Wait For It . . .

Well, the time is fast coming when I leave the country for my internship in Berlin. I will be working primarily on sound system design and analysis from what I have been told. That should be a lot of fun. I will most likely post pictures and such on my wife's blog (in the links section). In addition to the internship, music has been coming along. I have several new songs that I have recorded that are very much in the classic rock vein. I will make sure to put some of them on here as soon as I feel they are polished enough for the public.

My parents brought me down the last of my stuff that was stored at their house, including the two electric guitars that I built. Both of them need some good care (refinishing, neck work, wiring updating, etc.) but should turn out great. One is made to look like a PRS with EMG 81 and 85 pickups. The other uses old strat-copy electronics with a radical body that I designed. It should be fun to get those things all squared away. Well, I just thought I would let the world know that I am still alive despite the long lapse in posts. I've been busy with school and life, you know how it goes . . .

Another Great Instrumental Track

Here is another really cool instrumental track, much in the same vein as the other I posted earlier. I am debating whether to put vocals to it or not, I think it would sound great either way. I recorded the guitars direct using my PODxt, the drums are acoustic drum samples from sonic reality, the strings and bass are also from sonic reality. I like the song, let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

No Noise? No Way.

Well, after having a stroke of brilliance as to how to remove noise from my recordings, I wrote a program and compiled it, only to find out that if you have additive noise in a signal, then you are basically toast. I looked at some techniques for noise reduction, but since it isn't typically filter noise in a signal, a simple deconvolution won't work like I was hoping. This being said, I may have to abandon the idea of a great, free noise reduction program. I guess such is life . . .

Anechoic Chamber Page

Well, I thought I would do a thing here about designing and building an anechoic chamber, but because it was such a big task, I created a google page all about it. I consider it to be a pretty definitive treatment of what things to take into account when building a chamber. Of course, I claim no responsibility for anything negative that may happen due to it's use. You should check it out if you are feeling scientific or just curious about a chamber or if you just want to see some pictures. You can get there clicking here.

Cool Recording Tip

Here is a great recording tip for those of you looking to add a bit more "realism" to the stereo image of your recording. Say you wanted to make a rhythm guitar track sit in the stereo field little bit better. If you have just a single track, clone it and pan the two hard left and hard right. Adjust the volume so that it seems to be pretty much where you want it to be in the sound field. Then on the track that has lower volume, add a delay plugin. The key here is that you want only the delay signal and none of the original. You can add up to 20-30 ms of delay to help the stereo image seem more natural. This is because when you add the delay, it changes the relative phase between the two tracks and this is what happens when you have two guitars on opposite sides of the stage. If you have two separate tracks, you can do the same thing and it will work equally well.

Try As I Might

This is a great little song that I have been working on for a while. The drums are from an expansion tank library and Groove Monkee grooves. Everything else was recorded live. I recorded the vocals, but more so that when I find a singer he can sing them (I don't sing well and I recognize that fact, this is just so that I don't lose the ideas that I have for the vocal).

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Great Instumental Track

This is an instrumental track that I have been working on for a little while. The strings are from an expansion tank library, as is the bass. The guitars were all recorded direct through my PODxt. Let me know what you think.

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