Hobbies

[rhfarmer]

@TS9

Tenor Guitars

See why guitarists around the world choose our vintage replica guitars that play, sound, and look better than the classics they pay tribute to such as Airline, Teisco and Mosrite.

eastwoodguitars.com

Do it.

 

[rome8180]

Started a project to build my own acoustic panels for my "recording studio." Settled on the type of insulation I wanted. It's surprisingly hard to find online. Fortunately, a nearby Lowe's had five left. I drove there, and after 20 minutes wandering around because I hate asking anyone for help, I found the aisle. It hadn't been listed this way online, but the insulation was on clearance. Instead of $40 a package it was $14.

Considering I was buying four, this is a huge savings. I like to think this is the universe's way of saying I made the right decision to build my own panels. For a long time, I'd been planning to buy them pre-made because building them seemed like too much work.

Now I have enough insulation to build as many panels as I might need. This is going to save me thousands of dollars.

 

[physicsfactor]

Let me know how it works out for you. I’ve been looking to try this myself and would love to hear more if you’re happy with your final panels.

 

[rome8180]

Let me know how it works out for you. I’ve been looking to try this myself and would love to hear more if you’re happy with your final panels.

I might get lazy order the wood frames pre-made. There's a place that does them for like $25 each. That's cheap enough where I figure the cost-to-saved-time ratio is worth it.

 

[physicsfactor]

Let me know how it works out for you. I’ve been looking to try this myself and would love to hear more if you’re happy with your final panels.

I might get lazy order the wood frames pre-made. There's a place that does them for like $25 each. That's cheap enough where I figure the cost-to-saved-time ratio is worth it.

Did you end up making frames or did you order them? Do you have a link for the frames site you mentioned?

 

[rome8180]

Let me know how it works out for you. I’ve been looking to try this myself and would love to hear more if you’re happy with your final panels.

I might get lazy order the wood frames pre-made. There's a place that does them for like $25 each. That's cheap enough where I figure the cost-to-saved-time ratio is worth it.

Did you end up making frames or did you order them? Do you have a link for the frames site you mentioned?

Haven't ordered yet. I'm about to this week. I've made an account and have what I want in my cart. Here's the site I'm looking at. They seem to be well reviewed elsewhere (on YouTube and Amazon, etc.).

https://www.acoustimac.com/acoustic-insulation-materials/wood-panel-frames

 

[physicsfactor]

Awesome, thank you. I’ve had that site open in another window for months and haven’t pulled the trigger yet.

 

[rome8180]

Still haven't ordered the frames because the summer rolled around and I decided I needed to save money. Will do it in the fall.

 

[rome8180]

@TS9 , my mixing and mastering skills have really leveled up in the last month or so. I think one big thing is that I can get my tracks to be way louder and fuller. I've learned a few tricks in that regard. I used to just slap a limiter on my stereo out, crank the gain, and hope for the best. Now I've discovered the benefits of parallel processing for filling out your mix and increasing loudness.

You can parallel process directly from tracks, but you can also do it from busses. One thing I've been doing is setting up a send with what I call "parallel midrange." It's basically an EQ with everything but the "true midrange" removed (generally 800hz to 5k). After the EQ, I use the MV2 from Waves to do "upward compression." There are other plugins that do this as well. What it does is the opposite of compression: it brings up all the lowest level signal up. Because I've band limited it with the EQ in front of it, I'm only bringing up the midrange signal. Then, since I have it on a send, I can feed the entire mix into it. It's amazing what raising the low level signal of your midrange will do for the loudness and fullness of your mix.

Another thing I think we discussed is parallel compression. I've been doing this on the whole mix. I use a pretty slow attack and quick release with a very low threshold and high ratio. That way I'm really squashing the hell out of the signal but still letting the transient through. Then I feed the mix into that through the send. It's also good to band limit this so that your bass and highs aren't overly compressed. Once again, you want the midrange to get the compression.

 

[rome8180]

Since that was probably overly technical, here's the tl; dr:

Find a way to fill out your midrange and your mix will both sound fuller and meter a lot louder. A good way to do this without having to tweak every track is parallel processing.

 

[TS9]

@rome8180 I’d say you have leveled up - sounds like you’re getting into some deeper processes than I have so far. I’m on a long run of not doing much recording lately, which sucks because I get rusty really quickly.

So in general, are you doing pretty minimal EQ and compression on individual tracks and instead focusing this stuff on full mixes?

 

[rome8180]

@rome8180 I’d say you have leveled up - sounds like you’re getting into some deeper processes than I have so far. I’m on a long run of not doing much recording lately, which sucks because I get rusty really quickly.

So in general, are you doing pretty minimal EQ and compression on individual tracks and instead focusing this stuff on full mixes?

I would say I do both. In general, the more stages of compression you do, the more aggressive you can be without the song sounding squashed. So, for example, let's say I use one compressor and it's doing 10 db of gain reduction. That may absolutely kill the life in a track, depending on the source. However, if you do 4db across three compressors, you now have 12 db of gain reduction but it will probably sound much more natural.

But I wouldn't put three compressors back to back on a guitar track. I might put one on an individual guitar, one on a buss I've sent all the guitars to, and one on the stereo output. So that one guitar track is being processed three times at different stages.

The same is true of EQ. More stages of subtle moves seems to yield better results.

 

[rome8180]

That said, you can absolutely use parallel processing as a means to do less processing on individual tracks. The super-squashed parallel signal gives you dynamic consistency while your unprocessed signal gives you a sense of naturalness and dynamic variation. Blend them to taste.

 

[TS9]

I’m gonna have to tinker with some of this stuff you’re talking about. I need to get back in the saddle anyway.

 

[rome8180]

Brought the bass second from the right home from California recently. Decided to take a pic of the current collection. None of them are particularly expensive. The priciest one is $900 new (the one with the stickers), and I paid $600 for it. But they all feel good to play. I play the one with the stickers the most. Hence the strap and fret wrap.

 

[rome8180]

Once I've got my "studio" done, I'll take a pic of the whole setup. Lot of steps before that can happen though. Things I want to do:

1) Repaint
2) Put up acoustic panels using the mineral wool I've already bought
3) Get a real studio desk with racks for my gear and a slide out shelf for my Midi keyboard
4) Come up with a good cable management system (the studio desk should help with that)
5) Get 2-3 more bookshelves to get my boxes of books off the floor
6) Frame my Duke memorabilia and put it up on the walls
7) Get a bigger monitor

It's going to be a combination office/library/studio. Should be pretty sweet.

 

[rhfarmer]

Just waiting for that invite to come over and jam...

 

[rome8180]

So I expanded this song, remixed it, and added an excerpt of David Foster Wallace reading a short story. I think it came out pretty good. It's going to be a kind of musical interlude on my solo album I've been working on.

 

[rome8180]

A Facebook friend is selling me this guitar for $400 including the shipping. Now since it costs $1300 new, I'd be pretty suspicious if she was a stranger. But it's someone I trust. I've always wanted a Reverend guitar and had posted a picture of one I wanted to buy. She happened to have one to sell. I happen to really like the color too.

I can't tell if there's a flaw in the finish on the upper left side or if it's just a reflection of something. Pretty sure it's a reflection. But at that price, I don't care. Heck, you could tell me the headstock was cracked and I would still buy it.

 

[aiw]

Looks like a reflection of birds or bats