Hi, I'm Rusty Komori and this is Beyond the Lines. I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years and we're fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My book Beyond the Lines is about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence and finding greatness, which is what this show is all about. And we are broadcasting live from the beautiful Think Tech Hawaii TV studio in the Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. My special guest today is super talented. She is a singer, dancer, producer, and you know her as the famous actor on the hit TV show Hawaii Five-O. She is Kimi Balmelero and today we are going beyond acting. Kimi! Hi! Great to meet you. Oh, nice to meet you too. Thanks so much for having me and thanks for saying my name correctly. Well, you have to practice it a couple of times. Now, I want to know, do you know any really good medical examiners? Ooh, I know two fake ones and I can call them on my fake phone if you need them. Well, I got to say, you and Masioka are the two best medical examiners that I know of. Oh, good, thank you. Fake or real. Yeah, okay, good, good. You don't want to really meet any medical examiners because it's not a good thing for you, probably. That would be bad. Yeah. Now, Kimi, I know you went to Castle High School. Mm-hmm. Tell me about your experiences at Castle.  So, when I went to Castle, we had a program called Castle Performing Arts Center that was run by Ronald Wright. Great. So the theater arts program there was insane. I mean, I remember my freshman year, I think I had two periods of dance and then one period of drama. So, right from then, from my entire high school career, was all about theater arts. And then a little bit of student government because I wanted to plan events as well. But yeah, I had a great time and, you know, in Castle High School was very, I thought a pretty diverse environment with a lot of different, you know, Hawaii cultures and also a lot of different kind of students exploring different things. And I just felt very free there. So my experience was fantastic. And you did a lot of dancing in high school. I did, yeah. So part of Castle Performing Arts Center was Marcella Poc-Leb who runs and founded 24-7 Dance Force. I like them. Yeah, they're fantastic. And so with that, two of my, like I think it was fifth and sixth period, was dancing. So, I mean, I just had the best time and after school programming was there with doing shows with Mr. Bright and Marcello. So yeah, dancing was kind of like my sport. Now, what did you end up doing after high school? Well, after high school it was a very fast track into a professional career because while I was in high school there was a show on Broadway at the time called Miss Saigon. So, you know, it's set in the Vietnam War. So a lot of Hawaii kids, a lot of Mr. Bright kids actually got their career start with Miss Saigon on Broadway and on the national tours. So that casting office would come to Hawaii a lot to find Asian-American talent. So it was kind of a thing that Mr. Bright students and 24-7 dancers just kind of did. We just auditioned for Miss Saigon. So I auditioned the start of my senior year and then I got the call. I got hired or offered a role one month before I graduated high school. Wow. Yeah. And it was pretty amazing because I, you know, I didn't have an agent or anything. So they're calling my house phone.  And so they offered me this role and they asked me if I wanted it. And I said, of course I wanted it, but I wanted to graduate from high school first. So somehow they were very, very cool about that. And they allowed me to finish high school for that last month. And then literally the day after my high school graduation, I was on a plane to San Antonio, Texas to join the national touring company. On? Yeah. So it was kind of crazy. And then I was on tour for two and a half years and that was that was like my college. What was the first job that you've ever had in your life? Oh, my first job that I ever officially got paid for.  I was a food demonstrator at Time Supermarket. Really? Yeah. And I loved it. I actually really, you know, I like customer service stuff. I like interacting with people. I don't know if you can tell. I can tell. And I like using my hands, obviously. So yeah, I think I was maybe 14, 15 when I started that.   Yeah. So that was my first thing. Yeah. So Kimmy, how did you meet your husband, John LeBlanc? Oh, well, my husband and I, he was actually living in San Francisco at the time. And I had just moved from New York to Los Angeles. And I used to live in San Francisco. It's a funny universe because way before we met, we actually lived on the same street before we even knew each other. So I happened to be in San Francisco for a weekend for a friend's party. And they were just raving about this guy, John. They're like, oh my God, you have to meet this guy. He's hilarious and so funny. And he plays the guitar. And I was like a bit of a New Yorker at that point. So I was like, yeah, whatever. But I met him and we've been together ever since. It's been like a hundred years now. So you mentioned. I look good for a hundred and 25. Yeah. Oh, very good. Moisturizer. Yeah, moisturizer. Yeah, humidity. It does me well. Yes. So you mentioned about getting your start on Broadway. Okay. How was your experiences performing with Miss Saigon and Mama Mia? You know, I loved. I love live theater. And I also love being part of an ensemble. So with both of those shows, I was not the lead. You know, I covered the leads and not, not really. But I just because of growing up in a dance company and also doing ensemble pieces with Mr. Bright throughout high school, even from when I was nine years old, I love being part of that group. So I love the camaraderie that comes with the musical theater or live theater community. You know, while we're on stage, we get to interact with each other. We get to share the experience of telling the story to new audiences. But then backstage and after the show, we're all hanging out. And we're all, we all have the same interests. So my favorite part about being in any show really is being part of a team. Yeah. Being part of the ensemble. It's so special to be part of a team like that. It is, you know, and I think there's when you kind of have that mindset of everybody's job is important and there's no one leader or one person that is the star of the show. And I think everything just gels together so much more because we kind of have each other's back. It's our job. We talk about this and improv a lot is that it's our job to make the other person look good, not yourself. Then you don't have to worry so much because you know, everyone else kind of is watching out for you too. I like that. Good. Let's talk about another team, your Hawaii 5-0 team. Oh, yes. How did you get your start with Hawaii 5-0? Well, actually my start with the 5-0 was back at season two. So I wasn't living at home just yet, but I was home for a little bit. You know, the show was just, it was a sophomore show. And I got a little co-star role as a villain. So I wasn't able to go on the show for a while. And I was actually surprised when Rachel Sutton, the casting director of Hawaii 5-0 called me in for this part. So it was season six, I think towards the end of season six. And they were thinking about maybe introducing a new medical examiner. And they called me in. And they called me in again and actually asked me to improvise. Which I was like, okay. That's what you do. How do you improvise as a medical examiner? But you know, with all these medical terms. But I did it. You know, I felt pretty comfortable with Rachel. She's very good at creating a very safe space for her actors. And yeah, what started off as a three episode role, or what I thought was going to be a three episode role, turned into I think 11 episodes for the first season I was on. And then turned into a series regular, which has been amazing. And the team is amazing beyond the cast. The cast is of course fantastic. And also the crew, the everybody. It's just such a wonderful, wonderful space. It's a huge team. It's a huge team. There's somebody, there's a job for every little thing. And I think that's why it's such an excellent show and why it's lasted for so long. For sure. So Kimmy, what do you like about your role on Hawaii Fible? Oh, you know, my favorite thing about Noah Loney is that she's very smart. And obviously she's the same build and voice as me, which is very small. And I kind of sound like a chipmunk sometimes. So I think that I love that these bright and intelligent words are coming out of her mouth. And that she does provide that aha moment a lot for the team. So she very much is, even though she's not there finishing off or closing the case a lot of the times, she does provide a huge piece for that. And I like that she's important that way. And I actually watch my grandma, of course, like a lot of grandmas are obsessed with crime shows. So the science behind it is fascinating to me. So whenever I watch those real life, you know, like forensic files and stuff like that, I think it's the neatest, neatest job. Like you can really like criminals beware because it is very hard to get past these people.  Let's talk about Alex O'Loughlin. Yes. He's super awesome. He is. Yeah, he is. How much fun do you have with him on the show? You know, Alex is a very great person, human and artist. And you know, I think a lot of people who watch the show, of course they see him as our handsome lead and he's a fantastic actor, but he is so grounded. And I think he's big reason why the show has lasted a long time too. He is very much, he has the mindset of everybody's important as well. And he's very humble that way. So he's such a great passion for what he does, not just with acting, but with creating, with storytelling. You know, recently he just wrote and directed an episode that was like a movie.  So Alex just provides such a great, strong, grounded energy for all of us, for all of us, for all of us to really just do our best because he's always giving his 100%, no matter what. And that guy works a lot, you know, and he's been working a lot for 10 years.  He's really great. Yeah, the episodes that he directed, I absolutely loved it. It just really showcases how great all around he is. Yeah, it showcases that. And it also just kind of reminds you that, you know, like never settle. You can think, people might say like, well, he's already such a famous rich actor. Why can't he just stop there? But no, he has wants, you know, he has a passion for storytelling and sharing. So, and he would never say that he's the best at anything, which I really, really like about him too. So, yeah, so just always looking for the next thing, you know, to keep you going. I think that's really neat. Let's talk about Magnum PI. Okay.  Yeah, so many fake dead bodies. How cool is it to have that crossover between 501 Magnum? I think it's really neat that, and I've been saying neat a lot. I think it's awesome. Let's go to my other 80s vocabulary. I think it's totally tubular that Peter Lenkoff, our executive producer and showrunner decided to make these two worlds exist in the same space. Because the Hawaii 50, Hawaii is already so established that it would make sense, of course, to have another piece. And I think it was wise also because the characters, you know, Hawaii is like really the big star of the show in both of them. For sure, yeah. So, to see both teams kind of playing in that same space is really, really cool.  