Burning Wood to Brew Wood to Preserve Wood : Pine TarBefore there was pressure-treated wood, before modern paints, there was pine tar. Everything from tool handles to wagons to ships were made of wood preserved with pine tar, once upon a time, and [woodbrew] wants to show you how to make it, how to use it, and why you might put it on your skin.
It starts with, you guessed it, pine! In the first part of the video, [woodbrew] creates a skin salve with pine resin and food-safe oil. The pine resin–which is the sticky goop that dries around wounds on evergreen trees–is highly antiseptic and has been used in wound salves since the stone age. The process is easy: melt it in a double boiler, then mix with equal parts oil. [woodbrew] also adds a touch of beeswax to firm it up, an a little eucalyptus extract for extra germ-killing power, and a nice smell to boot.
That’ll preserve your hands, but what about preserving wood?  That starts at about 9 minutes in, and for that you’re going to need a lot more resin, so picking it off wounded trees like he does at the start of the video won’t work. [woodbrew] suggests starting with dead-or-dying pines, and harvesting the crooks of their branches for “fatwood” — wood with the highest resin content. He also suggests the center of stumps, again of trees that died or were severely injured before being cut down. Then it’s a matter of cooking those fine organic molecules out. This is where we burn the wood to save the wood. Well, to save other wood. Wood we didn’t burn, obviously.
The distillation process [woodbrew] uses it fairly traditional, and consists of a couple of buckets. One bucket is buried and collects the pine tar; the other, with holes in the bottom to allow the tar to drip out, is filled with fatwood and covered tightly before being surrounded by firewood which is set alight. You could use an alternate source of heat here, but if you just cut down a pine tree for its fatwood, well, you’d have the rest of the tree to work with. Inside the fatwood bucket, the heat of the fire cooks off the volatile compounds that make pine tar, while the lack of oxygen from being closed up keeps it from burning. Burying the collection bucket keeps it from getting so hot the volatiles all boil off.
If this sounds like the process for making charcoal or woodgas, that’s because it is! He’s letting the gas fraction flare off here, but you could probably capture it– though a true gasifier brakes the tar down into gaseous compounds as well. The charcoal of course stays in the bucket as a bonus.
To make it usable as a wood finish, [woodbrew] mixes his homemade pine tar 50:50 with linseed oil, thining it to a spreadable consistency that helps it penetrate deep into the wood. By filling the voids in the wood, this mixture will help keep moisture out, and the antiseptic properties of the organic soup that is pine tar will help keep fungi at bay for potentially decades to come.
Thanks to [Keith Olson] for the tip!

Ear Candy: Get Up and Go!Happiest of Fridays, my frequency friends!

If the snooze button has been winning recently, this week's Ear Candy is here to rescue you. It's Get Up and Go! Think of it as your personal soundtrack to shake off the grogginess, stretch out the yawns, and actually step out the door with a little spring in your step.

Whether you’re heading out for work, squeezing in a quick morning run, or just trying to get yourself moving after a night that didn’t go quite as planned, this playlist is the soundtrack that refuses to let inertia win. It’s energy you can’t help but catch, a spark that spreads from your headphones to your toes, and before you know it—you’re up, you’re moving, and you’re ready for whatever the day throws at you.

So go ahead and take your sonic shot of espresso.

Click HERE to access this week's Ear Candy.

While you're there, please "Like" the playlist and "Follow" Music Connection's profile so you'll never miss the chance to listen along with MC!The post Ear Candy: Get Up and Go! first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Triple Spiral Audio OrganismEvery living system is built from layers, each with its own function, each inseparable from the whole. Organism works the same way. The library is built around 100 Master presets. Each of these patches makes full use of all four oscillators in Omnisphere 3 and the new Quadzone feature, which organises sound across four zones, letting it move, breathe, and shift over time. The result is complex, atmospheric textures with depth and motion. But each Master preset also carries four subpresets within it: A, B, C and D. Each one is a standalone patch, built around a single oscillator from its parent master, giving it an individual and independent character. From soft keys to wide pads, from organic motion to clear synths with 500 presets in total. The inspiration behind Organism comes from modern pop and electronica from artists like Billie Eilish, Deadmau5, Jon Hopkins, Lady Gaga, Aphex Twins and Daft Punk. Stylewise you will find modern, experimental, retro, lofi, cinematic, pop and ambient presets. It is a library with a contemporary character. Read More

UMG and Believe settle lawsuit that alleged ‘industrial-scale’ copyright infringement of Universal’s musicUniversal Music Group and Believe have settled the copyright infringement lawsuit filed against the Paris-headquartered music company and its distribution platform TuneCore in late 2024. A Joint Stipulation of Dismissal With Prejudice was filed today (April 3) in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, confirming that all claims in the … Continued
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Iconic Instruments release Model 350 Tube Preamp One of the latest arrivals to the Iconic Instruments range delivers a new tube preamp plug-in inspired by the circuitry employed in the Ampex 350 tape machine.

