Diy plate reverb. This was the easiest of all my machines to make. It took about a week. It is basically a sheet of 0.5mm x 1m x 2m stainless steel stretched as tightly as possible, with 1 drive coil and 2 pickups for stereo. The hardest part about making a plate reverb is finding a sheet of steel that is thin enough and big enough. I found mine in a scrap yard. I would have preferred it to be thinner than 0.5mm, but no one in Sheffield (so called steel city) was selling it. The metal is stretched on a wooden frame using hooked bolts though holes in the corners of the plate. The sound is really nice especially on backing vocals. Some advice for anyone thinking of building their own plate reverb This is well worth a try it is quite easy and there is no need to build any electronics because it can be driven by a standard hi fi amp, and the output can be treated as if it were a microphone and plugged straight into a desk or sound card.
Plate reverbs are nearly always rectangular. The steel Tensioning Using It. Hiding a Lavalier Mic. Today's lapel or "lav" mics are small and unobtrusive, but sometimes, you still need to hide one. There are plenty of shoot situations where hiding the lav is helpful, but where to put it? Fortunately, there are lots of options and, if you'll stick with us for a few minutes, you will know how to use 10 of the most popular locations.
You'll need some gaffer's tape, some clear medical tape and maybe a safety pin or two. Get your tools together, and let's go hide a lav mic. Polo Shirts Polo shirts have that distinctive short row of two or three buttons. Where the opening stops is a great place to hide a lav mic. In the Collar While we're still thinking about shirts, have you ever considered hiding a lav mic in the talent's collar? Glasses Temple This method has some spy flair. In the Hair Speaking of hair, did you know you can hide a mic in someone's hair? Cleavage All right, I know this one is a little racy, but it works. On the Chest Let's give the men equal time too. T-Shirt Pocket Hat Brims. Schemas. SYNTH ZONE - MIDI, Synthesizer & Electronic Music Production Resource Guide. Vintage On The Cheap. There's no doubt that these days software is king.
And why not? It costs a fraction of what hardware does, the sound quality is improving all the time, and you can literally fit your entire studio in a laptop bag. But for all its distinct advantages, there are some areas where software falls short for synth geeks. It's not really collectable. It has a far more limited lifespan than hardware given how quickly operating systems change. Unfortunately, vintage hardware doesn't usually come cheap and this can be a barrier that prevents a lot of electronic musicians from giving one of these old beasts a try. Casio never really got a fair shake with the professional music market. I'll grant you that Ensoniq is not a name you generally associate with 'classic' synths, but for the life of me, I'll never understand why the ESQ-1 isn't more popular on the used market.
This one can vary a LOT in price, so it pays to shop around and wait for a deal. So there's a handful to get you started. WolframTones: An Experiment in a New Kind of Music. Acoustic Treatment and Design for Recording Studios and Listenin. Acoustic Treatment and Design for Recording Studios and Listening Rooms by Ethan Winer Ethan Winer is co-owner of RealTraps, a leading manufacturer of acoustic treatment products.
Ethan has at various times earned a living as a professional musician, computer programmer, circuit designer, recording engineer, composer/arranger, technical writer, acoustician, and college instructor. Ethan has more than 150 feature articles published in various computer and audio magazines. He’s produced dozens of educational and music videos, and composed three pieces for full orchestra, all of which have been performed. If you have questions about anything in this article, or anything else related to audio, you're welcome to ask in my Audio Expert Forum. This page was last updated on May 9, 2016. French readers, see THIS version that is being translated by Christian Parent.Hungarian readers, see THIS version that was kindly translated by Tamás Bánfi. This text will surely expand as I learn more. Top. Reverb Comparison: Convolution vs. Algorithmic. Reverberation (or reverb) is one of the most important effects in the ‘toolbelt’ of a recording or mixing engineer.
It ‘s conventionally used to make a signal sound like it was produced in a sonically pleasing acoustic environment. When sound is produced in an acoustic environment, the surroundings reflect echoes (or delayed versions) of the sound. Reverb, as an effect, attempts to create these echos “artificially” for a signal. There are many different ways that reverb can be created and added to a signal. Reverb can also be created without actually creating any acoustic vibrations and echoes. With the adoption of the computer based Digital Audio Workstation, reverb could be created through software and implement as a plug-in. Convolution reverb uses an Impulse Response (IR) to create reverb. Software reverb that does not use convolution creates echoes using mathematical algorithms to simulate the delays that occur in reverb. For more on setting up and mixing reverb: History of Sound Recording Technology.
