Shexy mods, clamor, and glamour..

Over a month ago, my computer screen decided to go dark.  Now when I say go dark, I mean it literally just went dark.  Most of the time when people have a computer screen that they can't see anymore they assume it just died.  A quick inspection and some research online led me to believe the capacitors, resistor, or some part of the power inverter that powers the CCFL backlights went out, because the rest of the screen still works.  I use the screen's USB hub to operate my kyeboard and mouse, and when I switch screens to my giant HDTV on the opposite wall (extremely hard to work with this particular orientation), the mouse and keyboard are fine.

The last throws of summer are in full swing, everyone wants to constantly hang out and enjoy what's left of it by gaming: xbox 360, or nerding: Magic The Gathering.  Poke fun, mock, and belittle all you like... It's a fun way to pass the time.  Mok offered to help me solve my screen issues and we took it apart to look at the power board.

First time we took it apart was sort of annoying since the plastic shell is a two piece snap-in that holds itself together.  A butter knife did the trick eventually, and we ran into the other problem of having to try and get around the stem for the stand where it connects to the back of the screen.  Once we got it off we disconnected 3 sets of connections that bound all the various components together.

While the particular fashion in which Samsung designed the screen can be annoying to work on because of the molded plastic back shell being cast through the metal bracket that holds the hinge and stem piece for the stand to sit in, we managed to get access to the the 2 boards in the chassis that house the electronics.

Disconnecting the power from the logic board allowed us to easily unscrew the power board and disconnect the two backlight connectors buried in the right side of the chassis.  Once we got the power board out Mok and I immediately noticed one major problem with it.

Not only was the PCB around the resistor burnt black, but the original capacitor had faded beyond recognition and we thus set about replacing it.  A quick stop at "The Shack" and later another visit to get a 60-watt Soldering Iron because of the heavy duty solder used on the board remedied the situation nicely.  We also replaced 8 capacitors i had purchased online from a DIY mod site that matched the main ones that the board relies on.  We stuck the board back in and despite our effort, were greeted with a dark but still functioning screen.  So I ordered a whole new power board on eBay...

A couple of days passed...  Busy with life things, like friendly gatherings, keeping up with my exercises...

Taking care of things at home...  Lazy cats...

More exercising...

Oh... and some more friend time:

S'mores anyone?

Before the board arrived, Mok came over and was curious to check out the backlights with me.  We set about taking apart the entire screen.

Removing the front plastic bezel

Snapping out the metal frame that encases the inner screen components.

For those of you that don't know how an LCD screen works.  There's several layers to the whole thing.  Here's how it goes.  Below you can see the Panel which is covered with a diffusion anti-glare material.

Beneath the actual panel is several layers of Diffuser sheets, think of them as transparency sheets like those used in schools for overhead projectors, except they help to evenly scatter the light instead of being completely transparent.

Underneath those diffuser sheets is a large and thick panel that is somewhat diffusive.

This panel acts like a lens when light is emitted into it from it's sides, it illuminates the whole area scattering the light in all directions and as the light catches on the diffusive surface area, it brightens the whole thing.

These backlights are very tiny, long and thin. There are two sets, a pair on top and a pair on the bottom, which are powered by the power inverter board.

The logic board is connected directly to the LCD matrix panel which controls the various cells in the matrix.

And there you have it.  While we had fun taking it completely apart and reassembling it we found nothing wrong with the CCFLs.  Backlights had absolutely no burn marks, blackened edges or anything that would be akin to failure.

The board arrived, and I have some free time during the day to tackle a quick modification to the plastic shell with my dremel. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that I got the plastic piece completely cut out the shell could be completely removed from the chassis.  I cleaned up everything and took it back inside to remove the old power board and put the new one in.

I quickly and easily took out the old powerboard thanks to the handy removal of that plastic section that bound the shell to the hinge.

Swapped out the old power board, put the new one in, screwed it in place, and reconnected the power to the logic board, and the two CCFL backlight sets. 

Swung the chassis back on top of the screen and connected the data cable to the logic board for the display and the connection for the power sensor on the front bezel piece, plugged the thing back in to some power and tested it out.  The whole thing lit up perfectly so I finished snapping together the shell, put the mount piece back on the hinge and stem and placed it back on my desk.  I hooked my screen back up to my computer and now everything is back up and running!

The rest of this month has been rather slow.  The usual daily exercising, routine job hunting, working on the final bits of the orchestra project commissioned by Trials & Memories which can be found on facebook.  Lots of working on my novel project as well.

School should be back in session, summer is closing to its end, and my guess is if you're reading this late on a school night you're probably chatting with me on facebook!  Hope everyone enjoyed their summer.  Hopefully I'll have more buzzworthy stuff to post on here soon.

So lost, so utterly lost...

