iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

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A well deserved treat after a windy 3 hour kayaking session:

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Last night I had the pleasure of introducing my wife to the original DK Rap for the first time - she was one of the lucky 10,000.

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

TIL in REAPER you can Alt+Click to drag the timing of individual takes without affecting the other takes so you can line them up. I wish I had known this years ago...

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Was practicing some archery yesterday when this happened:

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Note to self: Sibelius can't handle "Undo Edit Staves in Part"

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

New skill unlocked: replacing the transmission drive belt on my lawn mower.

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

I love it when a tune feels like it was made for the accordion, and this is one of them: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBag...

Super Mario RPG - Forest Maze (on Accordion)

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

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I'm honored to have arranged Ace Attorney's Turnabout Sisters for the Pixel Mixers 10-year anniversary album. Check it out along with the other 37 amazing tracks!

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Today I covered the most peaceful place in all of Stardew Valley: the beach. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWEz...

Stardew Valley - Beach (Accordion Quartet)

Pixel Mixers @pixelmixers.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

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Reposted by Brendan Vavra

Hey we are happy to release the first single of our 10th anniversary album ! :) Here is Nemo Fairlight's Goth Symphonic rock/metal arrangement of "In the Blood" from Hades developed by @supergiantgames.bsky.social Original song composed by @darrenkorb.bsky.social open.spotify.com/album/4a6CAp...

open.spotify.com

In the Blood (from "Hades")

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

I haven't done a duet with the MIDI accordion in a hot minute, and I've had the idea for this video cooking for a while, so I finally pulled the trigger to get this project done: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU-G...

Undertale - Bonetrousle (on Accordion)

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

After sitting in my book unplayed for over 15 years, I finally got around to learning and covering one of the most iconic themes in VGM history: youtu.be/mOJ20Myca_8

youtu.be

Super Mario Bros. (on Accordion)

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

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Been busy with life lately, but I wanted to throw up something real quick since it's been a while: the VS Battle Theme from Super Mario Bros. 3, and my first YouTube short: www.youtube.com/shorts/z060Q...

SMB3 VS Battle Theme

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

I've been using Sibelius for over 20 years, and I only just learned today you can press X to auto-flip note and beam directions. I want my hours of tedious engraving tweaks back.

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Reposted by Brendan Vavra

Pixel Mixers @pixelmixers.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

Hey y'all we are delighted to share with you all our tribute album to Zelda the Wind Waker's music: "Songs of the Great Sea". It features 30 arrangements made by the members of our community, now on all major streaming platforms :) fanlink.tv/GreatSea

fanlink.tv

Songs of the Great Sea - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

by Pixel Mixers

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

New video! This time it's an original tango duet inspired by our cat Opal: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGcy...

Opal's Tango (Original Accordion and Violin Duet)

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Whelp, even at the lowest settings Clair Obscur E33 only runs on my PC at like 10fps. 1050Ti, you've been great these past 8 years, but I think it's finally time for an upgrade...

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

One of these days it will stop raining, and I will be able to do yard work again. (Also I don't know when I started becoming excited about doing yardwork.)

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

For some reason 1 out of 4 of my Switch 1 joycons refuses to pair with the Switch 2, and between how new the Switch 2 is and the naming similarities, it currently feels impossible to search for any meaningful troubleshooting on the matter. 🙃

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

I don't know why, but I feel like mowing the lawn is the closest thing I have to meditation. I guess it's because it's one of the few times I can turn my brain off for an extended time while still doing something productive.

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

I thought it'd be fun to share a breakdown of the time spent on my most recent video project: Arranging: ~3h Practicing: ~1h Recording Audio: ~2h Editing Audio: ~1h Mixing Audio: ~3h Recording Video: ~2h Editing Video: ~4h Publishing and Sharing: ~1h Total: ~17h

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Just played Slippi Unranked for the first time in 3+ years - although I played like hot garbage, I was teamed up with someone chill enough to just mess around with low tiers for a while, so all in all it was one of my better online Melee experiences. ggs

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

I fear all my years of accordion playing has dulled my composition senses when it comes to harmony and voice leading. I'm too used to only thinking in block chords with only major/minor/7/dim at my disposal, and there's so much more music to be made beyond that...

