Studio Pics

[YEK]

18 minutes ago, ignatius said:

sold off all the things except for what's here. computah ftw

Just a nord and waldorf?

[TubularCorporation]

32 minutes ago, ignatius said:

sold off all the things except for what's here. computah ftw

What did you fill your acoustic panels with?  I'm going to need to make a couple, if only to kill the first reflections on the concrete foundation side of the new room (the other wall probably doesn't matter much since there are going to be racks in front of its first reflection point anyhow).

[ignatius]

1 hour ago, yekker said:

Just a nord and waldorf?

and e6400 and some FX and computah plug ins. don't need much these days. 

48 minutes ago, TubularCorporation said:

What did you fill your acoustic panels with?  I'm going to need to make a couple, if only to kill the first reflections on the concrete foundation side of the new room (the other wall probably doesn't matter much since there are going to be racks in front of its first reflection point anyhow).

they're GIKs acoustics panels. 

https://www.gikacoustics.com/

panels are on all the walls w/bass traps in corners and at front/rear of the room. 

even if there's racks etc.. the panels make a difference w/reflections. you should aim for symmetry.. panels on one side might make shit weird. 

Edited October 24, 2021 by ignatius

[auxien]

really nice spaces for both of y'all dudes!

looking forward to seeing what you do with it when you get it together fully Tubular. 

ignatius did you sell all your modular stuff? i thought you had a lot

[ignatius]

16 minutes ago, auxien said:

ignatius did you sell all your modular stuff? i thought you had a lot

it was huge for a while. w/the eurorack format was like 8 rows of 168hp. when i worked in synth shops i got lot's of stuff free or cheap.. .but before that i had modcan A series system that was big. so, modular was kind of a primary thing in the studio for a long time. .like since 2005 or 2006.. then really heavily since like 2012 or so. most of the music i've produced over the last 8 years maybe? has been mostly modular. so, just wanted to move on to some other things to focus on and also seemed a good time to convert it to cash.  if the modular was in the studio i'd use it because i was really comfortable w/it.. but  just want to do different stuff so best to take it out of the equation. 

[TubularCorporation]

1 hour ago, ignatius said:

and e6400 and some FX and computah plug ins. don't need much these days. 

they're GIKs acoustics panels. 

https://www.gikacoustics.com/

panels are on all the walls w/bass traps in corners and at front/rear of the room. 

even if there's racks etc.. the panels make a difference w/reflections. you should aim for symmetry.. panels on one side might make shit weird. 

It's already asymmetrical because one wall is about 12" of concrete and the other is 3/4" drywall on pine studs with an even bigger untreated space on the other side, so it'll be weird no matter what I do.

 

I could get enough 2" Owens Corning 703 to make 6 24"x48" panels for $75 so I'll stick with DIY, should be able to do the whole room for $200-$300 that way depending on how much coverage I need (not counting bass traps).

[ignatius]

41 minutes ago, TubularCorporation said:

It's already asymmetrical because one wall is about 12" of concrete and the other is 3/4" drywall on pine studs with an even bigger untreated space on the other side, so it'll be weird no matter what I do.

 

I could get enough 2" Owens Corning 703 to make 6 24"x48" panels for $75 so I'll stick with DIY, should be able to do the whole room for $200-$300 that way depending on how much coverage I need (not counting bass traps).

my basement was a mess when i moved in. after cleaning it up i framed it in and drywalled it.  still some weirdness because the ceiling is a little low.. .but moving the desk and listening position a bit further out from the wall a and a bit off center fixed a lot of problems. GIKs people were helpful w/sorting that out.

so, trial and error w/mix position and moving shit around can fix a lot of things or at least help find the sweet spot for listening. if you have a test oscillator in your DAW you can load it up w/a sine wave and try 30hz, 60hz then 100hz and 200hz etc at a normal listening level and walk around the room and you'll be able to hear any standing waves or nulls to find problem areas. easy thing to do is make a bunch of panels and deaden the room. bass traps in the corners and front/rear walls will be a good start.. then just figure out where shit sounds right and make that your listening position.  can try putting your speakers on each wall and see how it goes.. not always great for ergonomics depending on the things you'll have in there but it's a good way to figure things out. 

