Matrox Thunderbolt Docking station after my USB ports broke down.

By JyKang in Computer 0 Comment

I have Macbook pro 8,2 that I got October/2011. I went to Korea for a performance, and my old macbook pro’s top board was completely broken. I needed to perform in few days, and the computer was getting old, so I put it into Apple Service, and I as well got the new one.

My finance was not so well, and I was traveling so that I didn’t get the Apple care. Then as you might guess, after 1 year of its use, something is breaking down : USB.

I had few issues with this computer. The first one was the thunderbolt port. I use an external monitor at home, and the screen was flickering sometimes. Strangely it doesn’t happen even once in Linux. So that I know it is the poor apple software issue, and a number of people were complaining. Then there were few updates, the frequency of the flickering was getting less. But still, it’s sometimes flickering.

Since a month ago, the USB ports were a bit weird. One of two ports was occasionally working: meaning, it doesn’t give power to any equipment, and when I pull and plug again, it sometimes worked.

Few days later, this poor one never worked again, and the other one was doing the same as the other: occasionally working.

I was scared that if I wouldn’t have any USB port, it must cause quite a serious issue. I would need to perform with this machine, and I might not be able to plug in any of controller. Well, forget about the performance. I couldn’t even use mouse/keyboard/harddrive/my phone and so on that are just so common and necessary.

Few days later, even after few reboots, it was working rarely. Yes I checked with the Apple Service, who couldn’t find any issue with the hardware, also did enough research. I was not the only person who had the issue. But any solution that people have given didn’t work for me. I needed to find another solution, rather than replacing my top board just because of USBs.

This was what I found. Matrox Docking Station.

Matrox Dock

Yes. It is quite expensive for me when I think of ‘USB.’ but cheaper than replacing the top board.

This machine has 2 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.0 (yeah! something new is added to my laptop!), 1 ethernet, 1 DVI out, Audio in/out. It is pity that there is no Firewire.

The official price is 250 $. I got in the Netherlands, and it was around 220 euro. I ordered it and received it. Well, yes I spent some money with tears, but now I don’t need to worry about USB anymore. I was quite excited. Opened the box. then SIGH>>>…..

There was no Thunderbolt cable.. man… It was like, as my friend said, you get your phone without a charger.

This was really really disappointing. Most of you know that this cable is quite expensive. I got it from Apple store, (because I couldn’t find anywhere else around this town) and that was 50 euro.. I would have gotten 5 USB hubs with this money..

So yes. I needed to spend even more money to use USB.

I do not, as much as you, want to become a complainer. But I don’t understand, how.. USB can be broken so quickly after just using 1 year, which never has happened to me my entire computer life. (oh yeah.. that’s quite a bit of years. 🙂 )And I don’t think the port is broken. I just think that the power management sucks with this machine. Do I need to spend almost 300 euro to use USB and having one more of Ethernet/Audio ports..? Wait, I got this laptop with money too! How much was that..?

Oh well, there is going to be even more expensive solution for this. The Belkin docking system, which is going to be released soon.

This machine will be 50 something euro more expensive, and probably no thunderbolt cable will be included. However there are two thunderbolt ports together with Firewire. 2 USB 3.0 ports too. So yes it is a bit different. But I think it’s too expensive.

But you know, I thought this is too much for replacing USB anyway. There should be another solution, or maybe I couldn’t find a nicer solution with this laptop.

Oh well, I don’t know if I’d buy another apple stuff again. Because I don’t think I would have prevented this by using differently. If anyone has a better idea of this, please let me know.. !

Good luck with your computers. Treat well, and even after you do and it betrays you, stay calm and meditate. 🙂

 

Female Effects Spain tour

By JyKang in Concert/Festival, Ji's, People, [EA]ComputerMusic 1 Comment

I’d like to share an awesome picture of my performance from the first Spain tour of Female Effects!

Jing

The performance in Cordoba, Spain.
Photo by Erin Mckinney

Female Effects is a project consisting of new pieces for acoustic instruments and electronics, composed by female composers and curated by the harpist/performer Angélica Vázquez.