Oh, yeah. And he's always coming in and asking for favors and always bribing her with food, which is something I would probably also take. I would definitely take. But I think, yeah, it's really fun, you know. Everyone, both casts and both teams are really fun to work with. And I think it's fun for the fans, too, to see everybody in this space. Lucky thing, you're the state's top medical examiner. Yeah. They need you. I guess so. And I pray for more fake bodies. Kimmy, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to continue going beyond acting. Yay! You are watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii with my special guest, Kimmy Balmellaro. We will be back in 60 seconds. Hi, guys. I'm your host, Lillian Cumick from Lillian's Vegan World. I come to you live every second Friday from 3 p.m. And this is the show where I talk about the plant-based lifestyle and veganism. So we go through recipes, some upcoming events, information about health, regarding your health, and just some ideas on how you can have a better lifestyle, eat healthier, and have fun at the same time. So do join me. I look forward to seeing you. And Aloha. Aloha. My name is Wendy Lowe. And I want you to join me as we take our health back. On my show, all we do is talk about things in everyday life in Hawaii or abroad. I have guests on board that will just talk about different aspects of health in every way, whether it's medical health, nutritional health, diabetic health. You name it, we'll talk about it. Even financial health. We'll even have some of the Miss Hawaii's on board. And all the different topics that I feel will make your health and your lifestyle a lot better. So come join me. I welcome you to take your health back. Mahalo. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My special guest today is the super talented actor on Hawaii 5-0, Kimi Balmalero. And today we are going beyond acting.  Yes. Tell me about Improv. Oh, you know, Improv is something I've always loved. You know, I think I was first introduced to it as theater games. Yeah. Growing up maybe with Mr. Bright. And you know, what I love about it is that there's no real wrong or right answer because you're literally making things up right then and there. And the other cool thing is when you're doing Improv comedy because comedy is so subjective, when you do something and maybe it doesn't work, I mean, you're dealing with failing quote unquote failing all the time, which is really good for somebody, you know, to kind of accept that failure and move on, make a new choice. It's actually a game called New Choice and Improv that we just have to like get back up on our feet. So yeah, I just, I just love, I've always loved it. And when I moved home eight years ago from Los Angeles, I wanted to continue doing what I was doing in LA, which was sketch comedy to Improv. So even though Improv had already existed here for a really, really long time, I found a little space for me to kind of be part of that community. And it's been really fantastic. And for the last two years, you directed the gridiron play at the Diamondhead Theatre. How do you find time? Well, you know, I think I find time because I want to, I want to do it. Someone asked me about that. Like, gosh, you must be so tired.  Yes, especially after a big event. But my, my drive comes from really just loving everything that I do. Like even if I look at the hundreds of projects that I've done, every single one, I don't regret doing. So gridiron is very special because, you know, it's such a long tradition here in Hawaii and there's, you know, huge fans. I mean, this show sells out really quickly. So I, I really enjoy working with the material that they give me and the writers, the actors, they're not all performers. You know, we have some ringers in there, like a Kathy Foy and a Shannon Wynpenny, but a lot of them are, you know, they're, they're doing their full-time job as writers and anchors and reporters. And then they come to do the show. So I just have so much fun with everybody doing that gridiron show. So. Well, I know a bunch of the actors and they just absolutely said that they love Kimmy. Aw. Yeah. I love them. Love of love. Yeah. Kimmy, in my book, Beyond the Lines, I talk a lot about creating a superior culture of excellence, which is what you have. And I also talk about mindset and perspective. As an actor, have you heard the word know a lot? Oh, yeah. As an actor, you hear the word know more than you hear yes. I think everybody, you know, you look at my IMDB or look me up and you see all of my successes. But with all of that, I've had at least, I don't think I'm being crazy of saying like maybe a thousand no's.  So, if with acting, what keeps me going and keeps me kind of knocking on these doors and wanting to, you know, be part of this business is because I want to. And you have to accept that those no's all the time.  So, but if you know what your endpoint is and why you're doing it, you always need to know your why. Why did I even step in this door? Why did I even take this headshot? Why did I even, you know, want to become an actor-producer? As long as you go back to that, you'll keep going. So those no's are kind of like, okay, that really did suck. Some of them are harder to get over than others. But if your why is still strong, then you'll keep going. Makes sense. Yeah. Be resilient. Be tough. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Now, I want to know, Kimmy, how you define success. Oh, that's a good question. I think success to me is happiness. I think success is different for others, you know. Success could be having a really big family. Success could be running an empire, you know. It could be as simple as getting up and walking that day, you know. So I think anything that makes you feel really good is a success. Something that you feel like, I did that. You know, I did that. That was my choice. I'm a successful person at this moment. So I think when you hear that word, there's a lot of pressure that's around it, right? Yeah. Success means a lot of money.  But no, success is whatever you define it. So it's more internal. I think so, yeah. Yeah, I like hearing that. Yeah. Now, let's talk about adversity. What's an adversity or a challenge that you had in your life that you have to overcome? Well, you know, kind of going back to the acting world, we're trained almost to wait for someone else to tell us to work. So there was a point in Los Angeles where I wasn't working for a very long time. And I was literally just like waiting around for someone to tell me, OK, time for you to do what you do. And my husband was the one that said, like, why are you waiting around for someone else to tell you to work? Why don't you just create your own thing? And that was such a huge light bulb moment for me. And it kind of, like, spiraled into what is happening now is the challenge of not working, of waiting around. And really, when you can create your own thing, starting now, anything you want to do, I'm sure you're familiar with him, the guy that started CD Baby, Derek Sivers, he has a great video on YouTube talking about starting small. So even if you want to run, let's say, a shopping mall, which was also one of my dreams as a kid, but morning to run a shopping mall, you get so pressured thinking, oh, I need to raise the money and find a building and whatever, whatever. And really, you can start the shopping mall, it's your house, maybe just start with a little bit of product or start online or something. And that's how you're going to get to your end goal. So yeah, the challenge of not working and then just creating my own space and creating the things I wanted to do is how I got over it. It's being proactive and making it happen. Yep, absolutely. And little things matter because they lead to big victories. Yeah, totally. That's what you want to do at that moment. Yeah. Kimmy, what's a valuable lesson you learned in life? A valuable lesson I learned in life? Gosh, I think being yourself, and I'll always go back to acting, you can get a little twisted in the head sometimes when you're going in for these roles and, oh, I didn't get it because you're too short or you didn't get it because you're not Filipino-looking enough, like, literally have heard that before. So being yourself, though, is always something that you have.  So always kind of holding on to what makes you special, you know, and believing in that. Be real. Being real, yeah. Okay.  You know, I'm inspired by anybody that starts something, that creates their own thing. Like, the first person when you ask me that, that pops in my head is, like, Lin Manuel Miranda. You know, he created Hamilton in the Heights. So he, you know, he's a Latin American actor, playwright, rapper, but when he started, there was no, there were no big roles for him. So instead of saying, like, oh, well, I guess that's it. He created his own thing and look at him now.  He believed in himself. He started small and he is now Lin Manuel Miranda. I don't necessarily have to explain who that is to a lot of people. Yeah, for sure. So I'm inspired by anybody, even if it's a 10-year-old who started their own, you know, Slime Instagram channel, you know, that's just doing something that they love and just really, really owning it, you know, creating that space for themselves. Who's an actor that you admire? Oh, gosh, an actor that I admire. You know, I love, the first person that pops up is, in my head is Goldie Hahn. Oh, yeah. I always kind of just loved her. I loved how feminine she was, but also still really silly and how she could still look gorgeous, super flustered. I mean, I like a lot of people. I love Tina Fey, of course. I'm a huge fan of hers. She's another person that kind of creates her own thing. Yeah, so, yeah. That's so good to hear. I like hearing insights like that. Yeah. So, Kimmy, I want to know what do you feel is most important in life? I think self-care. You know, self-care and family or, and when I say family, I don't necessarily mean you're immediate. Of course, that's great too, but I guess creating a nice grounded circle and supportive support system around yourself to me is really important because as busy as you get and as crazy as our dreams get, we still need to kind of come back to zero or come back to one and stay grounded. Again, on that why and why you started it and who you're doing it for, whether it's yourself or if it's for to support everyone around you. So I think just staying grounded and being real and tapping out when you have to. I think that's the most important. I think there's several answers to that. But self-care is very, very important like napping when you have to. Like, you know what, today is not the day or maybe this is not the week for me to accomplish anything and that's okay too. So really, really watching out for yourself that way I think is very important. Staying healthy and having balance. Yes, yes, thank you. You wrap that up really quickly. I have a lot of words. I like when you have a lot of words. Kimmy, what gives you fulfillment? Oh, wow. Tough one, huh? Yeah, that is a tough one. I think it changes. I mean, again, like I'm kind of a day-to-day person.  Is that a real thing to an answer for that question? That's a real thing. Yeah. And again, that happiness changes. It could be my espresso in the morning, you know? That's really lovely, you know what I mean? Or it could be, you know, ending a festival, a three-day festival. That can be really exciting for me, too. So I think I'm fulfilled when I feel accomplished. And also, oh no, here. Here's one superpower that I've realized since moving home is actually creating spaces for other artists because I have been very blessed in my career and I love being home now and being surrounded by other local talents that are just looking for that extra kind of push. So like through improv or through the Conry Festival. Mentoring.  Here you go. Here's a stage for 15 minutes. Yeah. Do your thing. So I feel fulfilled not only doing my own thing, but also watching other people fulfill their dreams. I love hearing that. Kimmy, it was a pleasure having you on the show today. Oh, thank you so much for having me. That was a lot of fun. I loved hearing your insights about stuff. Yay. I'm very proud of what you're doing in Hawaii. Oh, thank you. And I'm sure all of Hawaii is totally proud of you as well. Oh, thank you. Well, I'm proud to be from Hawaii. Yeah. Thank you, Kimmy. Thank you. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my book is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that Kimmy and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.


