I met the requirements for Twitch partner as soon as THPS1+2 was released about 9 months ago, but ran into a few issues when applying since then.
Requirements for Twitch Partner:
Stream for 25 hours in the last 30 days.
Stream for 12 unique days in the last 30 days.
Reach 75 average viewers in the last 30 days.
My first atempt was applying right before an unplanned month break from streaming and twitch replied saying they wanted to see if i could maintain the viewership for longer than a couple weeks after THPS1+2 shipped.
I applied again a few months later after keeping a loose schedule of streaming twice (about 5 hours) a week , but they rejected me again saying they want to see at least 3 times or 9 hours a week.
I stuck to a strict schedule for a couple weeks then did a ~9 hour THPS4 NO STATS PLAYTHROUGH, then applied immediately after the stream ended, and they gave me partnership within 24 hours.
The content of my streams will not change! There are some things that change with my Twitch account though since June 29th:
WAY more emote slots for Tier 1, 2, and 3
More animated emotes
Purple checkmark next to my name
Access to twitchcon partner parties and partner lounge (free water and snacks hype)
Higher cut of sub revenue
If you’d like to know when I’m streaming next, check the #stream-schedule channel in the andyTHPS Community discord server.
This setup will light up an LED strip to the correlating drum as you hit them, and will also allow you to add your own variations what the lights do when you’re not hitting them.
If the bottom and sides of your pad is completely sealed off, then you’ll need to drill a hole to route the cables through.
Assembling the signal chain mostly involves plugging everything into the correct inputs on the DMX Decoder which is this guy:
This shows the DMX Decoder with 12v power connected, DMX cable connected, and 1 LED strip fully connected (4 wires). 1 more LED strip is almost fully connected (R, G, and B cables are connected but not the power which is the Black cable)
Add Power to the DMX Decoder
First, we’ll add power to the DMX Decoder.
MAKE SURE YOU ARE NOT PLUGGED INTO THE WALL DURING ANY OF THE CONSTRUCTION.
If you need to test something. Plug in the Decoder, test what you need, then unplug it when you are done. It’s not smart to connect, disconnect, or move wires around while it’s plugged in.
Using a small flathead screwdriver, begin unscrewing one “-” and one “+” power input until the hole where you will insert the wires becomes wide enough to fit them in comfortably
Insert the Red cable into the Postive (+) slot
With one hand, hold the Red Cable in place, and with the other, begin to tighten the screw at the top so the slot becomes closed and locked into place.
Do the same with the Black Cable into the Negative (-) hole
Plug in your 12v power supply into the female receptacle of the red and black pigtailed
Plug the Power Supply into a wall outlet
Does the Red light come on? If so, we have power! If not, check your connections and try again.
Connect our first LED Strip
Unplug the power from the Decoder before starting
Grab an RGB Extension cable and separate the 4 wires apart so you can use your wire stripper to strip them individually (about 1 cm from the end of each wire)
Once they’re stripped, begin inserting the wires into the correlating slots on the DMX Decoder. (Red is R, Blue is B, Green is G, Black is V)
Determine how long your drum will be from the Decoder, and add some extra wiggle room, then use scissors to cut the RGB Extension cable
Let’s connect the LED Strip to the RGB wire connector
Grab a 4 Pin LED Strip connector, open up the end that’s for the LED Strip, insert your LED strip in, and close the connector to lock it in place.
Connect the RGB Extension cable to the other end of the RGB wire connector
Grab the newly cut end of your RGB Extension cable, and just like before, separate the 4 wires apart so you can use your wire stripper to strip each wire individually (again about 1 cm from the end of each wire).
Look on the LED Strip and it’ll have labels for “V, G, R, B”
Line up your stripped wires from extension cable with the respective labels on the LED Strip into the LED Strip connector.
Insert the wires in, and close the connector to lock it in place
Test the connection to see if it works!
Plug in power to your Decoder again
Does the LED strip light up on its own?
If it did, yay!
If it didn’t, check your connections and try again.
Light up the LED strip when you hit a drum
Connect the DMX Decoder’s IN to Entec DMXIS OUT using a DMX Cable
Connect the Entec DMXIS device via USB to your computer
Register and install the software
Add a new track to your DAW and select the Entec DMXIS as a VST
Connect the Entec DMXIS to the DMX Decoder with a DMX Cable
Open up the Entec DMXIS VST and right click the first channel/fader (which would be Red) and select “Learn”
Hit a drum that you’d like to initiate the LED strip
That’s it! When you hit that same drum, it should light that LED strip up Red.
Oscillators
Open up the Entec DMXIS VST and select Channel 2 (the 2nd fader which would be Green)
Check out the bottom portion of the window under Oscillators
Turn the Oscilattor from “Off” to Sine and the LED strip should be pulsing in Green, while you could still hit the pad and have it turn red.