[auxien]

12 hours ago, ignatius said:

it was huge for a while. w/the eurorack format was like 8 rows of 168hp. when i worked in synth shops i got lot's of stuff free or cheap.. .but before that i had modcan A series system that was big. so, modular was kind of a primary thing in the studio for a long time. .like since 2005 or 2006.. then really heavily since like 2012 or so. most of the music i've produced over the last 8 years maybe? has been mostly modular. so, just wanted to move on to some other things to focus on and also seemed a good time to convert it to cash.  if the modular was in the studio i'd use it because i was really comfortable w/it.. but  just want to do different stuff so best to take it out of the equation. 

nice, i've liked a lot of what you've done in that time but i can definitely sympathize with feeling the need to move past your comfort zone/try different approaches.

[TubularCorporation]

11 hours ago, ignatius said:

my basement was a mess when i moved in. after cleaning it up i framed it in and drywalled it.  still some weirdness because the ceiling is a little low.. .but moving the desk and listening position a bit further out from the wall a and a bit off center fixed a lot of problems. GIKs people were helpful w/sorting that out.

so, trial and error w/mix position and moving shit around can fix a lot of things or at least help find the sweet spot for listening. if you have a test oscillator in your DAW you can load it up w/a sine wave and try 30hz, 60hz then 100hz and 200hz etc at a normal listening level and walk around the room and you'll be able to hear any standing waves or nulls to find problem areas. easy thing to do is make a bunch of panels and deaden the room. bass traps in the corners and front/rear walls will be a good start.. then just figure out where shit sounds right and make that your listening position.  can try putting your speakers on each wall and see how it goes.. not always great for ergonomics depending on the things you'll have in there but it's a good way to figure things out. 

Yeah, part of the reason I have my speakers mounted to the desk with old CRT stands is that the thick padding under the carpet made using real stands impractical, plus the CRT stands make it easier to get to that door behind the desk (which is just access to the circuit breaker), but a big part of it is that the entire thing can be repositioned without any measuring or anything*, the only real limiting factor is cable length (the computer is racked on the other side of the wall to the right to keep the fan noise down, so its position is permanently set).  Should make it pretty easy to do some fine tuning of the position. If I want to get really fancy I could clamp a board to the desk and actually mount a reference mic at the ideal listening position that way so that it moves with the rest of it, and then look at the frequency response in real time while I move the desk around.  Not sure if I'll bother with that but i might.

 

EDIT: I also need to learn how to properly flush out and clean an oil tank, because there's a pretty big one in the other side of the basement that's completely disconnected.  If there's a practical way to get it cleaned out and safely cut a couple small holes in it without blowing it up or something I might make it into a reverb chamber, but that's a along term goal.  

*also I already had one so even paying the inflated internet prices for another identical one was about 2/3 the price of a single LCD monitor arm that could handle a 25 pound speaker, much less two of them plus the rest of the parts it takes to convert them into on-desk monitor stands.

Edited October 24, 2021 by TubularCorporation

[Rubin Farr]

On 9/11/2021 at 5:03 PM, TheBro said:

Interesting I've always been intrigued by these. How do you find them?

I’ve got a QY10 with the Novation keyboard if anyone wants it.

 

[ignatius]

On 10/24/2021 at 7:19 AM, TubularCorporation said:

EDIT: I also need to learn how to properly flush out and clean an oil tank, because there's a pretty big one in the other side of the basement that's completely disconnected.  If there's a practical way to get it cleaned out and safely cut a couple small holes in it without blowing it up or something I might make it into a reverb chamber, but that's a along term goal.  

oh wow. i didn't think they put those tanks inside people's homes. the old heating system here was oil fired. the tank was outside in the ground. the local DEQ (dept. of environmental quality) required a certified contractor to decommission it when i put in a new furnace.. they send an inspector and all that. 

def do research about how to cut into it. there may be a way to use a drill w/a big hole cutter on it that won't throw sparks. or you could get that sand that is designed for cleaning up oil spills from leaky cars etc. and put a bag full of it in there to absorb the oil. then maybe you can use a shop vac to vacuum it out. regardless.. get a fire extinguisher!  worth mentioning that if you cut a big hole in it it might let out some stinky oil smell. 