episode of John Park's workshop. You are right here with me in the workshop. Thank you so much for stopping by today. We have people over in our chat that I'd love to say hi to. Thanks for stopping by in our YouTube chat, BladeWire, Dave Odessa, Johnny Bergdahl. Welcome one and all. And then, of course, everyone over in our Discord chat. If you're not... Oh, that's not the Discord chat. Let me fix that right now. If you're not aware of it, we've got a Discord chat over at adafruit.it slash discord. And if you jump in there, you can head over to the live broadcast chat channel and hang out during a show or check one of the many other channels anytime during the day. I think there's something like 30,000 members of our Discord, which is tremendous. And okay, I'm going to have to actually re-add this. Hold on. This thing decided to go kaput. If you're wondering where the chat is and you are somewhere else like, let's say, Twitch or Facebook, and it doesn't seem like anyone's around, that is, because I don't look at all those chats. I try to keep it mostly in one place, so the Discord is a good bet. All right, here we go. There's the Discord drop down. There you are. There it is. Hey, let me slide that over to the side. That's the Discord right there. Go check that out. Let me finish shooping it up there. Oh, yeah. So you can see our channels there listed on the left. I have not practiced my Swedish since the last time. I haven't been back to Ikea. I don't know where else to practice Swedish in Los Angeles. Probably there's somewhere. All right, so that was a long way to say check out our Discord, but at least now I've got it up on the screen there. So hello to Thin Man, C Grover, Johnny Bergdahl, Andy Calaway, Jin Hendrickson, and more some nice. Hello, welcome. Let me grab a sip of water here. Try to stay hydrated. Can see nothing. Oh, that's because I never hit this button. Thank you. I added it to my preview monitor and never shot it over to the actual output. Thank you for the heads up. Thank you. Charles Bernerford also caught that. Appreciate that. Give that a second and that'll show up. Anytime I add windows and things mid-broadcast, I need to remember to manually shoot them over to the output. But there it is now. Okay, so what have we got going on today? We have a packed show, a bunch of cool stuff I want to do, including I have a coupon code for you to get some savings at the Adafruit store. I've got a product pick of the week recap. I've got Circuit Python Parsec for you in the continuing series of the Circuit Playground library stuff. I have a little tool tip that I want to give, tool recommendation. And then I've got continuing work on our ambient machine project, including I'd like to show you how I'm going to create some of the looping ambient sounds that will be played on it. So those will be samples. We'll talk a little bit about sample stuff. I may actually do a combination of samples and synthesized sounds using Synth.io. And I'll also talk about some issues that I was running into. I'll give you some examples of the issues I was running into and why I'm now considering smaller samples plus synth stuff. Todd, no, not ambient machine. We need to get hype. Come on. All right. The discount for you, the coupon code today, is that right there? Looper.  There's an example product. But if you go to products and then over new products, view all, you can find some cool new stuff here or go to products categories, click shop categories, view all and look for some stuff. Is this record still available? Look at that, $2.99. I don't know if discounts apply to that on sale stuff. Do they? They may. You can't lose. If I keep clicking on this, someone's gonna buy it. I wonder how many we have left in stock. Cool vinyl pressing there of the Bartlebeats album frequency. I love those songs.  Type that in right there. Looper. And that will get you 10% off. It's good until midnight East Coast United States time today. And then it will turn into a pumpkin and go away. But that coupon code is good for the day. So no hurry, no rush. But if you think of some stuff or if you see me talking about some things here on the show today and you go, oh yeah, that actually reminds me. I want some parts to build an ambient machine. Then maybe go do that and get yourself 10% off today. All right. So next up, I've got this show that happens on Tuesdays. It's the product pick of the week show. On it I pick a new thing and show you how it works and give you a big huge discount. That was the new one this week. A hot one, a really cool one. We sold a bunch of these and I'm excited to see the kinds of projects people do. And when I do one of these, I also like to make a little one minute version that you can enjoy later. So here it is. It is the prop maker feather RP 2040. This is an all in one solution. So this is the micro controller right there. You can see it's the RP 2040. And this then has the onboard accelerometer. It has a neopixel driver. It has the I2S amplifier. We have an input for a button. And one of the things you'll notice is that we now have built onto here a really nice neat set of screw terminals. No soldering required. This has the prop maker feather wired to it. I have a servo speaker and I have a neopixel strand and all of that is just screwed right in and sweeping of the servo here. Rainbow neopixels running here. And then I have a button, some plug in wiring that will allow me to adjust color of the neopixels. It is the prop maker feather RP 2040. Yes, it was. A cool one right there. So let's see. What else? You know what? Without any further ado, let's jump into this week's, how do you say circuit python parsec? Okay, we're looking good. I think we have it. Let's do this. For the circuit python parsec today, I wanted to show you how you can use the light sensor inside of the circuit playground library. Circuit playground library makes it really easy to use your circuit playground blue fruit or your circuit playground express with really high level commands. In this case, I want to use the little onboard light sensor. And what you can see here is if I take a flashlight and shine this at my, uh oh, did it, did it break? Let's, let me, let me, let's see. Let's see what's broken. If it's the connection, there we go. That looks like it's working. Okay. So what was I saying? Oh, let me bring up, I got two code windows here. All right. So what I'm going to do is take my little flashlight here and shine it at the little light sensor that's built onto the circuit playground. And you can see as I increase and decrease the amount of light hitting that, we can plot that value right here in the moob plotter. If I open up the serial output, you can see we have these units. They're not any particular unit. They're not lux or nits or anything like that. But they are, I think zero to 320 is the range of the type of light sensing that we output using this library and circuit python. It's an analog read internally. I think it, it varies in Arduino versus like a circuit python with the ranges that you'll see. But you can see here, I'm just simply measuring that and outputting a value and then plotting it to the graph. Now, if you take a look at my code, the way this works, the simple demo works, really all I've got to do is import from Adafruit circuit playground. I'm importing CP, that's the circuit playground library. And that means I have access to everything on board, including CP dot light. That's all you need to do. If you ask for the value of CP dot light, it returns that value. Now, if I want to do something a little bit snazier here, what I'm going to do is take that value and turn it into a sort of light meter using neopixels. So you can see here, we've got one neopixel lit up. If I take my flashlight and shine it at the circuit playground, blue fruit, we're getting a little meter there. I'm going to turn this to a less bright setting on my flashlight. That helps for you to see those. You can see that those neopixels are lighting up based on the read. And in this case, it's the same thing. I'm just simply getting that CP dot light value, but I'm turning it into a remapped value that can tell the neopixels zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine, whether or not they're going to light up. And then depending on that peak value, we go ahead and set those in this case to a red at 40, zero, zero. And then when they're not at that value, we set them back down to zero so that they kind of erase as we go backwards. And so that is how you can use the circuit playground library circuit. Yes, that is how you can use the circuit playground library inside of circuit Python to read the onboard light sensor. And that is your circuit Python Parsec. I am always amazed about getting through saying circuit playground and circuit Python so many times in a row without my mind breaking. It's not easy. All right, so let's see. Next up, let's do a little bit of a tool tip. And in this case, it's a it's a gear recommendation. The other day I was talking to our good friend Steve Denke Otto, okay, you're on, he goes by many names. You'll see him in the chat sometimes. Steve is a among other things, a synthesizer builder. He creates various cool sound computers and synthesizers and MIDI things. And he was wondering about the threading on his device, which I put away. I don't have it right here right now. But there are some parts. They're actually the quarter inch jacks. So for this type of quarter inch plug, there are four of them on the back of Steve's shield XL product. And he was wondering about what the thread pitch is. And so he said, do you have a gizmo for that? Because you can get out some calipers and measure the distance between a couple of threads, particularly for the threads per inch. But there's also another way of looking at thread that's thread pitch, which is sort of a relationship to the to the type of screw or bolt that you're measuring. So I've got a gizmo. Let me go over to the bench cam here. And I don't need to use this very often. But when I do, it is definitely the right tool for the job. So let's switch, switch that upper camera there. Sorry about that. To that one there. There we go. So this thing is called a 28 blade, 456 and 0.5 to six millimeter screw pitch gauge. And that's what it looks like right there. It is a multi tool type of gauge similar to a feeler gauge. If you've got one of those if you run across those. And this has both a metric and an imperial units to it there. Steve's turned out to be 20 pitch. So sorry, I don't have it here for a demo. I can grab some other other screw. It was where to go that one right there. And so you can see what you do is just simply press that up against a threading that you're trying to determine. And you can see which one fits best. That's probably your threading. So here's a an example on this screw. If I try that, I don't know how close I can get. Sorry, that's about as close as I can get there. I don't know if I can get the closest I can focus right about there. So basically you're looking for space. So this is not 20, not 28 might be 32. And then what I'll do depending on the screw is go and check both the imperial and the metric side. So that's it. Now you can also find sometimes in hardware stores, especially for larger bolts and fittings for plumbing and gas and air fittings, they'll have a little board that you can screw your bolt or screw or fitting into if you're unsure. And you just kind of find the one that it fits into right. There are also whole gauges for diameter. But these are really nice because they're really specific to different pitches of thread that you have. And I got this one at a specialty store. You can probably get them online. I got it at essentially