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Reposted by Brendan Vavra

Pixel Mixers @pixelmixers.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

What is next for Pixel Mixers ? Our next album "Songs of the Great Sea" is a tribute to #Zelda #WindWaker music! It will features 30 arrangements from that iconic OST. Art is WIP by @bg87.bsky.social Album organiser is Dewey Newt

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Whelp, my Switch fan is dying. Now to figure out: do I try to get it replaced, or can I hold out until Switch 2?

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

I finally pulled myself away from my Home Assistant project enough to do a new video. I had fun learning this on the button accordion: youtu.be/_zM2FcBWekw

youtu.be

Donkey Kong Country 3 - Water World (Accordion Duet)

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

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When I first heard of "vibe coding" I thought it was Gen-Z's way of saying they're "in the zone," but I'm sad to have learned the actual meaning is much dumber than that.

Pixel Mixers @pixelmixers.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Reposted by Brendan Vavra

Hey y'all, we are working on the track-list of our 10th anniversary album, and we'd love to get some help :) If you have time, please do check this poll, you can pick as many tracks as you'd like! forms.gle/JyyXveXpytEN...

forms.gle

Last Chance Poll

Links to the tracks: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1u_V19uGJqVLzYIExduMqh-OQ3ChHkZPu-zJ0dyrDKGA/edit?usp=sharing

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Home Assistant Integration, Week 4 - it was only a matter of time before I ended up forking the home-assistant-voice-pe repo...

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

I had a shower thought earlier today that it would be nice if there was a device that could boil water and automatically steep tea for an appropriate time, and dispense when it's ready... ...and then I realized I just described a coffee maker verbatim.

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

I'm pleasantly surprised to find out that connecting two Switch JoyCons to PC/Steam as one controller just _works_ with no additional config. We've come a long way from the tedious manual mappings I've done for PC controller support over the past 25 years...

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Finally got custom wake words working on my Voice Assistant PE, with much help from the Home Assistant community - it's refreshing to be able to find documentation and other resources so easily (unlike some of my other projects...).

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Home Assistant Integration, Week 3 - After spending 4 days getting everything set up to use a custom wake word, I discover that the Voice Assistant PE firmware has them disabled by default. 🙃 Now I get to learn how to set up ESPHome to reinstall a forked version of VAPE that supports custom names.

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Just finished setting up Home Assistant's Voice Assistant, and it only took two hours of Docker configuration to make everything talk to eachother. Now to see if I can fix the problem where it takes over 30 seconds to respond...

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

TFW you're just about ready to install an NVMe SSD cache drive into your NAS, and suddenly you find some fine print saying you actually need TWO of them for read+write mode. Guess I'll have to get another one and wait a bit longer...

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Thought of the day: I think at the end of the day we're all just people making stuff, and sometimes it can take some time and life experience to learn to become content with doing whatever you want however you want, despite what anyone else may think.

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Home Assistant integration update, Day 12 - it took me way too long to realize they renamed Services to Actions last August, effectively obfuscating any helpful blog or reddit post more than 6 months old. Now I think I can finally start tinkering with advanced automations with the NVIDIA Shield...

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

My wife and I finished re-working our "fuzzy family wall" over the weekend with some new signs and a custom-made floral wreath symbolizing our dog Phoenix and two cats Jade and Opal. <3

Fuzzy Family Wall (top to bottom, left to right): "A house is not a home without paws", our two cats Jade and Opal, "First we steal your <3, then we steal your chair", "In this house we narrate our dog's thoughts", our dog Phoenix.

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Home Assistant integration, Week 2: you know it's getting serious when you start making direct edits to the configuration.yaml file.

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Building my Home Assistant setup, Day #4: I can't believe how ridiculously complicated Google makes their API integrations. I feel like I'd rather replace my Nest at this point.

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Just lost power this morning, and NYSEG says it'll take 4 hours to restore. Luckily I just got a generator hooked up to the house last month - didn't expect to need it just a few weeks later, but glad to have it.

Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Started setting up Home Assistant this week - got almost all my IoT devices hooked up, and I'm staring down the rabbit hole of all the configuration and automation possibilities...

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

I can't believe just two weeks after release there's nowhere left in this town to get Nugget Nectar...

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

aaaaand now my Discord Desktop app is crashing 5 seconds after opening it. Every time. I assume this is due to a recent upgrade - anyone else ever run into this?

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Brendan Vavra @brendanvavra.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

I recently had to switch to a new work laptop and I just realized I didn't transfer over my Pictures folder over from my old laptop. 9 years of inter-office memes lost. I'm in shambles.