Björn Fogelberg Selection Mix June 2022
I just got myself a new Pioneer DDJ-400 DJ controller and thought it was way overdue to make a new mix. Here it is. Enjoy!
Two Waves Colliding Remixes EP is out
Just in time for the (almost) spring, my Two Waves Colliding Remixes EP is finally available for streaming on the usual places. It’s also available for download on Beatport. This EP has three versions: A remastered, shorter (Edit) version of the original tune from 2020, a fresh new remix by John Keding, and a remix by me, aka Knatter. Check it out, click that heart icon in Spotify and tell all your friends about it. :)
First teaser for my Two Waves Colliding EP, out on Spotify March 11
Finally some new music from me. Well, sort of. In less than a week, when writing this, my next EP Two Waves Colliding will be released on Spotify and all the other streaming services, including Beatport. It’s a revisit to a fan favorite, originally released in 2020. Now in a remastered version and two spanking new remixes. Here is a little taste of one of the remixes, by Sweden’s John Keding.
Click here to pre-save the EP on Spotify, so you don’t miss it when it’s out.
My studio 1997 and 2022
I have been making electronic music since 1986. In the beginning, it was just me and a Commodore 64. Over time I have been able to buy other equipment to make music. My studio is ever-evolving, ever-changing, as is my music. Here are two photos of my studio’s appearance in 1997 vs. what it looks like today, in 2022.
Spotify Playlist Melodic House Gems 2022
Check out my new playlist on Spotify. Melodic House Gems that you may never have heard before. Click the heart to follow the playlist. I will keep adding great new tracks every week.
Music by Moudy Afifi, Djogo, Anerøb, Singletrax and more.
Happy New Year 2022
Happy New Year everyone!
One of my personal promises for 2022 is to become better at posting about my music and other stuff. The nice image, by Ivan Filipov, is a little teaser for a future release. It’s a remix EP with remixes by me and John Keding. Can you guess which track? A little hint, it’s from 2020 and It’s a fan favorite.
My music was used in the 2005 Disney game Club Penguin
I was browsing through this years’ Wrapped for Artists on Spotify. As usual, it was a depressing read, once again highlighting my obvious lack of self-promotion and releasing new music to keep the fans interested. Listening rates going steadily down. That sort of stuff.
One interesting thing came out of that ordeal, however. Some plays of my 2005 track Gravitons came from a relatively new playlist called Club Penguin Original Soundtrack. I investigated further and soon found out that apparently Gravitons was used in a hugely popular online game called Club Penguin, back in the mid-2000, and more recently in Club Penguin 3D (CP3D).
I think that is the third game my music has been licensed to so far, as I know of anyway. Maybe I should add ‘Game musician’ to my Linkedin Profile. ;)
Just a quick update
Haven’t posted anything here in three months. So what’s up? Well.. I’m still alive and kicking. After I finished and published my Game Boy modding book I kind of went into low energy, low inspiration mode, or something. It’s probably because of the pandemic, with the working from home, not being able to travel, go clubbing etc. I’m putting most of my available life force into my day job. Once in a while, if I’m lucky there is enough of it left for making music and other creative stuff. I’m still working on my next album, but it’s a slow process. Grinding away one tune at a time.
Over and out.
Game Boy Modding and Repairs: A step-by-step guide for beginners
My new book is out on Amazon. Game Boy Modding and Repairs is something I have been working on for about five months, one of my secret projects during the Covid Lockdown.
It’s an e-book for anybody that wants to learn how to modify and repair the classic Nintendo Game Boy handheld console, with no-nonsense, illustrated detailed guides to the most common mods for improved video and sound. Also lots of solutions to the most common problems for the old DMG-01.
Check it out if you want to learn just about everything I know about modding Game Boys. All the do’s and don’ts, all the little tips and tricks I wished I knew when I started out five or so years ago.
Everything covered in my book:
Game Boy Overview
Tools & Supplies
Sourcing a Game Boy
Resources
How To Clean a Game Boy
Retrobrighting
Modding Without Soldering
How To Solder a Game Boy
The Backlight Mod
The Bivert Mod
The Decoupling Capacitor Mod
The Pro Sound Mod
The Bass Mod
Aftermarket Clear Shell Mod
Other Mods
Modding Lingo
Repairs:
Game Boy won’t start
The logo is scrambled
Game Boy starts but the screen is blank
Battery leaks and other corrosion
Screen flickers when turning the contrast wheel
Screen is weak, lacks contrast, or flickers sometimes
Vertical lines
Horizontal lines
Black spots on the screen
Small faded spots in the screen
Scratches on the screen or the screen cover
Sound crackles when adjusting the volume
Sound is distorted or weak
No sound when using headphones
The D-pad or buttons doesn’t work
D-pad and buttons are hard to press
Capacitors
Problems after installing a backlight:
Broken screen
Areas with different brightness
Graphics doesn’t look sharp
Graphics looks inverted
Screen doesn’t work or is flickering a lot
One or several air bubbles
Bivert chip problems
When nothing else works
WordPress tweaking for better performance
I have done some more WordPress tweaking on Fogelberg.com. The loading time for the images had become somewhat unbearable, which shouldn’t really happen since I was using plugins to handle that: The W3 Total Cache to cache everything, Shortpixel Image Optimizer for optimizing images and putting them on their CDN, and finally, the Autoptimize plugin for, among other things lazyloading images and fetching them from the Shortpixel CDN.
Especially the Photos page took forever to load. It seemed that none of the images was really cached. Using a cache plugin should speed up showing a page, images included. Now, all of the images seemed to be fetched from the CDN every time I reloaded a page. The result was a much slower website. Just loading the start page could take 14-15 seconds. That shouldn’t happen with a cache plugin installed.
I tried a lot of things to fix it. I cleared all the caches. Checked that all settings in the plugins seemed right. I changed a few plugin settings. I disabled the Image Optimizer plugin. No difference. I tried to use Shortpixel Adaptive Images, Shortpixel’s own plugin for fetching images from their CDN. No difference. As a last resort, I uninstalled all three plugins. Everything looked and worked exactly as before, i.e., badly.
Then, I had a look at the HTML code, specifically for how the images were shown, using a browser with a completely wiped history (nothing cached). The HTML code showed my pages were still cached and fetched images from the Shortpixel CDN, even though I had uninstalled all three plugins for that. They shouldn’t fetch images from the CDN, they should fetch them from my WordPress installation. WTH? I had a look inside the Cache folder in my WordPress installation. Surprisingly, it was full of stuff, cached pages that shouldn’t be there. This should all be deleted automatically when uninstalling the plugins.
I removed all the files in the Cache folder. Reloaded the website in a browser, and wow, low and behold, it was now showing the correct, uncached version. No more CDN URLs. Seems it was some sort of cache problem all along.
I don’t know if it was caused by Autoptimize or Total Cache, but I did some research and decided not to reinstall them. Instead, I now use WP Rocket. Yes, it’s not a free plugin, but finally, everything works as it should, and my site is quicker to load than before.
I’m happy again.