Five milestones in music technology. Last week an audio clip emerged that is apparently the oldest recording of the human voice in existence. It's a ten-second clip of a woman singing a French folk song, and was recorded in 1860 on a device called a phonautograph. You can hear it here. The last two hundred years have seen huge advances in music technology, such as electronic music and even home recording software.
Here are five of the key advances, in chronological order. 1. First synthesiser - 1876To find the first synthesiser, we have to go back to the early days of the telephone. His device was called the Musical Telegraph and was based on a self-vibrating electromagnetic circuit. Pickups are the devices mounted on the bodies of electric guitars, under the strings. The first pickup is generally credited to George Beauchamp, a vaudeville musician who experimented with several techniques for making louder guitars. 3. Theremin's device was called the Rhythmicon.
You can even play the Rhythmicon online here. 4. 5. Make acoustic panels for your recording studio or home theater. Acoustic treatments are often used to help improve the acoustics of a room by taming "flutter echoes," "room modes," and other problems which arise from a room's dimensions and construction. Although a variety of treatments are available for commercial use, they tend to be quite expensive.
After some research both online and in print, we came across several sources for DIY acoustic treatments using rigid fiberglass panels and simple frames. These are often referred to as "bass traps," although the ones that we're focusing on have a fairly wide rage of absorption. While commercial versions are available for almost $100, we were able to make these panels for about $24 each. We can not take credit for this design, but have combined several people's ideas into a step-by-step guide. For more information, check out the good folks in the acoustics forum at recording.org. How to: Make Contact Mics | S C O T T P E T E R S E N ∞ E L M U C O ∞ S C A C I N T O . C O M.
In preparation for our instrument making workshop at Artspace New Haven on December 13th, your intrepid guides Brian and Scott spent a foggy Sunday afternoon making contact mics from scratch. The below is both a how-to and an advertisement for the workshop. If you are around New Haven, please follow this link to the INI site and register now as seats are limited to 10 and they will go fast. So without further ado, lets make some contact mics! Tools: Wire stripper, X-acto knife, pliers, soldering iron, solder, helping hands (or a friend ;) ) Ingredients: Piezoelectric discs, audio cable (mono mini TS or your preferred kind), Plasti Dip, electrical tape. Step 1: Grab the audio cable and cut it in half. Step 2: Strip the outer shielding off revealing the wires within.
Step 3: Strip the ends of the leads and tin them up with your soldering iron. Step 4: Grab your helping hands and get the cable in one side the piezo in the other, wires towards each other. Step 5: Step 5b (optional): Step 6: Wrong! Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 | VST Cafe. Arcade Button MIDI Controller. Below is a list of components used to create the MIDI controller. The cost for this project is based on the components needed for the MIDI controller. Other tools such as a soldering iron or a power drill, or common components such as solder and wire aren't included in the final cost. Tools which I did have to purchase are marking with italics , and their price is shown.
All prices are in AUD except where indicated. Required Components 1 x DFRduino (cheaper Arduino clone) $28.80 1 x USB cable (A to B connector, like that on a printer) $3.95 1 x Plastic enclosure $15.75 12 x Sanwa 24mm arcade buttons $26.28 (USD) 4 x 10k linear potentiometer $4.88 4 x Pot knobs $3.80 2 x 10k linear sliding potentiometer $7.54 2 x Slider knobs $2.04 5 x 10mm M3 nylon threaded spacers $2.00 (I got a bag of 25 for $9.95) 4 x 16mm countersunk M3 screws $1.00 3 x 4mm M2 self tapping screws $0.75 1 x 4.7 kΩ resistor $0.10 4 x stick on rubber feet $2.00 Total $98.89.
How It's Made - turntables. Magnetic Tape History. Industry standards Technics SL-1200. There's some gear DJs expect to see in every club they walk into. Our new series Industry Standards will look at the history, technology and personalities behind these classics of the craft. Once a month for the next six months, we'll grab one item out of the booth, scratch through the front panel and see what we find. Along the way, we'll introduce you to the folks who made them, and pick the brains of those who use them week in and week out.
