your postcode in the billing section simply gave you a message “the iTunes store is not available in your region”.

UPDATE 1: Friends of mine have said that if you enter a valid postcode in the mainland, then that worked for them in the past. In theory that should ruin any chance of people able to buy something (your CC shouldn’t authorise…).
UPDATE 2: I just tried the above and got an error message, asking to enter a valid postcode (despite entering a bunch of valid postcodes), so it seems likely that they’re doing an IP address check now as well. Bastards. I have a few ideas on how to get round this.
UPDATE 3: Please read my post on how to access the itunes store from a restricted location which has instructions on how to get around this problem.

Your video may have music that is owned or licensed by WMG.

Argh, WMG can suck my balls. I must admit that in *all* the years of the DRM / Copyright / file sharing / Napster debate, I’ve never really been hit by it. Although in principle, DRM or similar is kind of annoying – I mean, I paid for it – I should be able to do what I want with it, right? Well, no, not at all – you just bought a license to listen to the music. The reason I’ve never really got in to downloading music – either illegally or legitimately through iTunes is two-fold – 1) I don’t trust myself to remember that I’ve bought some music in case I start deleting stuff and 2) I have an ever growing CD collection which I’m proud of, and I like having the actual CD.

OK, slight tangent there. Anyway, I’ve just been bitten – albeit algorithmically – by the copyright debate. Shortly after I got my new Macbook Pro, I was farting about with iMovie HD and making some silly videos. These included a bit of my brother’s dog, and a trip when we went to a shooting range, and shot some guns. Hardly ground-breaking or Cannes-winning stuff. In fact, they’re so amateur that they’re pretty laughable now. But nevertheless, they were good fun when I was putting them together, part of which was figuring out the soundtrack. I spent ages working out the best tunes to back my brother’s dog running around in a park (Jungle Brothers) or being driven around in a car (Passenger, by Iggy Pop).

Anyway, some of my videos got WMG’d at YouTube. On some of these videos, I now just see a message that says

Your video, Seven Stages of Dog – Part 2, may have audio content from Growing On Me by The Darkness that is owned or licensed by WMG.

Obviously referring to the part where Iggy (a 2 year 50lb bull terrier / shepherd mix plays with Dante, a 130lb Italian Mastiff, with humourous consequences).

So the point is, WMGs access to YouTube and its algorithms to analyse all videos to find illegal use of their music has caught me out and the music to the video is muted. And that makes the video even more dull than before. What’s unusual however, is that there are other videos I have made that use exactly the same styles, but they didn’t get flagged. And a cursory search of YouTube shows thousands more videos with copyrighted music on arguably much bigger or questionable videos. So obviously whatever software they’re using isn’t perfect.

But I’m still struggling to understand how my use of the music for my crappy “home videos” can really be damaging them and I’d argue that my use is “fair use”. It’s not for profit, it’s clearly not for anything sensible or real, it’s just a bit of fun for me and anyone who might be interested (which, judging by the view count, is not many) and whereever I use music, the artist is credited for it. If anything, I’d go the opposite way and say that for the odd few people who actually watch these videos, might think “oooh Ocean Colour Scene, haven’t heard them in a while” and go and buy a CD. (Or fire up Limewire I suppose.)

Well needless to say, I find it all very crap. This sort of thing can only stifle the creativity that places like YouTube are slowly opening up. Fat little kids who previously had no lives are somehow “cewebrities” because they get creative with a webcam. (Ooer!). But no, WMG can’t monetise it (yet) so their decision is to pull the plug. Of course, you can use the “AudioSwap” – i.e., a list of public domain tracks that are free for use – but how long before they’re used up and everyone’s videos starts to look very very similar. In fact, it gets worse. I saw one poor who had her videos deleted for singing her favourite bands music!

If I really cared enough about this, I’d find a list of all WMG’s artists and never buy their music again. But I don’t, so I won’t. But still, it’s tiresome and officious, and is nowt but a sign of things to come.

So on a lighter note, here’s another video I made that doesn’t have any copyrighted music. It is obviously a blatant rip off of a movie, so quite how long it stays out there, well, who knows.