a bolt and screw and bolt and related tools type of store. Made in USA by I have no idea whom. There's no name on the little package anymore here if there ever was one. But that number might show up with something if that's a part number there. So that is my tool tip is the screw pitch gauge. Right. So let's see. What's going on? Are we all good? Yeah. Okay. So moving along then I wanted to get into the ambient machine project. So you can see it over there hanging out. That's the ambient machine. So last week I talked about using these little Ikea drawers, these Baltic birch drawers that come in a thing called Mope, which is a drawer set that has three small, two medium and one large in a nice case. Looks like this here. And by the way, I noticed this morning I was watching one of the Arduino Uno REV4 announcements. And there's a moment where Massimo Banzi is sitting in front of a stack of about 10 of those. So someone in the Arduino offices built themselves a sort of chest out of a bunch of those. I'm not sure. Maybe they drilled them together or bolted them or something. So what I've done since, and I can't remember, sorry, I can't remember for last week. I might have already done that drilling out there. I used the laser cutter to make it nice and fast. You could use a drill and a drill template, which I'll, I'll, John Bergdahl says, I hear you've been practicing. I don't know. So this will be something that you can make with or without a fancy CNC controlled laser. You can you can drill out some holes, 20 holes pretty, pretty evenly. If you use a starter, tape a template to it and use a, make a little starter hole before you drill. And then this wouldn't be a much, much more painful to do by hand, but I made a little grill for the speaker. And so I'm placing a smaller box inside the bigger box to essentially house the electronics and the speaker. So you can see behind there, I've got a speaker screwed on there. And I'll show it in more detail under that camera over there. I've put 10 of the switches on this will, this will take 20 switches. And I'm using an IO expander to read those over I square C. And right now what's in there, let's take a look. And then I'll, and then I'll talk about some of my issues I've bumped into and some potential ideas. So let's get back over here. By the way, one of the things that I did with this for both the holes on the front and the speaker grill is I do a test cut in cardstock. I like to do this so that I'm not wasting real material. It's very fast. It's a couple minutes to make that cut here. And it's probably four or five times that once you're moving the laser slower to cut through some some chipboard or mat board like that. So that I can then do a reality check. I've got another one of these here. A reality check on before I commit to the material there. So I set this upper left corner distance as the upper left corner of the cut. So everything there should line up. Another thing I found very useful with this is having the multiple drawers gives you a kind of nice work surface when you start screwing in those switches. So let's see. You can't really set that down on its face once you screw those through. But I made the pattern small enough to fit inside of the small size one. Since I knew I'd have that back box for the sound resonator. So if I flip one of these like this you can actually set it on that as a little stand which is nice. So what I've got inside of here is not put together. It's just kind of shoved together. But you can see here I've got my speaker and I made the pattern here fit the mounting holes of the speaker. Little ears on the on the speaker there. And I'm just using some M3 I think they are or M2.5. I can't remember. This won't be M2.5 screws with nuts on the back of them. And then I've got a long set of wires running from the speaker to my electronics here which is set like that. Make it a little easier to see. So this is a screw terminal block on the amplifier that's an I2S amplifier mono output. I have not adjusted the gain on this. I think I'll probably end up gaining that up and that's a bridging of some of the pins on there that adjusts the gain on this one. I have a group of temporary wires here for a lot of things. So I'm in that sort of basically breadboarding stage. So I'm using the Metro M7 which has these female header pins in it so I can use these jumper wires. So I put header pins on my amplifier. Header pins on my SD card here. You can see I'm using a little right angle USB-C adapter just so the cable isn't poking too far out. Running the USB wire through this notch that's built into the moped handle drawer pull. And then I've got this IO expander. This is the MCP 23017. This has what is it 16 or 14? Is it 14? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Yeah, 16 pins. So almost enough on its own for this. I didn't want to do a diode matrix. I wanted to make this as plug and play as possible with this little soldering. And so I'm going to use two of these. So it's I2C. I will just daisy chain a second one. And so I'll have my first two rows of five on one and a second two rows of five on another. That'll make the code nice and simple. I could use 16 of them on this and then four of them on available GPIO. And you could do that too if you didn't want to spend the money on a second one of these. I can't remember. I think these are maybe in the six or $7 range. It's a banana, Michael. What could it cost? $10? And so you could do that, but your code will then have to deal with the fact that some of your I.O. is coming from reading this little I2C expander and some is direct. No problem. You can do that in code, but for learned God purpose is going to try to keep it simple. It means you could also expand it up to 32 if you wanted to do a similar project with 32. You'd have all the I.O. built right onto there. And then you can see here I've got some arcade button cabling that we sell, which I've cut the JST connectors off the ends. They're all using a daisy-chained ground. So each one of these pairs, and you get a 10-pack of them, so that's 20 of these, which is exactly the number you need if you get one pack of these. Each of these are just terminal spades plugged into and not soldered to these switches. Again, it just made assembly easier, so I can pluck those all off. And then I ran a single ground chain to them and have just one ground wire running. So that's what it's looking like inside. Let me double check the chat to see if we've got any questions.  That's partway to an ambient machine, for sure. You can also see here I've got this connected to one of our little metal grids, swirly grids using nylon M2.5 standoffs that makes it easy to get this contained. Otherwise, there's a bunch of parts just rattling around in there. So I may add a couple of holes to the bottom here so that that fits in or some other attachment method to this, again, just using these direct. So one of the things that I've got going on here is this SD card reader. So this is the SD card breakout that works over SPI. I'll flip this around so you can see that. This is the bottom side and that just has to do with the direction I happened to have put my header pins on there. So this is the microSD breakout used with SPI or SDIO. So we can't use SDIO on the Metro M7. My plan was to put my wave files for sample playback on the SD card and then be able to play them with with combinations of these switches, different samples. However, since we're not using SDIO, the speed that we can stream the wave files off of here seems a bit too slow for our needs. If I get more than about three of those playing at the same time, it really starts to chug and stutter and sound weird. So I'll demonstrate that for you. I'll also show you one possible solution I'm looking at which is forget the SD card. I can make small enough samples because they loop to just put onto the flash memory on the M7. Potentially do some SynthIO and some samples so that I can have bigger samples on the available space. And then there was also a suggestion. I think Tyeth in the chat was talking about this earlier and Lamora mentioned it to me yesterday and Dan Halbert did about upping the SPI bus speed for this purpose to its max. So whatever its default is, is not, I think it's what, 30 kilohertz? 30 megahertz? One of those probably doesn't make any sense at all. 30 something is I guess the maximum speed we should be able to do which is faster than the default. So I want to try that and maybe in the chat Tyeth or anyone else who has experience with that can see if I'm doing it right if we can get any improvement there. So what I'm going to do though is I'm going to bundle this up and all I really want to do is get that USB cable there out the side. By the way one of the things I may do is add a USB panel mount USB port right here so that we can power it from USB and maybe a power switch on the back but for now I've just got a internal cable in there that will be able to plug into power and data when we're using it. So let's 30 miles per hour that's it mouse. Mega pixels? Okay so what I want to do is some stuff out of the way here plug this in see if it's working. Okay it makes sound that's good so let me get a camera figured out here.  Let's look at this view of the world okay that should be good and bright and then let me get just a I don't need that plotter anymore and I will remember to push these changes over to the live view like so and let's open up oh god please tell me it didn't just save auto save oh I have multiple crossing fingers okay so that's the code that's running on here and I'm going to take this cabinet mic and set it here so hopefully you can hear that so tell me how this sound mix is so you should be hearing me still talking as well as zero zero zero zero this goes with Yanescu's GIF pretty well actually so I'll turn that off for a moment and wait for streaming to catch up with the chat so you can tell me how that how that sounds how that works zero zero zero okay good so I'll leave it at that so right now what I have is that is playing off of internal flash so what I'm going to do is I'm going to put this back to sd card let me open up a terminus okay so you can see here uh first thing code does is it checks that directory and lists the contents which are wave files named bot num zero one through ten and I think what I'll do is set the okay so so let's let's tell it to open up just one wave file okay sounds pretty good uh now I'm going to say okay open up two so it's going to open up the one this that says zero and the one this is one uh these by the way made my life a lot easier with this and I think a previous project where I wanted to know which switches I was doing and not try to remember oh this bird call was was the first switch and this car horn was the second and and so on so um I generated these little uh machine vocoder machine or sample voices uh synthesized voices uh so you'll notice right now if I flip switch three four and so on uh I can tell the switch is gone but I'm not loading up enough voices to play those um so let's go to four voices so you can hear it is having trouble it is stuttering and it is slower now you'll notice there's no difference between the just playing one by itself or playing two three of them together in the sense that they're all playing all the time I'm just using the mixer the the circuit python audio mixer to turn up the gain or down so I can turn on three of these okay so let's go let's be bold I've got 10 switches here I've got 10 samples that's everyone right okay so that's not going to cut it uh so one of the suggestions uh and let me answer a question pen pen go ask what kind of sample rate are those waves so these are uh mono 16 kilohertz samples I'm