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Bandcamp Music

I finally got around to getting all of my recent (meaning since 2008) albums onto Bandcamp. You can find it all at peteprodoehl.bandcamp.com

If you’re a fan of the weird stuff I make, check it out! The music I create is nothing amazing, but I have fun doing it.

Bandcamp seems okay right now, though they’ve had a few issues in the past. It’s a site I use to find and purchase music. It’s probably my number one choice right now for supporting artists by buying their music, Bandcamp Fridays are still a thing (for now):

Bandcamp Fridays—on which we waive our revenue share and pass the funds directly to artists & labels—has resulted in millions of fans paying over $120 million directly to labels and musicians they love.

2026 has these dates scheduled:

March 6th, 2026
May 1st, 2026
August 7th, 2026
September 4th, 2026
October 2nd, 2026
November 6th, 2026
December 4th, 2026

While Bandcamp is pretty good, I get the feeling they may not be around forever, or may not be “pretty good” forever. So it’s not the only place I’ve put my music. I’ll explore that more in future posts.

Tags bandcamp, music

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The Return of RPM

Back in 2012 I figured I would take a year off from the RPM Challenge but it ended up being 14 years… Oops. We’ll, we’re back! If you’re keeping track I did it in 2008, 2009, 2011, and now in 2026. Oh, the RPM Challenge is to record and album in one month. February, to be exact.

Here’s my 2026 entry, titled Space Farts. The title comes from about 10 years ago when I was driving somewhere listening to WMSE and hearing music I could only describe as, well… Space Farts! So I used that for the title.

Wanna listen? You can hear the whole thing on Bandcamp, Bandwagon.fm, or under music.

I’ve been in pain for months now but sometimes the product of pain is art. I’ve also watched a lot of Star Trek lately, so song titles like “Eject the Warp Core”, “Shields Holding”, and “The Prime Directive” were obvious choices.

I recorded the entire album over the course of two days, with another day for cleaning up and converting files and getting it all uploaded.I used a Korg Monotron Duo going through a Korg Monotron Delay going through a Korg NTS-1. That’s it. Three tiny and cheap Korg synths chained together. Limitations are meant to push creativity, right?

I haven’t been not making music since 2011. I took a little break but in 2021/2022 I was doing DAWless Jams and Pocket Operator stuff. And it was fun. I mostly stopped because I got too busy with paying work and took over my music space with client projects.

I have no delusions this is amazing music. I mostly make it for fun and occasionally some other weirdo or insane person tells me they like it. Cool. I’ll probably keep going. See you next year!

Tags music, rpm2026, rpmchallenge

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Megalodon (No) Macro Pad

Back in 2023 I got this Megalodon Macro Pad for a potential client project. The project never panned out but I’ve still got the macropad so I figured I would put it to use.

My plan was to assign a key combo to each key, something like command-option-shift-Q, or key commands that would not conflict with other things on my computer. I started making a few macros using Via Desktop (which was probably my first mistake) and things were fine until I got to the fourth macro, at which point it lost all the macros and showed a “Firmware doesn’t support macros” error. Other people had similar issues.

I tried reflashing the firmware, I tried flashing firmware random people made, I tried using Windows, I tried using Chrome. I think the whole “corrupt EEPROM” theory someone posted about was on the right track…

Anyway, after doing all that multiple times and using Chromium and usevia.app it seemed like I got macros back, but they didn’t work because they did not save and just disappeared after they were created.

The Macro Pad that cannot Macro!

Luckily, I have Keyboard Maestro…

My first idea was to set the keys to send F16 through F24, but then I found out Keyboard Maestro only handles F-Keys up to 20. Argh… But wait! You can set Keyboard Maestro to recognize input from a specific device. So that worked and I used F16 through F24.

The Basic screen just has the normal boring keys… not as useful for a macropad.

The Special screen is where you’ll find the fancy keys. After I used all the F-Keys I started using International, Japanese, and “non-US” keys, as there is very little chance I will type those on my main keyboard.

I was able to save the JSON config file and it wasn’t zero bytes like in some previous attempts.