Introducing the Splice Sounds Plugin (now in beta)
We’re excited to introduce the Splice Sounds Plugin, now available in public beta—bringing Splice’s entire sound library (and additional brand-new features) directly into any DAW.

Free Amorph AI-driven text-to-DSP plugin gets a major visual update
Artists in DSP have updated the free Amorph text-to-DSP plugin, which now lets you create custom user interfaces. We looked at Amorph earlier this year, and as with many things AI-related, it comes with seemingly limitless potential and just as many divided opinions. If you missed Amorph on its initial release, here’s a quick recap. [...]
View post: Free Amorph AI-driven text-to-DSP plugin gets a major visual update

Fuse Audio Labs releases Tube Lab vintage channel strip plugin ($29 intro price)
Fuse Audio Labs has released Tube Lab, a vintage channel strip plugin built around a multi-tube preamp, a Baxandall-style EQ, and an optical compressor with flexible module routing. If you’re familiar with Fuse Audio Labs (we covered the excellent free VPRE-72 Vintage Tube Preamp and VREV-666 Spring Reverb plugins in the past), you know the developer [...]
View post: Fuse Audio Labs releases Tube Lab vintage channel strip plugin ($29 intro price)

Pulsar-23: 1984 from SOMA Laboratory SOMA Laboratories have revealed an upcoming special-edition version of their Pulsar-23 unit that’s been created in collaboration with The Midium and the SOMA US division. 

WIN Chimera Cinematic Vital Presets + Flame Sound Easter Sale (+ 80% OFF Easter Egg)
We’re giving away three free copies of Chimera, the cinematic Vital soundbank by HydraTek. But stick around, because there’s a 30% OFF Easter Sale happening right now with a hidden Easter egg that could save you a lot more than 30%. Let’s check out the giveaway first. The Giveaway To enter the Chimera giveaway, just [...]
View post: WIN Chimera Cinematic Vital Presets + Flame Sound Easter Sale (+ 80% OFF Easter Egg)

Stablecoin supply reaches $315B in Q1 as USDC rises, USDT declinesStablecoins dominated crypto trading in Q1 as investors sought safety, while rising bot usage and declining retail flows pointed to shifting market dynamics, according to CEX.io.

Telehealth giant Hims & Hers says its customer support system was hackedThe U.S. telehealth giant says hackers stole customer support ticket data over the course of several days in February.

Electro-Harmonix release EHX Classics Bundle Guitar effects experts Electro-Harmonix have teamed up with MixWave to turn a collection of their most prized pedals into plug-ins.

The Threadless Ball Screw Never Took Off, But Don’t Write It OffIf you’ve never heard of the threadless ball screw, which was invented over sixty years ago, [Angus] of Maker’s Muse has a video demonstrating the whole thing, covering its history and showcasing both its strengths and weaknesses. If you like seeing mechanical assemblies in action, give it a watch.
The device — consisting of little more than a smooth rod and three angled ball bearings — is a way to turn rotational motion into linear motion. Not a single belt, thread, or complex mechanical assembly in sight. While a simple nut on a threaded rod can turn rotation into linear motion, those come with their own issues. The threadless ball screw was one effort at finding a better way.
While it lacks precision, the threadless ball screw nevertheless offers quiet and smooth motion with adjustable tension in a very DIY-friendly design.
Threadless ball screws never really took off, although they were given some consideration for use in 3D printers back in the RepRap days. Today one can purchase quality CNC components without leaving one’s web browser, but back in the early 2000s things like lead screws and ball screws were rather more specialized, less accessible, and more expensive than they are today. RepRap folks had to make their own solutions. But while the threadless ball screw is a very DIY-friendly design, it was ultimately lacking in performance.
The main problem is they’re just not precise enough for anything like CNC work. [Angus] does some back-and-forth tests with a 3D printed unit that shows serious drift after only a few minutes. Now, he knows perfectly well that his 3D-printed test unit is far from ideal, but the rapidity at which it drifted was still a surprise. Making a carriage with two threadless ball screws — one at each end — performed a lot better, but was ultimately still flawed.
It’s not all bad. There’s zero backlash. They are mechanically simple, remarkably smooth, and utterly quiet. Also, [Angus] discovered that the maximum force this setup can be made to apply is surprisingly significant, and is directly related to the tension on the bearings. That means one can trivially adjust how easily the carriage slips  (or doesn’t) just by tightening or loosening the screw holding each bearing.
Sure, they’re not precise. But maybe you don’t need precision. Maybe you just need to move something back and forth in a strong & silent sort of way that can still slip gracefully (and quietly) if something goes awry, like bottoming out an axis. 3D printing makes it pretty easy to whip one up, so maybe there’s still a place for the threadless ball screw.

Samedi Dimanche WXR-7008-operator FM synthesizer Polyphonic, with 20 algorithms plus a custom algorithm editor, bitimbral (two-part architecture). Features SysEx FM preset import for classic DX7 libraries, filters/LFOs/FX, extensive modulation matrix, performance macros with MIDI control, built-in arpeggiator, built-in effects, and factory presets. Currently Windows-only. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHVWTgOfges Read More