creating your own hardware impulses

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xhavepatiencex
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creating your own hardware impulses

Post by xhavepatiencex » Mon Mar 28, 2011 3:50 pm

Is there a tutorial on how to do this somewhere? I have looked around the internet and not found anything clearly laid out.

I downloaded voxengos deconvolver, what do I need to send through the hardware, a test tone? a sweep? how long should either be? Any insight would be great.

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jgimbel
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Post by jgimbel » Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:53 pm

I'm not totally sure if you're talking about recording normal impulses, or something else - I'm confused by the "hardware impulses", but then mentioning the plugin. But regardless - maybe this will help. I've actually spent the past week looking up info about recording impulses (to use with software, this is what I'm not sure about, if that applies to you), definitely hard to find info about it. I've actually been waiting because I wanted to start a thread about recording impulses, but I wanted to have some more impulses to show off first! There's an amazing abandoned building near the Schuylkill River here that I'm planning on using. But yeah, I found this really great article:

http://emusician.com/tutorials/emusic_acting_impulse/

The article made it seem way more simple than I had thought it would be. The afternoon I read it I set up two Earthworks mics at the other end of my studio space, and I didn't even use a balloon (or gunshot!), I just put my hand on my snare drum head to make sure it didn't ring and hit it with a stick. I was just doing this as a test, I don't think I'd normally use a snare drum for it, but it actually worked beautifully. I recorded the clip as a stereo WAV file. There was a bit of noise so as the reverb trailed off (which was quickly, my space is small) I had the audio fade out, and also automated an EQ plugin to rolloff high end gradually. Loaded it into Cubase's amazing REVerence plugin, and bam, I'm able to add as much room sound to my recordings as I want. I actually thought this, using essentially a "studio room mic plugin" that sounds like my space, might be really useful if for some reason a room mic for drums picked up something that couldn't be fixed, or cut out or something, I could add the impulse reverb to it and use that as the room mic. I tried it and it worked really beautifully. Might also work really well for adding room sound to vocals, since my space doesn't really reverberate much unless the source is really loud (like drums) so vocals generally aren't loud enough to get any good reverb in a room mic.

I hope this helps!

I'm already planning for my next album only using reverbs I've recorded myself, and I'm VERY excited about the possibilities, and also to now keep my ears open for amazing-sounding spaces without thinking "if only I could somehow set up to record a drum kit here, oh well".
My first new personal album in four years - pay what you want - http://jessegimbel.bandcamp.com

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xhavepatiencex
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Post by xhavepatiencex » Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:37 am

sorry, I am interested in making an impulse from a hardware reverb, the plugin is suppose to "deconvolve" what you record so it can be use. I will read over the article, I did more research myself and I think I have figured it out, but thank you!

mscottweber
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Post by mscottweber » Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:56 am

I might be mistaken, but I think the idea of hardware impulses is the same as reverb impulses: you record an impulse through a piece of analog gear, load it into your convolution software of choice, and then you can add that hardware's "color" to whatever you want.

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jgimbel
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Post by jgimbel » Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:26 am

Ah, yeah, same thing. Here's a video on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAY0ozPPXKs

Same thing, just sending the signal through the hardware rather than recording with mics in an actual space.
My first new personal album in four years - pay what you want - http://jessegimbel.bandcamp.com

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xhavepatiencex
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Post by xhavepatiencex » Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:38 pm

thanks for the video link. I am trying to make some with white noise and am having better luck. still doesnt sound exactly the same. but does it ever?

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