Long overdue update

PERSONAL LIFE

It’s been quite a while since I’ve provided any updates or information on what’s going here at Byte Arts. There’s lots of reasons for this and I’ll try to explain some below.

My plan for this fall was to put any side-projects and consulting work on hold and make significant progress on a number of Rock Band-related projects and hopefully release at least 2 new products. Things started out well and I was able to make a few revisions of the Fret Fix (replacement circuit boards for the fret buttons in Rock Band guitar), send units out to testers and incorporate their feedback and release the first version.

Shortly after that our lives took a dramatic turn — my wife had a reaction to a wasp sting that caused her to go into shock and nearly die. My son and daughter-in-law kept her alive with CPR until paramedics took over and transported her to the ER where they were able to revive her. She’s doing well now and is mostly healed from the CPR (it’s typical to have broken or cracked ribs). It was a traumatic experience and we are all still dealing with it. Needless to say, my priorities changed and I had to put my Rock Band projects on hold for a while.

I would like to give anyone out there a bit of advice — if anyone in your life has a severe allergy, be sure you know how to use an epi pen, and DO NOT hesitate to use it — if you wait for the allergic reaction to start, it could be too late. Also, CPR WORKS — be sure you know how to do it.

I would like to say a thank you to all our loyal customers during this time — without exception everyone has been very patient and understanding of delays and other issues as we’ve worked thru this tough time.

PROJECTS STATUS UPDATE

As I write this in late October of ‘22, our lives are getting back to normal, snow is starting to fall, and I’m looking forward to getting back to some Rock Band projects! Here’s a quick run down of what I’m working on these days:

Fret Fix

This is a project to make circuit boards and switches to replace the fret boards and switches in a Rock Band guitar. The first version is available now, but isn’t compatible with some early RB1 guitars, or the Precision Bass guitar. I am actively working on a new version for those guitars.

MIDI Rocker LX2

This is a project to make an updated version of the MIDI Rocker, which is a device that allows electronic drum kits to be used for playing Rock Band. This project is still on hold, but I am evaluating a new processor platform for it which looks very promising.

Strum Fix Plus

Our flagship product, the Strum Fix was originally designed to repair broken switches on Rock Band guitar stummers without dramatically changing the look or feel of the strummer. Over the last year I’ve been working on some concepts for dramatically redesigning the Strum Fix, with the idea of not trying to mimic the look/feel of the original strummer, but instead make the best strum mechanism I can.

I ended up going off on some wild tangents and built a lot of prototypes, most of which didn’t work that well, but some of the concepts have survived and I’m getting close to releasing a new version soon! The new version also incorporates an option that let’s you activate the overdrive on, replacing the flaky tilt-switch activation on some guitars.