going to open one up in a second to take a look at everything we can about the file uh they uh are probably around where we want them and so the the the issue is if I take these and run them off of flash memory instead of sd it's kind of doing what I want so now there's 10 loaded that I hit save let me hit save uh I didn't change what I thought I changed sorry here we go so this is where I'm telling it to grab off of uh local flash storage instead of sd so you can hear it's playing it back what sounds like just fine to me and there's 10 of them loaded I love it obviously during testing purposes this is not a soothing ambient machine it is a nightmare box but that's okay so that's uh that's possible and so one of the questions is if I'm playing it off of sd card um let's see I'm doing let's do yeah we'll leave it at 10 off of sd card uh this was the default spi bus speed and my question is am I properly adjusting the uh uh speed of the spi bus in this configuration here so this was based on just looking at some of our uh I think there's a guide from lemore on spi uh bus and so this by the way to go up to the top here uh this is using sd card i o uh the sd i o i o is the super fast one that runs on I think maybe just the rp 2040 maybe some others as well um but will not run on the m7 um and I don't think it's going to so if i'm trying to use sd card with sd card i o um is this the proper way to try to boost the speed so here's here's what it sounds like with the straight up um straight up default let that save and then this is the attempt to boost the speed so let's see uh 30 megahertz spi sd card pa says pen pangu sd card config sd config set see it's pen 17 sd configs spi speed hmm um so tyeth do you know or anyone else know in circuit python if this looks correct uh for trying to adjust the speed you can you can see if i reduce the speed by orders of magnitude i thought i had gotten it to do stuff so maybe this isn't working right now that's sounding the same i thought i had i had found ways to adjust that let's see oops what about uh let's see so c grover said i can double check the bus frequency to do print spi dot frequency let's do that hey have my changes not been happening oh why is that oh close this why am i not seeing that frequency let me get let me get rid of uh actually i'm asleep let's just hold up a second here it is not printing that why is that is it because i'm not creating sd card yet that is why okay let's do it right here oops why does it not want to print that i'm going to get rid of this uh other print hold on i'm going to just clear the uh disco tool session there restart that i'll also add some uh text to that print spi frequency that is mysterious why won't it uh anek data says to verify the speed of particular device on the spi bus the code needs to be in its context while it has the bus oh i see so that's not in the right context apparently huh uh and and then someone else said sd card i o dot sd card takes an argument for the speed okay well i'm going to shut that mystery down there for a second uh and i can do it here so sd card sd card so spi cs and then baud rate all right baud rate equals 30 underscore zero zero underscore zero zero zero zero well that makes it a lot easier to see let's try that yeah uh that's a good question uh c grove cedar grove why was that in italics that's really bizarre right is that happening anywhere else it is oh that's just uh this editors cute little trick there yeah freak me out too i don't usually use this one okay so if i'm setting it down here don't need that up there now let's try changing this can it go lower and remain the same that definitely sounds weird okay so if that's at 30 000 and i believe that is what dan or uh 30 yeah i think that's what dan said was the max we can try to be optimistic and just bump it up nope all right so i think that's our max so it seems to me unless someone um has any other ideas about this using sd card i o uh with that bus maxing out there i think that's not going to work so uh like i said it's okay because i can play these off of local flash and these are actually in this case currently very small files um pen pango said it worked over 60 000 all right let's see go back up here 120 sounds like a good number i don't think that's any different i don't think so feels like that's where it's um so i think pen pango this may be related to the board i don't know if you're trying this on a metro m7 um but that may be our limit on that uh but like i said if i just play these off of flash uh as long as i can cram them into there so i want to have 20 samples let's say uh or maybe 16 and save four buttons for uh for some other interface things um this may do it and so oh yeah and that's a good point i am using a pretty miserable sd card and i definitely need to try like with a good one um i didn't i wasn't using a good card in there and that that's such a basic thing i should have thought that sooner um card card speed can vary so much with trying to stream waves um so i will try that but uh what i want to do either way is talk about um making my sounds for this making my looping sounds so what i'll do is i'm gonna put this off to the side and thank you for your active participation in helping me determine if i was doing the uh speed thing properly how to do that because i didn't know all right so i'm gonna mic this little oh tithes's need to adjust the bus iosp frequency via configure inside the try lock all right i'll try that i'm willing let's do it sorry i know there's a little bit of a lag here between when you see stuff and when stuff happens in the chat when i do them so i might miss miss your suggestion okay okay so let's see if we go back to sd card uh adjust the bus spi frequency does this look right so i'm creating a bus iosp i on board zero clock we so mo see uh while not so waits to uh to lock it then i configure that speed and then uh unlock it so that's that's one version of this let's uh save that again so tithe does that look right does that look like i am setting my baud rate properly inside of the locked uh bus i o or was it spi frequency and not configure and what is that uh equal i do this no so maybe that was a configure and baud rate is that right so we'll set the bus to 60 and baud rate in the sd card so both hey sounds the same uh tithe said spi frequency of three one two five zero zero zero zero is that this three one two five zero zero zero three one two five seems about the same to me um so i'm not sure if it makes a enough of a difference uh yeah frequencies read only attributes you can just ask for it that is weird that i didn't want to print it huh let's let's try it right here print spi frequency it really doesn't want to print that it's the weirdest thing does it not print during lock i don't know uh okay i'll wait a moment here uh in case anyone has before i pull it pull this uh apart see if anyone has any other thoughts yeah looks it does sound about the same right okay so let's move on then uh let's assume i'm going to get the sounds i want on to flash memory um can i print that print the spi objects nothing wants to print only the only the wave list um okay i'll stop newly with that now right there that was it officially i'm going to unplug this here we go i'm sure someone will come up with the answer actually i'll leave it plugged in uh so let's talk about this though so one option we have is to just fit what we can on flash uh another kind of cool option would be boots up it plays uh it loads up my samples maybe a mix of samples in synthio um as a set that's stored on s on sd card moves that to flash memory and then plays from that and then we could maybe just configure one you know one through five whichever of those is on during startup it could go and grab that that'd be kind of neat kind of a cool bonus feature um so either way what i need to do is create some nice sounding loops not this robot saying zero uh we're done with that guy so i'm gonna go ahead and unplug this now um we'll we'll proceed as if i'm whoops there goes that camera we'll proceed as if i'm ignoring um the sd card issues and what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna mic up this little external amplifier and do one of or a couple of these sounds and show you how this works and actually i may i may do the full um process of getting these over to um the device here so what i wanted to show you here is um do that one yeah here is vcv rack uh and you know i love this one because it's a uro rack modular synthesizer that is free you can buy some modules these are all free modules that i'm using here um it's open source and in this case these most these modules are a virtual version of real existing modules that i like to use in real life so the hardware modules from mutable instruments are represented here as free modules um so turn this up and sorry i just realized some of my the last batch there where i was playing the input of that mic was a little quiet so a little spookier than i want to go in the end but um let's maybe noodle with this a little bit i'm gonna get this a little lower pitched and let me turn back the feedback yeah in fact let's do this let's get rid of most of that spookiness um this isn't crazy soothing but it's a start of something that's maybe just like a plucked string sound um i won't go too much into what i have happening here because that's its own thing but i'll say um short version of it is this first module on the left here this is a module called marbles in the real world it's a random um rhythm and pitch generator even though it says random sampler that's kind of a confusing name to be on there uh and i have a wire a little cable running from a pretty regular clock beat there um i'm gonna actually make that a little less regular so you can see sometimes it fires sometimes it doesn't there's a little chance that this t2 here uh or rather t3 output will or won't play uh and i can bias that so it's only skipping it every once in a while uh and then on the right here this one labeled x2 this is sending out different pitch information um i can run that into this next module here so this next module is being triggered by that t and its pitch is changing based on some random pitches selected within a scale and a small range and then i can do other adjustments to that sound design and while i'm doing that i'll sorry i'll have that uh be a regular strike bell like uh and then i'm going into this one called clouds uh which does a little bit of granular and reverb types of things uh depending on how much i blend between the original dry sound and the wet sound will get a very different result i'm gonna add a little reverb back in feedback okay like that uh and then the output of that i happen to be sending to a equalizer eq filter uh so we're listening to just the low pass uh filtered version of it so i'm cutting out a lot of high end stuff just because i want it to be a little uh richer lower end if i adjust that for a second uh this has all the frequencies represented if i go through that filter i'm just adjusting which frequencies are emphasized and which are kind of removed uh so what i'll do now is uh record that so if i come into this module down here uh where i'm going to record that to ambient string let's call this o2 dot wave amp strings o2 wave and now i'll hit the red report button and it's recording a wave file uh i think i have it set to mono 16 k 44 kilohertz that's good uh so now let's turn that all the way down uh and then if we come over into audition uh and you could use audacity for this uh or any other sort of sound editor um we can open up that wave file before i do that i'll say that here was a previous one so cooking show style i had done a previous one and i took it took