I've undertaken a huge orchestral project for a friend's band and it's got me under the mental weather...  I just stripped out my entire rough draft material I put together for their first song to move up to a full divisi orchestration.  I'm learning as I go, and spent the entire day creating custom patches, templates, and project layouts, as well as organizing how I'm going to mix it all.  There's a tall demand from the band to have a complete symphonic sound that's as realistic as possible.  While I've got an idea of what they want, I still have to write and program a lot of material in based on the chord progressions and simple movements they've brought to me for the symphonic stuff.

That brings me to this little side-note.  In the midst of all this, Monday I spent most of my day with distractions, albeit pleasant ones.  Myke's been over quite a bit because of his new job.  Also got a call out of the blue from a producer friend who invited me over to talk about an upcoming project and meet the director and founders of the production company.  Went and saw Fast Five with them, freaking loved it I must admit!  Then came back to the studio to work more on the projects and instead started this little foray into Ableton Live.  It's not a bad little DAW, but I'm already finding my Sonar workflow wanting to creep into the way I do things and learning how Ableton works differently has been quite simple...  

Now, take a listen...  I'm having fun with this track; but I seriously cannot figure out what the hell to label it as...


Downtempo symphonic electronica?  Epic electronic soundtrack music?  Scott Pilgrim, eat your heart out..?  I dunno, I give up.  Not on the song, just on trying to figure out what this song is about...

Anyway, let me share how I got where I did with this little track so far:

I always start with a drum pattern, whether it's a loop or a kit.  After I got a good drum pattern going I started searching through synths to play around in.  Nexus 2 is an awesome versatile and big sounding synth, so I pulled one up:

Dialing in a sound that sounded interesting took some time, playing with presets is only so fun, I like to dig into my synths.  I love, love, love arppeggiation and came up with a cool little 2 note riff; between the arp settings playing between octaves and some envelope on the velocity   I liked the patch but it was a bit boomy, I wanted more of a lof-fi mid-range sound so I added an EQ to the chain:

I'm a big fan of the philosophy Less is more.  I liked the idea I had going and just needed to build it.  I opened up another instance of Nexus and loaded the patch I made to tweak it into something new with more low-end control:

I changed up the arp pattern and brought in the low-end i wanted.  I liked the exposition I was establishing and kept the drums at the front of the mix to create a sense of room to build on.  There's a good vibe going on now with the 2-note rhythmic arpeggios going on, and the drum pattern.

I brought in Addictive drums to fatten up the drums and start adding more spice to the hihats, and add in crash and ride.  A nice effected kit added the thumpy lowend and an anvil/tunnel sound to the snare track got the vibe going.

Now that I have a good sound, it's time for it to go somewhere.  I brought in an instance of QuadraSID and played around until i got an interesting 8-bit throwback to chiptunes arp.  The arp is so fast moving through the triad that I played it with stacattos (stabs).

 

It made for a good breakdown, and I kept it in the next build up section, bringing back the drums and first synth, but no bass.  The track was moving now, headed straight for a chorus.  With the build up I wanted a new sound that wasn't about to completely change what I had just established, so I opened up another instance of Nexus 2 and loaded my original bass patch:

I dialed in a totally new sound with it, much more buzzy and reminiscent of 8-bit but still more up-to-date and full.  I kept the main 2-line pattern that's pretty much established the mood, and opting for a minimal change to keep it simple (the less is more factor) I added a low note at the end of every 4th bar and alternated between an 8th note and quarter note for movement.

As the chorus evolved I added in an eq in the chain to the bass to play with the amount of low, and the amount of buzz.  Notice the pinkish line that dips down half way through the track, we'll come back to that in a sec:

Playing with some automation on this track right at the 8-bit flutter breakdown just before the strings come in allows me some wiggle room in the mix.

I automated the Filter to cut-off the buzz and bring out the low-end during the rest half-way through the chorus.  The other line in the picture just 2 above is automating the volume level because of the amplitude change between the filter cutoff and original level.

I had this crazy idea for some spiccatto strings playing around in the chorus.  I don't know why.  I dropped in an instance of EW Symphonic Orchestra Strings:

I played around with it for a bit and settled into a nice run that syncopates with an 8th-note triplet moving through the minor triad and ending up in B with the bassline.  Even with 18 violins marching through the chorus it sounded a bit sparse.  To thicken up the string section I brought in another instance:

The complimentary sound of 10 Violas stacattoing below the Violins within the same octave helped fill out the string section nicely.  While the Violins stuck to a much simpler run, the Violas were hard at work on a steady 8th note rhythm bouncing through fifths into the minor 3rds and also resolving into the B note with the bass-line.

So, in about 2 hours (more time spent on tweaking synths and sound exploring than anything else) I've arrived at roughly 2 and a quarter minutes worth of track, and intend on delving further.  Let me know what you think.  and Yes, that synth at the end will take it somewhere else. :)