I won’t get too far into the details here, but you can toy with these values and combine them to get a desired result
I’ll update a bit more with some screenshots, but I want to get this out because a few friendos have asked for links to the gear list and instructions on how to do this.
Feel free to reach out to me on twitter @andyTHPS if you have any questions.
The drums were tracked July of 2016 when I first getting the hang of Logic X and the Scarlett Focusrite 18i20.
I had just put up a bunch of audimute’s absorption sheets around the room too which I totally recommend for portable sound-deadening blankets. Bye bye brown walls!:
My snare started sounding really awful and something was totally wrong 🙁
The bottom head that came with the snare when I bought it 18 years ago finally busted:
It needed wayyy more crunch.
AGH! Bought and put on a new bottom head and noticed this, AHH!!!:
The wood just started to give right under where I typically rimshot. 🙁 x 2
THE TIMING, DUKE, THE TIMING!
Luckily, this was an easy fix for Mike Henry at Houston Percussion Center, and it was sounding way better than it ever has.
Finally Ready?
Brian and I bought some cheap costume bullet belt/loop accessories, but our bullets kept falling out, and then this happened:
I laid on a nice long strip of packaging tape along the whole thing so it’d stay in place.
Luckily I had a back-up SM57 after this one:
And one more of me wrestling my bandana in between takes:
After 3 takes of drum audio and video, the drums were done. YAY!
Aside from adjusting all of the cameras, lighting, mics, compressors, DAW’s, choosing between cameras angles and the mix, we really want to do more of this kind of thing more often (Dodgeball NES Medley anyone?), so we hope you enjoy it.
The first one’s always the hardest (right?). Cheers!
If you’re reading this, you should be informed about Net Neutrality
If you’re reading this, you should be informed about what net neutrality is and why it’s so important for YOU. Kudos to all of the sites participating and everyone calling + emailing their reps.
Net Neutrality is important to me because I’ve lived in countries where the internet is censored and it’s horrible. For me as a user and for the country as a whole. I don’t want something similar in America.
Although not having net neutrality might not be exactly the same as having a Great Firewall (China) or people going to prison for ‘Liking’ criticism of the King (Thailand), it would be similar. It would result in effective censorship. I don’t want a gatekeeper of the internet. Whether corporate or government.
“The problem with net neutrality is that its going to be an ongoing fight across many countries. The companies hope we’ll get tired of fighting the same fight and wear people down until it eventuallt passes. So its not just important for net neutrality that people act against it, but also so they dont see this war of attrition as a viable strategy.”
The above College Humor video is from 2014. I remember talking about this issue in 2010. This will be an ongoing fight until it is very clear that the public make it political suicide for any politician to come out in favor of it.
We need more ads like this:
Or more like these that show what you’d have to pay for in addition to your existing internet:
Daylight, I wake up feeling like you won’t play right
I usually know but now, that shit don’t feel right
It made me put away my pride
So long, you made a nigga wait for some, so long
You make it hard for a boy like that to go wrong
I’m wishing I could make this mine, oh
If you want it, yeah
You can have it, oh, oh, oh
If you need it, ooh
We can make it, oh
If you want it
You can have it
But stay woke
Kermit’screepin’
They gon’ find you
Gon’ catch you sleepin’
Ooh, now stay woke
Kermit’s creepin’
Now don’t you close your eyes
Too late
You wanna make it right, but now it’s too late
My peanut butter chocolate cake with Kool-Aid
I’m trying not to waste my time
If you want it, oh
You can have it, you can have it
If you need it
You better believe in something
We can make it
If you want it
You can have it, aah!
But stay woke
Kermit’screepin’
They gon’ find you
Gon’ catch you sleepin’
Put your hands up on me
Now stay woke
Kermit’screepin’
Now don’t you close your eyes
But stay woke, ooh
Kermit’screepin’
They gon’ find you
Gon’ catch you sleepin’
Ooh, now stay woke
Kermit’screepin’
Now don’t you close your eyes
Baby get so scandalous, oh
How’d it get so scandalous?
Oh, oh
Baby you
How’d it get…
How’d it get so scandalous?
Ooh we get so scandalous
But stay woke
But stay woke
I received an Apple Watch as a totally unexpected, sorta-late, winter holiday gift, and here is my honest & blunt feedback (lots of “I’s” and “I’m’s” incoming).
After wearing it for a couple months, my main problems with the Apple Watch are its battery life, and limited functionality.
Pros:
I get a nice little vibration on my wrist for any notification and can check them much quicker than digging in my pocket or looking for my phone
I can reply to texts quickly by using preset responses or using text to speech.