it in picked a small snippet of it uh that loops fairly well i don't have a perfect seamless loop happening yet uh but then i pitched it down and elongated it so that it is not let me turn this one down this is a louder gain here so you can hear that one has a distinct uh sort of loop point i'm gonna remove those i'll do that later i won't do that right now here um but if we open up that new one we just did let's take strings to wave uh first of all you can see i want to boost this gain to something like that about negative three db for its peak uh we could also use a compressor or normalizer uh but let's listen so this is what we right there so let's just trim that not bad so it's pretty short loop obviously the longer the loop the better it's like five seconds long four seconds long the longer the loop the better in a in an ambient machine you don't want to hear a repetitive thing but um we'll see especially with mixing in some synthio stuff some noise we may be able to uh use really short samples and get away with it or i'll i'll push those um so this right now if you look at it this is a 16-bit um sample it's mono so it's just a single channel it's not left and right channels uh and the sample rate is uh very high it's 48 kill uh 48 thousand hertz 48 kilohertz so what i want to do is export this uh and i don't think you'll see this export window that shows up but i'll i'll just talk you through what i'm doing i'm uh resaving this where i have my ambient machine samples ambient strings o2a and i'm going to save that sample type as i think 22 thousand 50 hertz for the sample rate mono and it is going to be 16 bit i didn't save that amp strings o2a wave uh so now what i'll do is let's go back here we'll grab our machine now uh previously i'd been just ejecting my sd card and plugging that in um but now i'm gonna just put this directly onto the circuit python drive it's actually kind of nice workflow wise and see if i can convince this dying camera clamp no it just it snapped some little here's a nice big clamp let's see if i can there we go let me see something uh so what i'll do uh is you won't see this just in the finder and i apologize you won't see this i'm gonna take the file i just saved uh by the way before i do that i'm just gonna double check in code uh you can see when i am bringing in my wave uh files here in the mixer i'm saying i have a sample rate of 22050 a channel count of one which means it's mono and i'm 16 bits per sample um so that is the same uh you have to be consistent with all your files will want to be the the same specifications um so let's open um ambient machine samples copy that to samples you know i'm just going to dump this in the same folder as my numbers uh my list of wave files that one that prints out there at the beginning that is um sorted alphabetically so this one will actually show up first since it's a begins with the a and my other ones begin with a b so let's see what it thinks i'm gonna samples numbers why did it not grab it am i sorting starts with no numbers file name did i put it in the wrong place hmm samples numbers why not showing up it is there am strings it's named in a way that should be fine just to prevent confusion i'm gonna get rid of some of my sd stuff that will yell at me if i'm accidentally trying to do it off the sd card hmm just for kicks i'm gonna open that one directly just to hear it play since that's part of part of what i want to show here uh so i can do what's the starts with i thought it was not starts with dot and ends in wave which this qualifies for that samples numbers i'm confused as to why it's not showing up let me just see if it's actually i don't know why the name isn't showing up but guess what it's playing maybe i don't know what's up with my printing printing went weird huh let's uh quit disco tool there and relaunch it no that's really weird okay uh so that sounds pretty good actually it's a nice um sort of range of frequencies there for this box so part of what i'll do as i design the sounds for it is find things that work well with this speaker with the type of fidelity it has with this um enclosure here um and there are some tricks we can do so when i have multiple sounds playing at once um we may be able to do some use some like lfo objects to massage the uh mixer volume so i'll flip a switch and maybe that'll allow it to adjust its volume from point seven down to point four or something if there's multiples that can kind of fade in and out with each other it'd be kind of cool um yeah uh andy calloway getting a really haunted house vibe there it'll be a it'll be a challenge for me to make it less spooky but i think i need to make a little less spooky uh and i should listen to existing examples of of these types of meditative more meditative sound boxes uh or or not or maybe mine's got a spooky vibe to it i'll paint it black uh so what i wanted to do actually is bring in this other sound here that i have uh and it should i don't know why won't print but it should just land on one of my on my second switch there alphabetically or uh my first one actually so let me uh just copy that recording one second sorry i know you won't see this part recordings i don't think i exported that okay so yeah we'll go back let's go back to audition here so here was this one right here i'm gonna see a little less abruptly so what i what i'll need to do is um probably like offset this and do some cross fading um to avoid that click it's it can be difficult to uh to seamlessly loop but i'm not an expert at this so if anyone has tips especially i'm looking at you uh c grover i know you know how to do this in in uh probably 10 different ways but i'll take it as it is right now and export it call this one same settings 16 bit mono 22 050 hertz okay and i agree i think that that list of files that's printing there is coming from a ghost i don't know where that's coming from uh so let me copy i recommend saving somewhere real and then moving stuff over to your um sd card machine samples okay so let's go back here so Todd made a good point i wonder uh he wonders if i have just unplugged another circuit python board just in case that was part of the weirdness here uh let's see hey one of them showed up uh it's so weird i wonder if this requires like a power cycle to get that list correct no because it's now got two of these that's a mysterious mystery i don't get it uh oh you know what might might be interesting is to print the contents before the sort because the where am i printing where file sort print so if i print the file name it shows up something weird about that something weird happens there what's in the box ask dexter it's chimes and strings and robots uh so that's what's in the box dexter it's a metro m7 with an i2s audio out i have a bunch of switches i have a expander there's spooky things snaky maker cat says there are spooky things uh one of the ideas interface wise uh based on the original so this by the way i should give credit where it's due again this is based on uh an existing uh product by Yuri Suzuki and here's what it looks like uh this was made in a limited run and sold at an art gallery so you're you're not gonna probably find one of these too easily so i'm making the ikea box version of it um with some slight changes but that is the the ambient machine um to answer that question so uh that's what i've got yeah so so again if anyone has any ideas on um sd card stuff let me know but it seems like we should be able to bail and do some looping some shorter looping wave files along with some synthio stuff so that we can mix in a bunch of different sounds for either a spooky atmosphere or other could be cool to boot up 20 totally different samples or 16 totally different samples at startup just off of the sd card and then have those to work with that might be a nice ui thing let's see other notes from the discord uh see grover says you magnify the waveform and edit at the zero crossings they may have it as a selectable edit option thank you yes so this is a lot of clicks and things happen when um a wave at the end of your sound file is uh on its way down and then at the very beginning of your file if it's on its way up above and not still on its way down below the zero crossing line that's a that's a place where we get clicks and things and also just kind of mixing and match matching uh matching the sounds up a little more so it's not a sudden abrupt change will help um i could also make i could design sounds that that loop in um my vcv rack or however i'm making them um so that's another option is to create sounds that just loop well on their own especially ones that fade in softly long reverb tail fade out done that will just be a very easy thing to loop um but i think that's it so thanks everyone i know we went a little long just because i wanted to show some of these editing uh techniques for generating the sound and putting it on there thank you everyone for your help uh in trying to see if we can come up with the proper uh spi bus stuff um let me know if you have other ideas on that i think that's going to do it so before i go i will remind you you can grab yourself ten percent off in the store with the coupon code looper today so head to adafruit.com check out the cool stuff in the store such as not that can't get one of those but get the parts for it i'll be putting out a learn guide and i'll use some of these fine things including um 20 of these great little switches here uh you'll have to go to your own ikea or order online to get the cool baltic birch box i'm using there uh but either way go find some good stuff in the adafruit store on the way out type in looper and you will get a ten percent discount uh also remember if you want to uh know what kind of discounts or goodies i should say you can get at different price breaks for orders of 149 or more you can get a kb2040 and for orders of 299 or more you can get a circuit playground express those are the current deals i know sometimes we have others sometimes we have some ups ground shipping but right now things are a little up in the air and wild with ups so that's not there the freebies can change so stay tuned if you have a big order planned you might want to look and see we don't know what they are until they happen so i can't give you any heads up on them but uh go go get some stuff if you get a bunch of it you'll get some cool freebies and if you uh either way want to get 10 off just type in looper by the end of the uh day today i think it's midnight on the east coast us time uh is how long that coupon code will last for all right i think that'll do it thank you everyone so much for stopping by it's a lot of fun to have you here in the workshop and in the chats um thank you randall bone says beep beep uh thanks for stopping by in the youtube chat thank you everyone over in discord and everywhere else if i'm not seeing your chat i still appreciate you watching for eight of your industries i'm john park this has been john park's workshop i will see you next week and don't forget to tune in tomorrow for a deep dive with scott tan newt we'll be back with the deep dive friday all right thanks bye