[TubularCorporation]

Yeah, I would have to be REALLY sure of myself.  There are a couple of pipes that run to the outside of the house for refilling, I have a feeling the way to clean it would be to hire some specialty company that could come and flush it out with some chemical or other through those pipes. Sort of like this but more extreme.

 

I've never seen an outdoor residential oil tank in the USA, they're always indoors here, at least in the Northeast. They're always just a little leaky, too.

 

EDIT: it might not be the best sounding or most flexible, but the easiest/safest method might be to dangle a small, decent quality electret mic down into the vent pipe and then epoxy the most powerful surface transducer I could afford onto the side of it and drive it like a plate reverb. I have a feeling it would be mostly muddy ow end that way, though.

Edited November 2, 2021 by TubularCorporation

[psn]

Due to new environmental regulations I had to dig up and remove a big ass (~3200 liters) fuel tank in my garden a couple of years ago. I did consider rebuilding into a reverb chamber, but it all seemed like a huge hassle and it was easier to just hire professionals to get rid of it. It was probably 50 years old and hadn't been in use since long before I moved here, so I kind of freaked out over the risk of it contaminating our whole property.

 

[auxien]

Most IDM: turning the fuel tank in your garden into a reverb chamber

[thawkins]

The russians used a pencil recorded impulse response in a convolution reverb.

[TubularCorporation]

3 hours ago, auxien said:

Most IDM: turning the fuel tank in your garden into a reverb chamber

This specific water tank was used for the reverb on a huge number of famous 50s and 60s records:

http://gretschpages.com/media/img/fretboard/2019/8/duane eddy water tank echo.jpg.540x540_q85_autocrop.jpg

 

Anything on this list recorded between around 1960 and maybe the mid 70s probably had the water tank in there somewhere:

 

https://www.discogs.com/label/411635-Audio-Recorders-Arizona

[auxien]

^nice

i think that may be what you hear on the country songs from the studio list there, a lot of those have that big cheap reverb sound....can hear what i'm assuming is it kinda clearly here as they fade the mix down at the end of this one: 

 

pure speculation tho, i'm no pro

also found this album in the list which has some interesting parts (but nothing stood out to me re: the tank reverb). nice drum solo bit i'll let the listener hunt for if they want. overall a bit of Cream/Allman Brothers/Zep vibes, but definitely mostly undercooked.

 

Edited November 4, 2021 by auxien

[TubularCorporation]

If nothing else, it's THE Duane Eddy reverb because he was there when they picked it out and it was first bought for and used on one of his records.

Quote

 

“Now, our echo chamber was actually a 2,000-gal water tank. We went down to the Salt River and visited a junkyard there. Floyd Ramsey, who owned the studio, Jack Miller, the engineer, and Lee and I went round the place and we yelled into tanks that might work as a reverb chamber - they had holes at each end. Lee would go, ‘Whoop!’ and he got an echo out of them. 

“He finally found one that he yelled into and he liked the echo, so they bought it for a couple of hundred bucks and trucked it up to the back of the studio. Jack Miller, the engineer, built a pinewood cradle for it. It was about 8ft tall and about 15- or 18ft long. So it was a big thing.

“Jack put a speaker in one end and a mic in the other. He’d run, say, my guitar and the band through the speaker and it’d swirl around in the tank and into the mic at the other end, and we’d have our echo. It worked. Then, of course, Lee would take - when he took it to Gold Star Studios in Hollywood, they had the best echo in the world at that time and he’d have their record, mix it with ours. That’s why it had such a wild echoey sound on many of those records. That’s how we recorded it.”