Seems to save battery life on my phone now that it doesn’t light up for 99% of the notifications I’d normally get
Activity tracker! This is my favorite part. Apple did a great job of gamifying standing up and moving around x times per day and encouraging you to try and beat your previous day or week habits.
Makes me feel like I’m getting a lot more exercise than I’m actually doing when playing drums…
After wearing it for 24 hours I have to charge it. I really don’t want to have to charge a watch every night. This is easily the biggest turn-off (hey-ooo).
When I receive a notification from Voxer, I wish I could hear the message from my friends, and send one back much like the native phone and text apps.
Same with Snapchat notifications. Being able to see the snap on my watch would be great.
When I receive a Youtube notification, I wish I could watch the video or view the comment from the notification without using my phone.
There are 0 games that support watchOS. There are probably a handful that could/should work even on the tiny screen (flappy bird?).
0 watch exclusive apps. I can think of a few essential things that’d add to its usefulness: Leveling tool, whistle, zippo, compass
I wish I could browse the internet via chrome or safari.
This is the epitome of first world problems, but it also doesn’t recognize when i’m standing at a stand desk (haha), or anywhere i’m resting my hands while standing.
When I’m laying down, I have trouble getting the watch screen to flip on. Also happens when slouching down on the couch. Pretty frustrating.
With the amount of customization we *could have*, I have yet to find a way to display digital time along with a second counter.
Also, where’s my 1 or two touch to get to a stop watch or timer? The quickest way for me to do this now is to ask siri to do it but it seems so essential and primitive that it should be a couple clicks away (maybe I just have yet to find out how).
All in all I think it’s.. not quite where it needs to be, and I’d be better off getting a regular watch for less than $50.
I think it’s a good first step towards something I couldn’t live without, and I’m no watch designer, but it seems like I’m really hoping for another powerful iOS device that could work as a phone substitution on my wrist (without the limited functionality and battery life) as opposed to being something that aids my phone and is now *one more thing* I need to keep up with, charge, and carry around.
I haven’t worn a watch in over 10 years, but I did through ages 5-15. All of these gripes will probably be resolved through time by updates and 3rd party support, but right now, I can’t justify the price tag and charging it every night to get a glimpse of what I feel the watch should be.
I started writing this review in January 2016 when I first got it, and finished this review after I sold it on ebay in late March 2016.
I’m excited to share that my brother and I’ll be at the Your Daily Fill booth meeting students, recent graduates, and alumni for SMU Guildhall’s 2015 Fall Career Fair.
“The SMU Guildhall Career Fair, held twice a year, allows employers to speak with and interview job seekers in the senior cohort, alumni, mid-program students seeking summer internships, and eager freshmen curious about different companies.”
I met the requirements for Twitch partner as soon as THPS1+2 was released about 9 months ago, but ran into a few issues when applying since then. Requirements for Twitch Partner: Stream for 25 hours in the last 30 days. Stream for 12 unique days in the last 30 days. Reach 75 average viewers in […]
This setup will light up an LED strip to the correlating drum as you hit them, and will also allow you to add your own variations what the lights do when you’re not hitting them. Here’s the signal flow: Here’s a pic of what my kit looks like: and a video of it in action: […]
The drums were tracked July of 2016 when I first getting the hang of Logic X and the Scarlett Focusrite 18i20. I had just put up a bunch of audimute’s absorption sheets around the room too which I totally recommend for portable sound-deadening blankets. Bye bye brown walls!: My snare started sounding really awful and […]
If you’re reading this, you should be informed about Net Neutrality
By andyTHPS
If you’re reading this, you should be informed about what net neutrality is and why it’s so important for YOU. Kudos to all of the sites participating and everyone calling + emailing their reps. Here’s a quote from Reddit user /u/twoambien: Net Neutrality is important to me because I’ve lived in countries where the internet […]
Saw this floating around and have listened to it more times than I’d like to admit… https://youtu.be/_FhgEeAj9ng Daylight, I wake up feeling like you won’t play right I usually know but now, that shit don’t feel right It made me put away my pride So long, you made a nigga wait for some, so long […]
I received an Apple Watch as a totally unexpected, sorta-late, winter holiday gift, and here is my honest & blunt feedback (lots of “I’s” and “I’m’s” incoming). After wearing it for a couple months, my main problems with the Apple Watch are its battery life, and limited functionality. Pros: I get a nice little vibration […]
I’ll be at SMU Guildhall 2015 Fall Career Fair representing Epic Skater and Your Daily Fill
By andyTHPS
Click here for jobs I’m excited to share that my brother and I’ll be at the Your Daily Fill booth meeting students, recent graduates, and alumni for SMU Guildhall’s 2015 Fall Career Fair. Taken from Guildhall’s event page: “The SMU Guildhall Career Fair, held twice a year, allows employers to speak with and interview job […]
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