On a crisis ruck in the River State House of Assembly took a new turn as 27 members defecting from the ruling People's Democratic Party in the state of the all-progressive Congress. Correspondent Gardener, the 27 members, led by the Speaker, Right Honourable Martin Amir Houlay, announced their defection at the floor of the House during today's seating after reading the defection letter from the members of the House. Created by the right Honourable Martin Amir Houlay, the right Honourable Martin Chica and the right member of the SSRS speaker, Mr. Amir Houlay, the affection to the all-progressive Congress is a right to bring to your attention my decision to leave People's Democratic Party PDP. This decision to leave the PDP is The crisis in the 32-member Assembly had begun as a result of the rift between Fubara and his predecessor, Wike, who is now the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT. The House has already, before this time, deliberated on all the issues in the PDP and we feel that it's sufficient in the vision, and for that reason, members have the choice to move to the all-progressive Congress as already indicated in these letters. Hello. Hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel. And don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


With action and suspense out of the Old West comes the most famous hero of them all, Huffleong Cassidy, starring William Boyd. The Ring of the Silver Spurs heralds the most amazing man ever to ride the prairies of the early West, Huffleong Cassidy, the same hoppy you cheer in motion pictures, and the same California you've laughed at a million times. Raw courage and quick shooting have built a legend around this famous hero. Huffleong is a name to be feared, respected, and admired, for this great cowboy rides the trails of adventure and excitement. William Boyd has Huffleong Cassidy and and declined as California. Here's Hoppy now with another new story. We call this one hoppy plays a hunch. California and I didn't need much urging when Buck Peters told us we could take a couple of weeks off from the bar 20. We'd been mighty busy the past few months and the change of scenery sounded good to both of us. That's how a few days later we happen to stop by the Wilson's Flying W Ranch outside the little town of Navajo Springs. The Wilson's were old friends of California's. I'll tell you California, Chit's just gonna key right over when he sees you. How long's it been anyhow? Well, I don't know, it must be two, three years now I reckon. Two years and four months is what it's been mom. Now friend, how'd you know how long since California was here? I remember it was right after my 17th birthday and he brought me that hand mirror all the way from Santa Fe. By golly, she's right Sarah. That's sakes of life. Don't seem that long ago. Oh, I don't know where the time goes. Sure slips by fast all right there. What did you say Chit was? Oh, he's just going over to Farley Vincent's place. You ought to be back for long now. Farley Vincent, the name sounds familiar. Sure, you've heard Chit and me speak of him. He's the fella owns the big rockin' V outfit over west. Oh, sure sure. Ain't he the one that loaned you all the money when you was having such a time of it? Yeah, he's the one. We're just now getting clear. That's what Chit's doing now. Taking the last four thousand over to Vincent so we can tear up that note. Well, ain't that good news. Yes sir, ought to call for a celebration. Ha ha, what's just a quiet fur hoppy? Well, I... Landsakes. We ain't even given Mr. Cassidy a chance to open his mouth. Ha ha, that's all right Mrs. Wilson. I know how it is when you haven't seen old friend for a while. You go right ahead. Well, I knew California'd be glad to hear the news.  And just in time too. Just in time? Yeah. She means we only had four more days left to pay the note Mr. Cassidy. Oh, I think Farley Vincent was hoping we wouldn't be able to scrape up enough to pay him off. He'd probably like nothing better than to take over this range. Well, he's probably not the only one who'd like to do that. You about the nicest, greatest land I've seen in these parts. And plenty of water too. Yes sir, we're mighty lucky folks. Well, you deserve it if anybody does. But there's one thing I can't figure out for the life of me. What's that, California? I can't understand how a pretty gal here, like Fran, ain't got herself hitched up double by this time. California. I was wondering the same thing. Well, if she and Grant Barrett had their way about it, I guess they'd be married tonight. Mom, please. Listen. That'll be Chet now, I reckon. Good. I can hardly wait to see his face when he sees me. Yep, that's Chet all right. The way he's getting off on that horse, you'd think he'd rummage it and... California, look. Come on, he's been shot. Now back to Hoppe along Cassidy and our story. Hoppe plays a hunch. Hoppe and California were on a short vacation and stopped at the Flying W Ranch to see the Wilson's, old friends of California's. They found Mrs. Wilson and her daughter at home that were told that Chet Wilson had gone to deliver the final payment due on a note which they owed Farley Vinson. When Wilson finally returned, California and the others rushed out to greet him only to discover that he had been shot. Thank goodness it wasn't worse, Chet. Your leg would probably be stiff a few days, but that dressing ought to take care of it. Thanks, Sarah. I'm not worried about the leg, it's the money that's the word. No, we'll worry about that later. Fran and I'll go fix us all some supper now. I know you want to talk to California and Mr. Cassidy anyhow. Well, let me to find me some things, man. Oh, and don't go talking that away, Chet. Looks like a man ain't safe nowhere nowadays. What happened anyway? Did you get a look at the sidewind of the shots you, Mr. Wilson? No, that's the trouble. Whoever did it shot from some brush up ahead of me. That's about all I know because right afterwards my horse reared and threw me. The same bullet that went through your leg raised your horse's flank. Yeah. Anyway, I wasn't expecting anything like that and I lit on my head. I don't know how long I was knocked out, but when I come to and called over to my horse, the saddle bag was gone and no sign of anybody. What all this happened, Mr. Wilson? About five miles up the east trail toward Vinson's place. There's three big cottonwoods right together there with some brush around close to them. I guess the apartment was hiding there just waiting for me. Anybody know you had all that money and we're going to take it to Vinson's today? Yeah, lots of people.  Sure, sure. I drew the money out yesterday and before I left town I stopped at the saloon, bought a few old friends a drink to sort of celebrate. Do you have any idea who might have done this, Mr. Wilson? Well... How about Vinson? Oh, I don't think it was him. Oh, I know. He'd like to get the flying W. Still, I suppose he could have done it. Your wife tells us you and Vinson's foreman don't get along too well. Oh, young Barrett. No, I ain't got much use for him. Mainly because I don't think he's good enough to marry Fran. I told him to stay away from here and he was pretty mad, but, hey. Now, wait just a minute here. What is it, Mr. Wilson? I just remembered. He told me he wouldn't let mean or anybody else stand in the way of his marrying Fran. And if I was dead, he'd have a clear road, wouldn't he? Sure. And if he married her, he'd have the ranch to boot. Practical. Still, I wouldn't be too quick to suspect anybody without more to go on than that, Mr. Wilson. Yeah, I guess you're right, happy. But the more I think of it, the more I'm sure it was one of them, too. Vinson stands to get the ranch as it is and if I'd have been killed, Barrett had my daughter and the ranch. And you still get four days to raise the money, haven't you? Yeah, sure. I couldn't raise four hundred in that time, let alone four thousand. Do you think there's any chance of Vinson's giving you more time? I can see you don't know Vinson. Nope, I'm afraid I'm licked. Well, I wouldn't give up just yet. We got four days. We might be able to locate your own money by that time. Well, thanks, man. I appreciate your offer and a health but... But but nothing. Copy and mail figure out something. You wait and see. Ah, but, Hoppy, we've been out here since sunup and covered every square foot within a half mile of where Chet was robbed and we ain't found a single thing. Ah, I guess we might as well be... Wait a minute. Look over that bush. Huh? What is it, Hoppy? I think it's what we've been looking for. Wilson's saddlebag. Come on. Yeah, if it's all right. There's a flying W stamped on the flap. Let's have a look inside. Ah, empties my pockets just before payday. You didn't expect to find any money at it, did you? Well, no, no, of course not, but I don't see what good it's gonna do us when now that we found it. Well, maybe it won't do any good. Well, here. Let me throw it in my horse and let's get going. Wait, I'm in California. We're leaving it right here. I got an idea that might be worth trying. Huh? It's just a hunch. It may not be any good, but we can't lose anything by giving it a try. Well, I suppose you know what you're doing. Come on. We still got to go see if Vincent will give Chet Wilson more time to pay off that note. How come we're heading to the corral here? Vincent ain't likely to be down this way. No, but Grant, there it is. I'm kind of interested in meeting him, too. Holy smokes. Look at that fellow sticking that bra. Yeah, he's mighty good, all right. All aboard, Grant. Give it to him. Excuse me, fellow. Huh? Oh, howdy. Is that Grant Barrett riding the bronc? Yep, that's him. He's the best man with a horse or a six-gun you'll ever see, too. Turnip, I don't believe it. I looked like he's got that in the whip. Did you all want to see him? Yeah, we do. Yeah, I reckon I'd better go tell him. Just a second. Nice-looking young fellow, ain't he? Barrett, I mean. Yeah, but don't forget the old saying, California. Uh, what's that hoppy? Looks are only skin deep. Remember? Well, Ross tells me you tell us wanted to see me. That's right, Barrett. I am Cassidy, and this is California Carlson. We're from the bar 20 over southwest. So? Er, I'm an old friend of Jack Wilson's. We're stained with him for a few days. Oh. Well, what about it? What'd you want with me? We came over to see your boss. Just thought we'd like to meet you, so long as we heard so much about you. I can guess what you must have heard if old man Wilson was doing the talking. He's not talking much since he was shot yesterday. Shot? Wilson was shot? Was he hurt bad? Not a hideezy, Barrett. He just got hit in the leg. Not too bad. But the barman, Donut, stole $4,000 off of him, too. Well, I'll be. Wilson was on his way over here to pay the money to Vincent. To pay Vincent? Well, I thought he'd already paid. What made you think that? Why? Hey, what business is it of yours what I think anyway? We're just interested in finding out who dragged Ghost Wilson, that's all. You're acting like you think maybe I might have done it. You're being you? Easier than I? Why, you... I don't start accusing me of... Hey, get easy, Barrett. Nobody's accused you of anything. Young fella, Hoppy's got an idea for catching the sneaking coyote, and it won't take... Quiet, California. We've got more important things to do than argue. We'd better get up and see you, Vincent. Well, come in, men, come in. Sit down. Thanks, Mr. Vincent. So you're friends of Chet Wilson's, eh? He's a good man, Chet. Well, what can I do for you? If you're looking for work, I'm afraid you're out of luck. I have more men than I need now. Ah, we're not looking for work, Mr. Vincent. We came on business. Oh, well, that's different. Well, we'd come to see if you wouldn't give Chet more time to pay off the note you hold in his place. He was shocked and robbed in his way over here yesterday. What's that? That's right, Vincent. Somebody got the $4,000 he was bringing to you. What? Well, that's outrageous. Must have been a pretty bold gunman to pull something like that in broad daylight. Well, whoever it was didn't take any chances, riding in the bush and not giving Wilson any warning. Now, $4,000 worth practical all the money Chet had. We thought if you could give him another 90 days, he's