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joel hamilton
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Post by joel hamilton » Thu Jul 01, 2010 4:24 pm

SO,
we got the first layer of tile on the floor. Since the cubic volume of our chamber is pretty damn big, but with a hell of a lot of texture on the brick surfaces... we now have a fully functional 1.5 second decay time that sounds incredible. I got it working this morning with Francisco, and we got it incorporated in the mix Tony was doing.
The tile is really helping with a more broadband decay character, and I am seeing how we can extend the verb time and actually make it a bit brighter to help overcome the noise floor.
there is a bunch of HF noise right now for some reason... like, I may have to turn it all the way down at the speaker's frequency tilt, and CRANK it with the send EQ... the gain structure really needs to be dialed in as well... small moves towards better noise specs, but the sound is already exactly what I had hoped. With a little predelay it is MOTOWN... Ron St. Germaine said that 1.5 was the motown chamber decay time... I am happy to hear that. The chamber we have made here is just about 1.5 RT-60 when the source is loud as hell.
I am going to seal up a few places where I know we are losing reflections, and I know that will help, but overall the sound is pretty awesome, albiet with some serious EQ on the send and the returns. I also want to dedicate a pair of mic pre's in the chamber itself (probably a pair of 12Ay7's) to make the patch points for the chamber LINE level, and increase signal to noise that way. Right now its a pretty hefty cable run from the mics to the patch bay. not sick, but enough to feel it at the pre. Having a line level send up from the chamber will certainly make it quieter, and I like the idea of a pair of squishy pre's like the 12AY7 on the mics down there. I was using a pair of neve's (33114's, in my console) on the returns today.
The room just needs to get a bit louder and slappier, so sealing up more lossy areas and putting down some super shiny tiles like subway tiles will really get things smacking around in the top end. We already heard it when laying down these textured industrial tiles.
All in all: this is TOTALLY worth it, but I would most likely choose a smaller space that would be less expensive and easier to seal up. You can get a much longer verb time with super shiny, sealed plaster walls in am 8X7X7 foot space than a 400 square foot brick and cement room with massive amounts of variation and diffusion everywhere. Its a GREAT sound, but it cost probably 6 times the amount than if I had started from scratch and just made a small sealed closet with a mic in it and a small speaker.
Also: I can hear the chamber a little bit through the floor of the live room when I crank it up. No problem, because I am never going to have it that loud during tracking, but I was amazed at how much actually got in there. It will be fun to see about printing the mics during tracking without the send going... just the acoustic bleed of the drums through the floor will probably be pretty cool, much like I do with the plate sometimes because it is also in the live room.

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trodden
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Post by trodden » Mon Jul 05, 2010 3:07 pm

joel hamilton wrote:Pictures! Inspiration! Complaining! Hallucinations!!! Ghosts!!!

all here:

http://joelhamiltonlivesloud.blogspot.com/

More soon. Gonna let the paint dry for a few days... and hopefully grow a new brain.
man, you were right, that room was totally scary SAW film style.

joel hamilton
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Post by joel hamilton » Mon Jul 05, 2010 6:12 pm

trodden wrote:
joel hamilton wrote:Pictures! Inspiration! Complaining! Hallucinations!!! Ghosts!!!

all here:

http://joelhamiltonlivesloud.blogspot.com/

More soon. Gonna let the paint dry for a few days... and hopefully grow a new brain.
man, you were right, that room was totally scary SAW film style.
I didnt even show the old furnace/smoker thing where they used to make smoked mozzarella in 1910....... (true)

joel hamilton
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Post by joel hamilton » Wed Jul 07, 2010 4:34 pm

So we just were messing around with the return lines and figured out that a shit solder (by me) was making the left side SUPER noisy and I was just blaming it on shitty microphones because I am lame.
Matt re-soldered that side, totally cleaned up, and now the S/N ratio is incredibly good for a space right below a very busy street. High passed at 150hz you get incredible 1.5 second snare goodness.
Getting really excited about getting the next layer of tile on the floor for an even more diffuse verb tail.
The mic placement has been pretty much settled, so now I am going to try to rig some sort of mono mic on a powered boom arm. figuring out how to implement that.

joel hamilton
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Post by joel hamilton » Sun Jul 25, 2010 4:29 pm

Moved the mics a bit more, about to put more tile down still, and a coat of clear coat on the walls. It really could be just a bit brighter and a bit more verb tail to work with.
Also, designing a plexiglass box to fit over a hole in one of the corners. SOunding great though on the Secret Chiefs record I just did some tracking for, and a Mike Watt record being mixed right now.

joel hamilton
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Post by joel hamilton » Wed Aug 04, 2010 7:39 pm

More tile in the chamber now, with a few more plexiglass pieces focusing things a bit more.
Sound is very much what I had hoped: smackey and bright, but the right kind of upper mid smack to the claps, snare, guitar...
Getting better every time we dial it in a bit more.

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Jon Nolan
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Post by Jon Nolan » Sat Aug 21, 2010 5:42 pm

let's hear some shit!

joel hamilton
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Post by joel hamilton » Sun Sep 05, 2010 6:21 pm

Jon Nolan wrote:let's hear some shit!
On the snare:
New Mike Watt record has it. New Secret Chiefs record has it. New Matisyahu stuff has it. New Book Of Knots has it. New Matt Lowell record has it on snare and orchestra, along with some QRS on the orchestra...
I can probably post a Matt Lowell song. I will ask him if he is cool with it.
Its really starting to get good. More tile went in there, subway style tile that is like super shiny gloss white stuff that is really reflective. Every time we do something like that, it gets a little better.
We will be putting up a skim coat of plaster on the wall where the speaker aims to get a bit more early reflection/RT-60 below 1k. I pumped some pink noise down there the other day just ckecing left right balance and it is weirdly even (i wouldt call it flat) with something steady state going on in there, but with something like a burst of pink noise, you see the tail head towards the bright side. Partially the mics, partially the tile.
Again, I really cant believe how amazingly great a chamber works to unify a bunch of sounds tracked in varying acoustic spaces. Acoustic guitar LOVEs that chamber, as does snare drum, and a little vocal. Sending the plate to the chmaber in mono is incredible on drums... you picture the aftershock of a big, cool space rather than picturing an aux send or a reverb box... its like what I used to do sending an SPX90 out to my live room years ago to try and make it sound more "real" but with just a PCM42 on the send to get a little predelay.. like even just 10 Ms makes the chamber really come to life, especially on vocals using a little modulation. The effectron that I put a Jensen output transformer onto likes that job as well, but its a bit noisier. Sound workshop spring to the chamber is like motown amazingness instantly.

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