Electrotap used to have a mailing list back when the server was held together with bailing wire and duct tape. The list was low-traffic, but still semi-active, and had a good signal-to-noise ratio. Unfortunately, that fell apart a couple of years ago and when we pushed everything onto a new server the mailing list never made it back.

So we’re reviving the mailing list in the form of two Google groups: one for discussion about sensors and sensor interfaces, and one for discussion related to everything else (which is mostly Tap.Tools).

Here are the two URLs for the new lists:

• http://groups.google.com/group/electrotap
• http://groups.google.com/group/electrosensor

Using Google groups does a few things for us. First, it gets us up and running fast with the new lists. We’ve been meaning to do it for a long time on our own, but it takes some finagling. It also gives a wealth of features and options, like a forum interface and a mailing list interface. Google also has really good spam filters and such. Finally, it gets us out of having to do real server maintenance tasks on it in the long run. These are all good things.

It feels really good to finally have a list back!

For the last couple of years, Electrotap LLC has been a in a relationship with Digital Audio and Computer Systems Ltd (DACS) to provide European distribution. Meanwhile we have still been available to fill orders directly for international shipments, including for our Asian, Australian, and North/South American customers.

At the beginning of next month (April), Electrotap will again be doing all sales and support for Europe directly. DACS has served a great need for some, but we have assessed that it makes better business sense for us to handle all transactions directly. Many thanks to DACS for their time as our distributor, and I hope that the direct communication between us and all of our customers will be greatly appreciated!

Tap.Tools 2.3 (version 2.3.1 to be specific) has been released! You can get it here: http://electrotap.com/taptoolsmax/

The big news is that anyone can download it and get a 30-day free demo.

Other improvements in 2.3.1 include:

• shared library load time now drastically reduced
• tap.path now functions on Windows for the first time ever
• new paths added to tap.path (temp folder, documents folder, preferences folder)
• fixed bug with argument passing which was broken in the following cases on Intel Macs:

  'lpass' message to tap.comb~ 
  'float' message to tap.anticlick~ 
  various messages to tap.ramp~
  various messages to tap.rms~

• the previous fix also fixed tap.5comb~ so that it will process sound on Intel Macs
• fixed tap.delay~ so that it will not crash when using a signal to define the delay time
• fix for tap.avg~ (and thus tap.vocoder_{) where denormal numbers on Intel machines could cause excessive cpu load.}
• fixed problems with returning result strings in tap.applescript on Intel Macs
• added OpenSoundControl aliases for setting attributes for a number of objects
• fixed crash in tap.comb when setting the delay time with a signal
• fixed init bug in tap.comb~ where the lowpass filter was causing the object to malfunction
• fixed problems with buffer~ access by objects that would not properly release the buffer

Tap.Tools 2.2 has now been officially released!

In addition to support for Intel Macs, we’ve cleaned up some bugs and added a few new things too. It’s exciting to finally see it released. Happy downloading!

The Tap.Tools 2.2 public beta is now closed. We are now in a limited release candidate phase. Look for the official release in the coming days. This release should be really solid, we had a lot of excellent testing and feedback during the process.

A few people will shortly be receiving free copies of Tap.Tools as a thank you for exceptional helpfulness. Thanks to all who helped out!

The DACS press release:

Electrotap L.L.C. has appointed DACS Ltd as its European distributors. DACS will exclusively manage the sales, distribution and service of the entire Electrotap product line. Electrotap’s innovative product range includes

• Teabox – high resolution, low latency sensor interface
• Sensors – a large selection of Electrotap sensors and accessories. Although these are designed for optimum performance when used with a Teabox, they also work with other sensor interfaces which use the industry standard 0.25 to 4.25V range.
• Hemisphere – unique point source emanation loudspeaker array
• Tap.Tools – Max and DSP objects

DACS MD, Dr Douglas Doherty, commented “I’m very pleased to have added Electrotap to our line of distribution products. Their unique product range perfectly compliments our existing lines and will especially appeal to the academic market.”

This entry is continued: Click here to continue reading.

Earlier today, Cycling ‘74 announced the release of a public beta of Max/MSP/Jitter. To coincide with this, Electrotap has a couple of Universal Binary announcements as well.

The primary one is that a public beta of Tap.Tools 2.2 is now available @ http://electrotap.com/taptoolsmax/beta/ – this is a Universal Binary version of Tap.Tools which works with Cycling ‘74’s Max 4.6 public beta.

In addition to the Universal Binary aspect of the release, and various bug fixes, this version features the addition of some Jamoma modules that were once a part of the Jade package. The download of Tap.Tools includes a Universal Binary version of Jamoma as a part of the installer. You may optionally download this new UB version of Jamoma (version 0.3.1) directly from http://jamoma.org/.

Electrotap today announced that the price reductions across its hardware product lines have been made permanant. The price reductions offer discounts of 10-30% off the previous regular retail price. This includes the highly-acclaimed Teabox sensor interface which is now available for US $395.

I have long been searching for cable that would work as well as our canare starquad, but be much smaller. Although the canare is great for longer cable runs and reliability, it was just too thick at 1/4” in diameter, not to mention the blue color made it a bit conspicuous.

Well, I think I’ve finally found it and we are currently moving all of our dongles and any other sensor cabling to Belden 1804A Mini-starquad cable. It is black and, a mere 1/8” in diameter while still having 4 conductors and shielding. I’m very happy with it so far.

Here’s a pair of pictures.

New Cable compared to the old.

The new cable on a T303CR Pressure Sensor

This is one of the most interesting things (for me) to have come across the Max list in the last year:

• http://www.response-box.com/lights/B1167474708/

Lots of information presented in a very clear way.