What's going on at Byte Arts?
/It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here — I had hoped to do weekly updates but I think that was a little unrealistic given my current workload.
General Business and Family Status
We continue to deal with the aftermath of my wife’s close-call this past fall (she was stung by a wasp and went into shock and cardiac arrest). She’s doing a lot better and has been able to go back to work. I’ve learned a lot more about mental health and the importance of getting help — sometimes we can’t (and shouldn’t) just try to “tough it out”, especially since mental health issues can also impact your judgement and you may not even realize how bad it is. Please don’t hesitate to get help if you think you might need it.
I’m still basically working 3 jobs — I work 3 days/week as a embedded systems engineer at a local laser company, do consulting on software and systems engineering for several other companies, and of course work on Rock Band products for my own company (Byte Arts).
Because Byte Arts has been so busy, I have cut back on consulting and other work. While I do make some money on the Rock Band products (Strum Fix, Fret Fix etc..) it’s doesn’t make up for the loss of consulting income, but it does allow me to indulge my interests in 3D-printing and rapid-prototyping. I have many ideas for more products, and maybe bringing back some old ones — I just need more hours in the day!
This winter has been especially tough as we’ve had pretty crappy road conditions for months, and I’m seeing more shipping delays than ever (things we ship out, and things I order in). It has affected all shipping services, including FedEx and UPS — I rarely get any shipments on time these days. It’s still only March, which means that here in Montana we still have a good 2 months of winter left (if we’re lucky)! It could be worse — we are a lot better off than places like Lake Tahoe.
Strum Fix Plus 3 Status
The Strum Fix Plus 3 has been doing well — it’s been a bit stressful trying to keep up with the orders, handle support issues, and evaluate feedback and incorporate improvements into the design.
The biggest struggle with the Strum Fix Plus 3 (SFP3) has been issues with alignment of the strum bar, the axle it rotates on, and the strum switches. I originally made the SFP3 with tighter tolerances to make it feel smoother and be more consistent, but I didn’t take into account that when its mounted in the guitar the circuit board can actually get flexed a bit and cause things to go out of alignment. I was also having problems building them and having to do a lot of “tweaking” to get everything to line up just right.
So I went back to the drawing board and redesigned the way the strum bar axle is mounted. There have actually been 3 revisions:
Original revision had a short “stub axle” printed on each mounting block. This design was very prone to getting misaligned if the mounting area on the guitar wasn’t perfectly flat, and could require some tweaking to get everything lined up.
Second revision used a “thru axle” design that had a piece of plastic rod that goes thru the center of the strum bar and is then attached via a screw on the end to each mounting block. This revision was less prone to misalignment and the overall structure was more rigid, but if the axle wasn’t cut perfectly then it could require some sanding or filing to get everything aligned just right.
The current revision also uses a “thru axle”, but uses a different scheme to lock the axle in place — I now build up the whole SFP3 in a jig that insures everything is lined up, and then when I tighten the screws everything is locked into place. The whole structure is lot more rigid now, and no “tweaking” or sanding/filing is required.
I also just recently discovered that some of the switches have a little “nipple” on the part of the switch plunger that contacts the strum bar — this nipple can cause the strum bar to “catch” and even get stuck in the down position, and also cause a fairly loud clicking sound. Not all switches have this nipple (it seems to be an artifact from the molding process), and you can easily remove it with a knife. I’m now checking every switch before I use them in the SFP3.
Fret Fix Status
I have to say I was surprised by the demand for the Fret Fix — I thought most people would be scared off by the soldering, but I’ve realized that there’s a big overlap between nerds like me that can solder and those that play Rock Band!
I recently completed a new design of the Fret Fix — the main change is that it now accommodates more types of guitars — I added connections to wire it into a Precison Bass, as well as the “alternate” wiring scheme that we’ve encountered on some RB1 guitars (where 11 wires go to the first board, and then 6 wires go between the two fret boards).
Strum Fix with Overdrive
I’ve sent out a few prototypes to testers and have gathered some feedback. Based on this and my own play testing, I’ve decided to take a different approach. I plan to make another post soon about this and give a lot more details — I’m not trying to keep it secret, but want to wait until I have something that looks like it could be a real solution to the whole “overdrive activation” problem.