What we'd tackle in our first edition was a no-brainer. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more ubiquitous presence in the DJ world than the Technics SL-1200 MK2, the deck that started it all. In 1979, the Japanese electronics giant Matsushita introduced an updated version of its Technics SL-1200 turntable. The Technics SL-1200 MK2 is unquestionably not the best turntable ever made. Most critically, the 1200 was direct-drive, one of the hallmarks of the Technics brand for years prior. Mister Saturday Night's Justin Carter & Eamon Harkin. Cable Anatomy PT1: Microphone. What is impedance? Impedance is the AC (alternating current) version of the DC (direct current) term resistance, which is the opposition to electron current flow in a circuit and is expressed in ohms. Impedance (often abbreviated as “Z”) includes capactive reactance and inductive reactance in addition to simple DC resistance. Reactance depends upon the frequency of the signal flowing in the circuit.
Capactive reactance increases as frequency decreases: inductive reactance increases as frequency increases. Because of this frequency dependence, impedance is not directly measurable with a multimeter as DC resistance is. What are the differences between high- and low-impedance microphones? To answer this requires a little historical background. The lower output of low-Z mics required the equipment manufacturer to use input transformers in front of the mic preamplifiers to step up the strength of the signal, which substantially increased the cost of the circuitry. Page 1 of 6 123>Last » Next. Cable Anatomy PT3: Instrument. See Part 1, Microphone Cable here and Part 2, Loudspeaker Cable here. Are instrument cables used for high-impedance or low-impedance lines? Generally, the source impedance is the determining factor in cable selection. Instrument cables are used for a wide range of sources. Many keyboard instruments, mixers, and signal processors have very low (50 to 600 ohm) source impedances.
On the other hand, typical electric guitar or bass pickups are very inductive, very high impedance (20,000 ohms and above) sources. Typical load impedances are greater than 10,000 ohms, which limits the electrical current flow to a very small amount on the order of a few thousandths of an ampere (milliamps). How much power does an instrument cable have to carry? The voltages encountered range from a few millivolts, in the case of the electric guitar, to levels over ten volts delivered by line-level sources such as mixers.
What kind of frequency response does an instrument cable need? What is wire gauge? SouthPole Expedition Part 3: Pattern Sequenced ADSR Envelopes | AudioMulch.com. ADSR (Attack Decay Sustain Release) envelopes provide a way to specify how sound synthesis parameters such as filter cutoff and gain change over time. They support the synthesis of evolving timbres and are commonly found in analog synthesizers where the envelopes are triggered by pressing keys on the keyboard. With three ADSR envelope generators, AudioMulch's SouthPole contraption provides plenty of scope for envelope controlled filter modulation. In this post I'll demonstrate triggering the envelopes from their built-in pattern sequencers to create rhythmic patterns of filtering and gating.
I'll use this functionality to synthesize some basic drum sounds and later to filter and gate samples. Before reading on you might want to review my previous posts exploring AudioMulch's SouthPole contraption: In part 1 I introduced the basic structure of SouthPole. Attack Sustain Decay Release – and Gate Duration The diagram below shows how an ADSR envelope evolves over time. ADSR timing diagram Kick. Cable Anatomy PT2: Loudspeaker Cable. See Part 1, Microphone Cable, here. What are the main parts of a loudspeaker cable, and what does each one do?
Typically a loudspeaker cable has two stranded copper conductors, covered with insulation, twisted together with fillers and sheathed with an overall jacket. How big should the conductors be? The required size (or gauge) of the conductors depends on three factors: (1) the load impedance; (2) the length of cable required; and (3) the amount of power loss that can be tolerated.
Each of these involves relationships between voltage (volts), resistance (ohms), current (amperes) and power (watts). The job of a loudspeaker cable is to move a substantial amount of electrical current from the output of a power amplifier to a loudspeaker system. By comparison, a 600-ohm input driven by a line-level output only pulls about 2 milliamps. How does current draw affect the conductor requirements of the loudspeaker cable? A simple fact to remember: Current needs copper, voltage needs insulation. How Vinyl Records Are Made PART 2 OF 2. How Vinyl Records Are Made PART 1 OF 2.