VU Meters for the PC! Cooler Master Musketeer 2 from 2004
video description
Date: 2022-04-14
Related videos
Comments and reviews: 10
modsandends
I have three of the Musketeer III tube amps. The VU meter on them was for the sound, so the needle would jump all over the place as the sound level increased and decreased. If you heard the needle ticking the end pin, you knew your gain was set too high. They're pretty useless and were considered quite dumb even when they came out, but it didn't stop me from buying up three of them for PC-based passthrough surround sound that ends up being over-processed from digital to analog and then back to digital again when you send it to your speakers.
I'm not sure if I want to give them up yet. LGR, hit me up if you're interested in borrowing one for a video review.
reply
I have three of the Musketeer III tube amps. The VU meter on them was for the sound, so the needle would jump all over the place as the sound level increased and decreased. If you heard the needle ticking the end pin, you knew your gain was set too high. They're pretty useless and were considered quite dumb even when they came out, but it didn't stop me from buying up three of them for PC-based passthrough surround sound that ends up being over-processed from digital to analog and then back to digital again when you send it to your speakers.
I'm not sure if I want to give them up yet. LGR, hit me up if you're interested in borrowing one for a video review.
reply
danz409
PC asteics got there roots here. back in late 90s/early 2000s when lan parties where the thing to do. it was just cool seeing the crazy things people did to there computers i didn't have money so i built what i called -the frag box- which was an AMD athlon XP 2600 on a tiny form factor motherboard in a very cubeoid constructed from wood case with mesh filters, metal flashing matearal found in my grandpas garage for side panels. it actually looked kind of lagit. and didn't have terrible specs for the time. it got toasty and working on it swiping hardware was a nightmare. once it came apart for first servicing. it never went back together. fun times!
reply
PC asteics got there roots here. back in late 90s/early 2000s when lan parties where the thing to do. it was just cool seeing the crazy things people did to there computers i didn't have money so i built what i called -the frag box- which was an AMD athlon XP 2600 on a tiny form factor motherboard in a very cubeoid constructed from wood case with mesh filters, metal flashing matearal found in my grandpas garage for side panels. it actually looked kind of lagit. and didn't have terrible specs for the time. it got toasty and working on it swiping hardware was a nightmare. once it came apart for first servicing. it never went back together. fun times!
reply
ike
Would have been useful if the HDD meter stored the last 5 seconds of light activity and had the arm move more right with the higher average of time the light was on in the last 5 seconds.
This super simple logic chip woulda added like $0. 85 to the price but to see a defrag head all the way right & a webpage caching be like 20% & windows loading to be 80% woulda been fun
The sound, when dialed in, seemed to work on both sides almost how expected. These are probably 20% too sensitive, but the left/right control is useful & usually only able to be done in software
reply
Would have been useful if the HDD meter stored the last 5 seconds of light activity and had the arm move more right with the higher average of time the light was on in the last 5 seconds.
This super simple logic chip woulda added like $0. 85 to the price but to see a defrag head all the way right & a webpage caching be like 20% & windows loading to be 80% woulda been fun
The sound, when dialed in, seemed to work on both sides almost how expected. These are probably 20% too sensitive, but the left/right control is useful & usually only able to be done in software
reply
johneygd
While it looks gimmick with all it-s fancy colors, but it-s not something you would look at the whole time, it-s not that you would testing things with it contstandly,
In fact you will still spend more time watching to your monitor then watching those spinning meters, but if you have roomates, you can watch those glowing meters once in a while while you do your work on the pc.
So in general it-s not worth the whole installing process, i rather would have an external one with very huge huge huge meters on it to make it look more appealing.
reply
While it looks gimmick with all it-s fancy colors, but it-s not something you would look at the whole time, it-s not that you would testing things with it contstandly,
In fact you will still spend more time watching to your monitor then watching those spinning meters, but if you have roomates, you can watch those glowing meters once in a while while you do your work on the pc.
So in general it-s not worth the whole installing process, i rather would have an external one with very huge huge huge meters on it to make it look more appealing.
reply
Jonas
Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but you're using an SD card(w/ a SCSI adapter) for your main drive right?