got stock that'll bring that much by then, so you wouldn't be taking any chances. Well, this puts me in an awkward position, men. I'd like to be able to agree, but I can't. See, I have some obligations of my own which must be met. I was counting on that money from Chet. I need it right away. Yeah, we get it, Vincent. Chet told us she wanted these range, so it looks like you'll get it after all. Oh, now, just a minute here. Can't afford to lose $4,000 simply because Chet is a friend of mine. In other words, you won't give him any more time. Well, let's put it that I can't give him any more time. Let's go, Huffy. Yeah, I guess we might as well. Only thing left to do is keep a close look out and hope some of those $20 and $50 bills turn up around Navajo Springs. Well, what good would that do? How would you know whether it was part of the stolen money or not? Why, by the... Never mind, California. Oh, I see. Chet has a record of the serial numbers. He would have if he hadn't been forgetful, but, well, we think maybe we can locate that list. I wish you luck, men. And I'm sorry about... Forget it, Vincent. Can't be helped, I guess. Come on, California. Let's get into town. You sure you want this right on the front page, mister? Yeah, if you can put it there. Oh, I can put it there all right. I have to rearrange things a bit, but that's all right. It seems like a funny place to put an ad, that's all. Yeah, I guess it does it that. What time do you start printing, anyway? Oh, I'll be running them off in about an hour. You're lucky you got here when you did. You see, I'm only putting it out once a week now, but I hope to put out two editions a week pretty soon. I suppose everybody for miles around gets this paper. Oh, sure, everybody in town subscribes and so do all the ranches. I got a boil, have the paper to every house by summertime. Well, that's good service. Yes, sir. Of course, the ranches all pick theirs up along with their mail at the post office in the general store. Oh, but they look forward to getting outside news, too. They sure do. If for long, you'll see the ran of hands from every outfit around these parts coming in after the mail and the paper. Well, how are you making out, Harvey? Oh, I'm good. Well, how are you making out, Harvey? Oh, fine. Mr. Evans here is taking good care of me. Did you see the sheriff? I sure did. Told him just what you said. Good. Good. Is he going to play along with us? Yep. I didn't give him no details, but he's anxious to help. Fine. We'll be heading back for the Wilson Ranch in an hour or so just as soon as Mr. Evans starts running the papers off. I sure hope your idea works, Harvey. So do I. We ought to know by sunup tomorrow. Yeah. And speaking of sunup, I feel like I hadn't had anything to eat since sunup this morning. That's probably because you haven't. But we can't be more than four or five miles in the flying depot. As soon as we get there, we can both put on the feed bag. Yeah. Yeah. Some more of Sarah's coconut. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some more of Sarah's coconut. Would sure hit the spot. Gally! That sun's plenty bright. We'll get a little shade in a minute now. The trail runs right alongside those big boulders at the foot of the hills. Yeah. Yeah. This country's mighty pretty, Harvey. I'll bet you Manklin will… Hey! What… California! Head-for-Cover! Hurry! Two hop along Cassidy and our story, Harvey plays a hunch. California in trying to help Chet Wilson discovered his empty saddlebag and some brush not far from where Wilson had been robbed They left it where it was and continued on to the rocking V ranch of Farley Vincent Vincent refused to give Chet Wilson more time to pay the money due on his note So hoppy in California went into town to put into effect a plan to trap the man who shot their friend on Their way back to the Wilson ranch. They are met by bullets Hey, low California We'll be all right. I'm right with you hoppy Ha there oh copper That was a close one What do we do now? Let's just stay close to these boulders and see if we can circle around behind keep your eyes open Now who'd you reckon would want to take pot shots at us the same sign white under shot your friend Chet But why we ain't got no money Not money he's after whoever this thinks we know more than we do about the wilson shooting He's either trying to kill us off or scare us off one or the other better be careful hoppy He might be right behind that rock point. Yeah, let me get a look here Can you see anything? Is he there? No, I guess he's high-tailed. Well, come on. Maybe we can catch up No use wasting our time whoever it is knows this country a lot better than we do Wouldn't stand much chance catching him now. Yeah, I reckon you're right Let's get back to the flying w and we'd better be extra careful. He might show up again Sounds like you two are mighty busy today california chatting me sure appreciate it too. Oh shucks don't mention it Sarah I'm just sorry that vinson wouldn't agree to give you more time would have been nice But in a way you can't blame him. I guess he's a businessman first and rancher second Hey, what's this an avajo spring central? Oh, uh, yeah, yeah Hoppy brought it out. He was into the printing office for a while. Well, what's the news here? You should never give it to him california now. He won't say a word till he's read ever less. Hey, hey, hey What in tarnation is this? Huh? What are you talking about shit? This ad right here on the front page. Look Lost brown leather saddle bag with flying w stamped on flaps Reward of 200 dollars will be paid to anyone finding and returning this saddle bag Contact chet wilson at flying w ranch immediately. I never told that fellow at the printing office I wanted that ad put in the paper. I know it chet it was hoppy's idea But what for I don't see why there wasn't worth more than five or ten dollars Of course there wasn't that's the idea If you saw an ad like that with a big reward for an old saddle bag Uh, uh, what did you think? Well, I'd think it must have something awful important or valuable inside But you know, well as I do there Wouldn't still be any money in it. Sure. I know that but whoever stole that money when he sees that ad Is gonna think he missed something ain't it? Well, maybe remember the little pocket You see inside of a lot of saddle bags couldn't put money in it or not much anyhow But it'll hold a piece of paper Yeah, mine had a little pocket, but I didn't have anything in it I still don't see what good that ad in the paper I ain't told you yet, but uh hoppy and I found your saddle bag this morning About a half a mile from where you were shocked. You did well for is it? We left it right where we found it That's the whole idea. Oh, I see You figure to hide out and keep a watch over it. See if anybody shows up to look through it again, huh? It's exactly what we're aiming to do as soon as we've had some supper hoppy and me are going out there again The sheriff's meeting us at the three cottonwoods at sundown Well, it's still here where we left at california. Yeah, see sheriff right by that boost there I see it. All right. Just hope we're not out here in a wild goose chase. So do I sheriff here Hand me that package california. Yeah, here you are hoppy. You better hurry Cassidy. It's almost dark Ah, I'll be just a minute. It's gonna be hard to see tonight. No moon to help us might be better that way Ah, we're all set now men I'll leave the horses tied where they are back of those trees. There's a nice clump of brush right over there where we could hide hoppy Yeah, that ought to do. All right Wouldn't hurt to be closer though Well, let's get settled. We may have a long night ahead Almost midnight hoppy Maybe this ain't gonna work. We'll wait till sun up if we have to and see here Cassidy, you sure you know what you're doing Nope, I told you it was just a hunt sheriff. Yeah, might be uncomfortable here to be fooling around on the hunt Listen Be quiet now. Sounds like we got company after all Can't see anybody can you know, but somebody's going right to where that saddlebag is He must have been looking in the saddle bag we'd better sneak up and jump on him. I'll be I can make him out right now see Blast that horse of mine. Look hoppy. Oh, he heard the sheriff's horse.  He got away slick as always.  We couldn't follow him on a night like this I think we'll find him where we're going to the rocking v There's somebody's up and around. All right Yeah Oh, aren't you going to ask us in bad? Why sure Come in. I was just talking with vinson here And come in gentlemen Rather late hour to be calling isn't it not when you're after a sneak and thief that shoots a man for man bush vinson What what are you talking about? Granted these men after you. Why didn't you tell me why you low down? I was wondering why you came riding in so fast a minute ago ran right into the house here Oh, that's a lie and you know it vinson. I suppose both of you simmer down. Let cassidy here do the talking Thanks, sheriff.  You got the idea. You'd miss something in wilson saddlebag Maybe a list of the serial numbers of the money you stole and went back tonight to have another look Well, if I'd stolen that money I might have done something like that But anybody would have done that after reading this paper. Look here. Is he this hat sure? I see it all right Well, what makes you think I went looking for something in a lost saddlebag there because that paper happens to be a special one Just for you vinson. What that's right vinson only two copies was made One was put in your mailbox and we took the other over to the wilson. You're lying.  Well, that's a load off our minds Anyway, what give you the idea was vinson. Mr. Cassidy. Oh a couple of things He had the most to gain so he was a natural to be suspected But when we talked to him yesterday and told him your husband had been shot and robbed he acted mighty funny How do you mean cassidy? Well, he didn't ask how bad you were shot for one thing, which is what a man usually asks first Vincent seemed to forget that since he already knew my god That's right. Come to think of it and another thing Whoever it was that did the shooting was a mighty poor shot hitting you in the leg that way chat And since young barrett had the reputation of being a good hand with a gun I figured vinson must have fired the shot course. I think in vinson was gilly and proven It was two different things master thought you knew more and you let on Or he wouldn't have tried to get you on your way back from town yesterday Say where'd francisco? Why uh, I think she's out talking to the new foreman new foreman What are you talking about sarah? Now you just keep your shirt on chat wilson, but I've just hired one You know, we need a foreman now. Yeah, I guess uh, who'd you hire? I can't afford to pay much, you know Hired grant barrett and he stays hired After all he saved mr. Cassidy's life when vinson pulled a gun. That's right wilson.  I'd say you wouldn't have to worry about pay I've got another hunch that barrett won't demand much in the way of wages Well hoppy played a hunch right and with grant barrett cleared looks like there'll be wedding bells at the wilson ranch Hoppy in california ride into another exciting experience when they arrive in paradise new mexico And discover the town's people are put to work on slave gangs and where satan is the sheriff Be sure to be with hoppy when he meets up with a jailer named satan Up along cassidy starring william boyd is transcribed and produced in the west by walter white jr Hoppy plays a hunch was written by r.t. smith with original music under the personal direction of albert glasser All stories are based upon the characters created by clarence e mulford. This is a commodore production