Quench Thurston's Thirst for technical and design goodness.

Sign, sign everywhere a “NO” sign

The city of Huntsville has passed a ban on texting while driving. Which does not really bother me except, once again we can be punished by law for making poor decisions. What bothers me is that the city has spent quite a bit of tax money in posting "NO TEXTING WHILE DRIVING" signs all over the road ways. Along with that law, they passed a loud stereo ordinance and that was also accompanied by numerous matching signs. While driving through Huntsville you will be visually assaulted by rules that you should follow while in our city (maybe should take notes on each of the rules but please pull over to do so). I thought that maybe they should consider adding some real crimes to the sign postings since they feel these are an effective deterrent to stop me from texting and playing my radio too loud.

Maybe these will keep someone from shooting or stabbing someone...

New street signs for Huntsville © 2011 Jeffthurston.com

The Amplitube iRig rocks!

It is really amazing what tools my trusty iPad has replaced. I have been using it as my virtual effects rack/amplifier and as an 8 track recorder since Christmas. This cool hardware and software combination comes from the folks at IK Multimedia (http://www.ikmultimedia.com). Their product combination of a hardware component, the iRig (http://www.ikmultimedia.com/irig/features/) along with their software component, Amplitube (http://www.ikmultimedia.com/amplitubeipad/features/) allows me to carry a large pedal board of effects, different amp head and cabinet combos along with a 8 track recorder all in a neoprene, notebook sized sleeve.

iRig and AmpliTube Rocks!

It works like this:

1. Plug the iRig into your headphone jack on your iPad.
2. Plug your guitar into the 1/4" jack on the iRig.
3. Plug your headphones (if desired) into the other side of the iRig.
4. Load the AmpliTube application.
5. Select your amp, cabinet and microphone combination.
6. Select up to 4 effects and change their settings.
7. ROCK OUT!

I have really enjoyed having the portability of the iPad as my practice rack and I am going to try and use it live soon. The quality of the sound is pretty good and the 8 track recorder is feature rich with effect options, bouncing tracks and other sound engineering duties.

The product is a little pricey for an iPad/iPhone application. The iRig retails for $39.99, AmpliTube retails for $19.99, the 8-Track plugin is another $17.00 and  there are other effects to add on for around $2.99 a piece. The software comes with 11 effects (Delay, Fuzz, Distortion, Overdrive, Wah, Env Filter, Chorus, Flanger, Phazer, Octave and Noise Filter) and you can buy 5 more (Compressor, Limiter, Reverb, Parametric Equalizer, Graphic Equalizer). So for around  $90 bucks you can have 16 effects, 5 amp heads, 5 cabinets, tuner, song practice tool that speeds ups and slows down loaded mp3 files, metronome and a 8-track recorder. I sold my Vamp and held back on purchasing an 11 Rack after getting this for Christmas.

All-in-all it is a great tool for the amateur guitarist. They do have a free version of the application so you can get an idea of how it works before making the big purchase.

While researching the IK Multimedia site, I discovered they have another product coming soon, the iRig Mic along with Vocal Live (http://www.ikmultimedia.com/vocalive/features/) which looks to be a vocal effects application like the AmpliTube. Hope I can multi-task these 2 products.

20+ Hours flying

I am all packed and ready to see my girls to school before leaving for India. My flight has me in Detroit, Amsterdam, Mumbai and then Pune. I am trying to have the traveling mindset of being moved around like a herd of cattle. Should have some good travel stories after today.

Design a Day Number 8

Work in Corel Draw trying to come up with some ideas for a simple logo for software company.

Design A Day Number 6

Design A Day 07/27/2010

Some more Chaoscope generations manipulated in Photoshop.

Design A Day Number 5

Design A Day 07/26/2010

I always have grand intentions of creating Flash games. These are aircraft that I designed in Fireworks to use in a side scroller Flash game that I am building.

Kicking off my “Design a Day” project

Design a Day 07/22/2010

This is my first initial design for my "Design a Day" project. I used a web application called Cacoo using the an arrow stamp. This would be a great design for a delivery company or a data sharing application.

Happy New Year!

Probably the best New Year's Eve I have had in a long time! Friends and neighbors...playing some music...and my beautiful family. HAPPY NEW YEAR AND HERE IS TO 2010 BEING THE BEST YEAR EVER!