It's possible that the very sharp on/off reading of flash storage like an SD card is why the meter is going up and down so fast.
If you feel like it, try testing the meter with Win98 installed on a regular HDD, and see if that makes a difference.
Would be interested in knowing the results, even if you don't make a whole vid about it.
reply
Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but you're using an SD card(w/ a SCSI adapter) for your main drive right?
It's possible that the very sharp on/off reading of flash storage like an SD card is why the meter is going up and down so fast.
If you feel like it, try testing the meter with Win98 installed on a regular HDD, and see if that makes a difference.
Would be interested in knowing the results, even if you don't make a whole vid about it.
reply
Charles
Funny:
I'm old enough to remember when everything came with a manual or sorts if it needed one or not. These days nothing comes with a manual even when it really should. The closest you get is the standard multi-language pamphlet exhorting you not to do a range of things so idiotic that if you needed the advice you wouldn't have the capacity to open the packaging to retrieve it
PS
LGR uploads are always something I look forward to.
reply
Funny:
I'm old enough to remember when everything came with a manual or sorts if it needed one or not. These days nothing comes with a manual even when it really should. The closest you get is the standard multi-language pamphlet exhorting you not to do a range of things so idiotic that if you needed the advice you wouldn't have the capacity to open the packaging to retrieve it
PS
LGR uploads are always something I look forward to.
reply
lazygamereviews
as an electrical engineer who designs and manufactures circuit boards (industrial controls, not hobbyist stuff, I'd love to take this thing and make a new board to put right into it to make it not suck. Send it to me and I'll do it haha. Thinking damped and auto gain audio meters and make the HDD meter actually move slowly and average out the LED pulses to give an actual %. Pretty easy to implement if you do this stuff for a living!
reply
as an electrical engineer who designs and manufactures circuit boards (industrial controls, not hobbyist stuff, I'd love to take this thing and make a new board to put right into it to make it not suck. Send it to me and I'll do it haha. Thinking damped and auto gain audio meters and make the HDD meter actually move slowly and average out the LED pulses to give an actual %. Pretty easy to implement if you do this stuff for a living!
reply
Kudo
hey, i just figured out what my family's first computer was when i was around 5 or 6, it was an old DOS with windows 3. 11 loaded on it and it was an old compudyne, can't remember what cpu it had but i remember it was a model that had a green triangle below the power button. the only game we could play was rodents revenge because we did not have a mouse and you could not find a seriel mouse anymore in my area. man i miss that computer
reply
hey, i just figured out what my family's first computer was when i was around 5 or 6, it was an old DOS with windows 3. 11 loaded on it and it was an old compudyne, can't remember what cpu it had but i remember it was a model that had a green triangle below the power button. the only game we could play was rodents revenge because we did not have a mouse and you could not find a seriel mouse anymore in my area. man i miss that computer
reply
Innocent_Bystander
I could see if the hdd led vu meter had some form of built in math so that each tick of the light added something to the display, and it was constantly subtracting down to 0. That way it'd spike up and fall down in a more organic faction instead of being all or nothing.
I'm not sure why they'd split volume controls between left and right though. That would annoy the ever loving shit out of me.
reply
I could see if the hdd led vu meter had some form of built in math so that each tick of the light added something to the display, and it was constantly subtracting down to 0. That way it'd spike up and fall down in a more organic faction instead of being all or nothing.
I'm not sure why they'd split volume controls between left and right though. That would annoy the ever loving shit out of me.
reply
Chiel
These kind of PC extras where a lot of fun during the mid 2000s when everyone made their own Fan Controllers and such to put into those 5. 25 bays (which have largely died out in this age of USB drives. Still. Though largely forgotten such things have inspired me to make my own PC oddities. Which is a lot of fun once you figure out how to get your PC to send sensor data to something over say a COM port.
reply
These kind of PC extras where a lot of fun during the mid 2000s when everyone made their own Fan Controllers and such to put into those 5. 25 bays (which have largely died out in this age of USB drives. Still. Though largely forgotten such things have inspired me to make my own PC oddities. Which is a lot of fun once you figure out how to get your PC to send sensor data to something over say a COM port.
reply
Add a review, comment
Other channel videos