I should also mention there is one troublesome key on the pad. On the bottom row, the third key from the left side stopped working. I removed the keycap and pressed hard on it repeatedly with a small screwdriver handle and eventually it started working again. Weird.

Would I recommend a Megalodon Macro Pad? Hmmm, I don’t know. I got mine for $50 USD and I think it’s quite a bit more than that now, though there may be sales now and then. I had started building my own macropad but never quite finished it, so for now the Megalodon will find some use. It is very well built. It’s solid, metal, and looks nice. Whatever I build will probably be boring looking but get the job done with less fuss.

The Megalodon does run QMK Firmware, which I am still interested in using and learning more about. We’ll see what the future holds I guess!

Tags keyboard

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Bambu Lab A1 mini Gets Messy

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2026-01-31
No Comments on Bambu Lab A1 mini Gets Messy

The Bambu Lab A1 mini I got in June 2024 hasn’t had and real failures until now, in January 2026, which is pretty darn good. Occasionally a print would fail, but I’d say over 98% of the time it just prints without issue.

The other day I hit print, walked away, and came back to… no print. Weird. I hit print again, or maybe I forgot to hit print the first time? I figured I forgot, and it was user error. Ah, no. I came back to the blob you see above.

In the old days this would have been disastrous, perhaps needing quite a bit of teardown, maybe requiring a heat gun or torch, and I was ready for that, but… I didn’t really need any special tools at all! (I used a needle nose pliers and some small forceps.)

I heated up the extruder and managed to get the blob off, and then allowed the machine to cool and got the hotend off. It was actually too easy. Is this printers in 2026!? There’s a mess, but hey, not too bad…

The area where the hotend clips in had some filament as well, which had to be cleaned up and removed.

It was just too easy! It’s like they added a non-stick surface to the thing. I suppose that shiny metal is exactly that, a surface that filament will not stick to.

And cleaning up the hotend was again, almost too easy! Hell, I fought in the Printer Wars back in the 2010s and it was nothing like the world we have today. I put almost no effort into getting the filament mess off of things. Damn.

Up and running, printing again, after like 15 minutes, and half of that was probably heating up the extruder and then letting it cool down.

The world may be going to shit in 2026 but at least the printers got their shit together.

Tags 3dprinters, 3dprinting, fix

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Cat Treat Puzzles

There are two cats at our house. Chooch, who is chill and cute and amazing… and Bubbs who is destructive an asshole and… amazing. In a different way. Like, he fucks with things. He gets bored, I guess. Especially at around 2am when he messes with stuff in the bedroom so we lock him out, but then he does crazy shit. So Dana got this Catstages Kitty Cube Cat Interactive Treat Puzzle Toy to try to occupy him a bit. She said it’s the easiest puzzle toy she could find, just to get him started.

It does keep him busy for a bit, so that’s good. And he knows he get treats when he plays with it. But also, 3D printing, so I went looking for ‘cat toy treat puzzles’ and found a few. And yeah, I missed the Cat Toys Contest back in 2023.

I printed Cat Toy – Treat Dispenser Puzzle and chose the Removable Axle for Cat Treat Dispenser Puzzle to go with it. I wasn’t sure what size holes to go with for the treat barrel, as it depends on the size of the treats. I ended up adding a little hot glue on some of the holes to make it more difficult for the treats to fall out. I may even cover up a few of the holes to make it even more difficult.

Overall, this one is a winner though! Bubbs will spin it and get treats to come out. Chooch, well, not so much. She isn’t that smart. But she is smart enough to sit nearby when Bubbs gives it a spin because sometimes a treat will fly out and she’ll get it first!

I also printed Tumbling Treats Egg (Cat Toy) but they don’t seem to be as excited about this one. It requires a good smacking to get treats out, and I think they treat it to gently. I did enlarged the hole with a step bit hoping it might be a little easier for them. We’ll see how that goes.

I have not yet printed Sliding Cat Treat Puzzle but it looks pretty promising, so that might be next in the print queue.

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Tags 3dprinting, cats, puzzles, toys