 

"Lee" is Lee Hazelwood, so I guess that brings it full circle because Lee Hazelwood is as IDM as it gets without actually being IDM, as far as I'm concerned.

There's no way his voice isn't going through that tank here:

This whole album sounds like most of the instruments if not the entire mixes went through the tank:

 

The reverb on Waylon Jennings' voice in that track sounds suspiciously similar.

AFAIK the tank stayed in the building until the 80s or 90s but they weren't using it past sometime in the 70s.

Edited November 4, 2021 by TubularCorporation

[TubularCorporation]

If I remember right, the Motown reverb was a big, unfinished attic above the studio because Barry Gordy couldn't afford to build a real reverb chamber at first and by the time he could the attic had become part of the signature Motown sound.

[user]

 

Redid everything at least twice since I last posted, I think. 
One of the things I’m most happy with is that I finally slapped together a stand that allows the 19” rack to stand on its rear. Cut a hole in the top for slightly easier access and cable routing, and can also access everything when I slide under the table on my back. 
Not sure yet if the large-ish Yamaha mixer will stay, and would love to move all drum things (including out of shot tr8) to where the mixers and patchbay are but can’t figure out an ergonomic way to do it and I’m kinda sick of reorganising now. Hoping to mod the bx8 with individual outs somewhere in the coming months. 
Over the last year I’ve only sold stuff, the mixer I already had, and for some reason have been totally gas free for ages (having no money helps, I guess) and I’ve been pretty content with the setup. There’s only a few things I’d like to add now and then I think I’ll be done for basically forever. 

[Grain Bastard]

16 hours ago, user said:
Over the last year I’ve only sold stuff, the mixer I already had, and for some reason have been totally gas free for ages (having no money helps, I guess) and I’ve been pretty content with the setup. There’s only a few things I’d like to add now and then I think I’ll be done for basically forever. 

Being content with this awesome setup is surely the only conclusion to draw…

 

nice place mate

[thawkins]

17 hours ago, user said:

 

Redid everything at least twice since I last posted, I think. 
One of the things I’m most happy with is that I finally slapped together a stand that allows the 19” rack to stand on its rear. Cut a hole in the top for slightly easier access and cable routing, and can also access everything when I slide under the table on my back. 
Not sure yet if the large-ish Yamaha mixer will stay, and would love to move all drum things (including out of shot tr8) to where the mixers and patchbay are but can’t figure out an ergonomic way to do it and I’m kinda sick of reorganising now. Hoping to mod the bx8 with individual outs somewhere in the coming months. 
Over the last year I’ve only sold stuff, the mixer I already had, and for some reason have been totally gas free for ages (having no money helps, I guess) and I’ve been pretty content with the setup. There’s only a few things I’d like to add now and then I think I’ll be done for basically forever. 

Yeah, this looks really nice.

How does it feel to finally be able to start making music? 

[Rubin Farr]

On 10/23/2021 at 7:56 PM, ignatius said:

and e6400 and some FX and computah plug ins. don't need much these days. 

they're GIKs acoustics panels. 

https://www.gikacoustics.com/

panels are on all the walls w/bass traps in corners and at front/rear of the room. 

even if there's racks etc.. the panels make a difference w/reflections. you should aim for symmetry.. panels on one side might make shit weird. 

I have the same Nord, did you find an expansion card? I let a card slip away on eBay years ago unfortunately. But I got all the Wizoo Guides and even the CD-ROM.

[Silent Member]

Loving user's setup!

(Assuming the second speaker is on a washing machine)

Edited December 15, 2021 by Silent Member

[user]

5 hours ago, thawkins said:

Yeah, this looks really nice.

How does it feel to finally be able to start making music? 

Haha. Very funny.

If you'd know that the chair slightly pokes your back, there's a psu making a weird whining noise and there's a funny smell sometimes you'd realize what an absolutely ridiculous proposition you're making. Also I'm not wearing the right shoes right now, so...