The musicians involved are: Yamila Ríos, Lula Romero and Maria José Belenguer from Spain, Kate Moore (Australia), Barbara Ellison (Ireland), Marie Guilleray (France), Fani Konstantinidou (Greece), Ji Youn Kang (Korea), Meiyi Lee (Taiwan), Wen Chin (Taiwan) and Marisol Jimenez (Mexico).

We made the second concert as a group, and this happened in Spain at 23~24th of November, 2012.

It was quite cool that all those female composers/performers got together and made a new music performance in combination between Acoustics and Electronics together. We played in two cities: first in Cadiz, and the second in Cordoba. I brought ‘Jing – A traditional Korean gong-like instrument-‘ and I felt good as well that I brought this Korean instrument there. The piece is called ‘Jing’ for Jing and Computer. 

This was also my first trip to Spain so that I wanted to look around too as much as possible, but this tight schedule was quite crazy. We slept almost nothing for two days because we needed to move all the time. The time for the soundcheck takes very long due to the technical needs and the amount of the pieces. But we had lots of fun.

When we perform at Cadiz, it was a part of the contemporary music festival Festival de Música Española de Cádiz. This means that we can expect the kind of audience who is quite interested in listening to the new music. However, the second concert was completely local concert. We played at Iglesia de la Magdalena, in a medium size old church. We were a bit worried if people would like this. One of my friends from Spain commented on my Facebook advertisement of the concert : “You play an electronic music in Cordoba??? ”

This scared me a bit, because we wanted to have some audiences involved. We worked hard to make this happen.

Then wow. There were tons of audiences from Children to Seniors. They really filled the whole church. No one left in the middle of the concert, rather they came closer and closer toward the stage. This made us so excited. People liked it very much and we had a very nice performance.

Of course we didn’t forget to have a party after all. Everyone was quite tired but we had some drinks and even went to a club to celebrate.

Now our organizer Angelica is making the second plan to Spain again. This time in Sevilla, and probably happens in April. I wish all of us to go, but in this moment we are not sure.

It is quite hard to survive as a woman Electronic music composer. There sill are prejudices that woman cannot handle computer and cables, and they would make a pretty music. This female effects throw a rock into that pool. We are very active composers mostly involving electronics to their works, have a new, charming idea on their works,  have knowledge and ability to realize it. So yes. We are female, but we are NOT feminists. We are those kind of people who just do what we’d like to do, and we met together in one field.

Should male involve in this group? Maybe and Maybe not. Not because we hate guys around here, but women composers would need a bit more of  support and more stages and opportunities to perform, and we believe that this group add a small action into that.

More information on Female Effects

 

A Recent Piece performance “Hui-Mo-Ri” for a new instrument+Live Electronics

By JyKang in Ji's, [EA]ComputerMusic 0 Comment

I haven’t taken care so much for few months of my blog, but I am happy to come back with this new video recording of my new piece, “Hui-Mo-Ri.”

The instrument was built by a friend of mine Wenchin. She’s a performer/artist, and this is the first instrument she has  ever built. Due to its complications that all the woods should have holes and metal strings/motors should be attached to them, and so on, it is quite fragile, but it worked at the performance. 🙂

The instrument itself should vibrate itself by the motor, but the connection was not strongly attached enough to do so. So the live electronics was quite essential. There are two microphones attached (a DPA and a Piezo) underneath the spinning wooden plates, and under the metal plate in the middles, there is a transducer that is supposed to create a feedback with the body.

I gave some additions to this: two sticks with the contact microphone attached. Those two sticks include metal pins and iron strings too that can interact well with the feedback.

Mainly you cannot hear the original ‘instrument’ sound there. I gave all additional processing with electronics. All are realtime processing programmed on SuperCollider(of course).

I was quite happy with the sound results and the structure. There is no very detailed score, but the entire structure that I composed.

In this première of the piece, I am playing with the percussionist MeiYi Lee, my dearest friend and we make a number of performance together as a duo.

Oh, and ‘Hui-Mo-Ri’ is one of the traditional Korean Rhythm structure, that is supposedly the fastest in tempo. It also means ‘blowing all together’ as a strong wind would possibly do.

I hope you enjoy.

**people who is around Utrecht in the Netherlands at 8th of Feb, This piece will be played by Sonolab Duo at RASA. Here’s the info.