Passive Toolbox

[The Scum]

Ammo cans are steel, pretty good for shielding. Work slow and oil the drill bits. Take the rubber gasket out, so there's steel-on-steel all the way around the lid. I've got a 7.62mm that's going to the the home for the cheap mic pre, when I can get back into that.

As for the polarity thing - it's easy to do if you've got both phases handy. If you're working unbalanced, it's not always so simple.

And finally, for passive circuits, mults can be handy, and so can passive 3 or 4 input resistor mixers.

[Peterson Goodwyn]

My latest thinking has been to use to ammo box to make a ultra-portable monitoring station. I?m planning on building 4 cmoys in there, each with their own inputs for separate headphone mixes. They will also each have a mono aux input, with a pot to control how much of the aux gets mixed in with the main feed.

The passive, 4-input resistor mixer sounds like a GREAT idea to throw in there. That way I could give a drummer latency-free monitoring, too!

What do you mean by mults, btw? Signal splitters? That sounds handy, too.

[The Scum]

What do you mean by mults, btw? Signal splitters?

Yeah. Just a handful of jacks all in parallel...one in, many outs.

A couple other passive ideas hit me more recently:

VU meters are passive.

There are various diode clipper/waveshaper circuits that you might find useful...if you like clipping. You can try different diodes for different behavior: LEDs, plain 1n4148s, Schottkys, germanium, etc.

And if you like clipping, maybe you'll also like ring modulation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_modulation
I use that circuit when I need a bass to have a little more cut...I just run the same signal to the carrier and modulator inputs. The po'boy, passive, analog version of Maxbass.

[mrc]

I use the ammo cases to build PSU's in. They are great.

[Peterson Goodwyn]

Yeah. Just a handful of jacks all in parallel...one in, many outs.

Is splitting at line level really this simple? ...awesome.

[chris harris]

i am impressed with my ability to grind this thread to a halt by using "like" in a sentence.

I'm impressed with your ability to sit and listen to out of phase tracking all day, knowing that you'll fix the phase issues later.

To me, doing it later is an indicator that you're not really listening to what you're recording. You're just doing things that typically result in good sounds, and hoping that if you flip the polarity later, it will sound like you hope it does.

The obvious advantage to having a polarity switch during tracking is that you can hear what you're sounds are going to sound like before you track them.

So, does your monitor mix have phase issues that you just ask clients to ignore? "After we record it, we'll use a plugin that will take away that hollow sound."

[Peterson Goodwyn]

So, does your monitor mix have phase issues that you just ask clients to ignore?.

Can't speak for anyone else's DAW, but Reaper's polarity switch is pre monitor-out.

[eeldip]

as above, you can set up live monitoring post polarity adjustment. or you can just ignore it a bit cause it will sound fine on playback, which in my experience is mostly what people recording listen to, especially with a critical ear to tones.

i would rather get the session MOVING. i don't want to take up anyone's (usually mine) time tweaking something that i can do later and faster. i would rather have a live monitoring hollowness, and a fine playback than slowing a session down.

so while your clients are waiting for you to patch cables to some obscure box on the bottom of your rack, mine are already done with the session, enjoying a beer. showering me with money and praise.

[chris harris]

The notion that checking for phase slows down a session is ridiculous.

i don't want to take up anyone's (usually mine) time tweaking something that i can do later and faster.

So, you just can't be bothered to really listen to the sounds you're capturing? You just throw up mics where you think that they'll sound good and go for it? You can always fix it with your mouse later, right?

My clients don't see it as a waste of their time that we get the sounds right to begin with. And, I certainly don't see it as a waste of mine. In fact, setting up and getting good sounds in tracking is a HUGE PART of what they pay me for. Anyone with middle school reading comprehension can figure out what mics are typically used on what sources and place them there and click "record". But, good engineers LISTEN. Maybe reinforcing that "fix it in the mix" mentality is what makes your clients so impatient and your sessions so rushed?

[eeldip]

i think you missed the part about my clients heaping me with TROPHIES and your clients making sad faces all day.

but yea, i think a big part of this is that its literally been the 90's the last time i worked in a controlled control room. i would consider a sheet of drywall between me and the drums to be pretty plush.

so for me and all my non PLUSH STUDIO peeps, pushing that button is easier than making new patches in a box.

[chris harris]

I get it! Yeah, working without a control room makes it necessary to record, listen, tweak... record, listen, tweak...

[Scodiddly]

I don't really have a dog in this race, though I generally fall on the side of "get it right up front", but I do love the arguments from the both of you.

(Coming from the live world, there is no "fix it in later")

[Peterson Goodwyn]

Whether or not you have a control room, you are still monitoring from your DAW (ignoring tape for the moment), which means it doesn't matter whether you do your polarity flip before A->D or after.

[Peterson Goodwyn]

BTW, Eeldip, your mention of TROPHIES made me think of this from Steve Martin's recently "leaked" tour rider:

"Beginning two (2) hours prior to performance, Steve's dressing room must have a new trophy delivered every ten (10 minutes). Suggested trophies include "Most Beloved," "Best Show of the Year," "Best Musician." Creativity encouraged."

[chris harris]

Whether or not you have a control room, you are still monitoring from your DAW (ignoring tape for the moment), which means it doesn't matter whether you do your polarity flip before A->D or after.

I don't use Reaper. But, apparently, Reaper doesn't have "direct monitoring" capabilities as part of the software. In fact, in the Reaper manual, they suggest that low latency monitoring would be easier to achieve if you use an audio interface with "direct monitoring" capabilities, which would then take your software polarity switch out of the monitoring signal chain. So, with Reaper, you're already dealing with a less-than-ideal monitoring situation. If you're monitoring THROUGH Reaper, then you're introducing latency to your input monitoring. When you monitor THROUGH Reaper and also THROUGH an effect/process (like the polarity reverse), then you're introducing additional processing latency only on that track. It doesn't make sense to me to click a button to correct a phase issue, when the process of flipping the polarity will introduce more latency to just that track, and compromise the phase of the signals that you're monitoring.