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Sound Engineering Comedy Gold!


Smithy
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Bah cut him some slack... it's kinda like 'studio advice in 20 words or less'... In 20 words or less I dunno if any of us could do a lot better ;)

And artesia: screw literacy. Theory is crucial in my opinion, that's not gonna be news to you...but experience is king. Those guys have more real world experience than the entire midibox forum combined. I'll judge the 'valve sound system' when I hear it ;)

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haha.. lol ;)

they dont design & install systems for a living; and whilst they may have a respectable grasp of music & djing within their genere; that doesn't equip them to truely understand acoustics ..or even get it vaguely right. its kind of like a viccar deciding that being down with god is all that he needs in order to pick up a bricklayers trowel & build his own church.

(quote: "And artesia: screw literacy. Theory is crucial in my opinion") - viccar with a trowel, dj with a router ..just hang on a second - where's this 'theory' of theirs come into it ? ;) :)

its all in the details of what they say that has me and others chuckling.. Firstly, they start jibbering on about valve reggae sound systems.. yes very nice, however there isnt a single valve amp involved in thier rig; Secondly they talk of building the whole system 'in 4-5 days', without any sleep.. and any woodworking experience ? ...come on ;) Thirdly "what of layers of stuff ? Yeah birch ply"

They also quote that they built their system on the merit that commercial rigs just dont drop low enough for d&b bass.. and yes alot of people do have wimpy installs with no bottom end - however there are plenty of bins around with good depth ..even, gasp afew affordable ones ;) ..most people who build their own rigs do it on affordability grounds - as to be fair, even a top flight dj and his crew cant and dont want to bulk out the money for properly designed off the shelf kit.. and who can blame them for taking that route :)

The only problem with these chaps rushing into diy - is that its not a garantee that theyll actually get the best bang for their buck, or even build the kit properly.. and due to the efficiency of some systems.. it actually works out that at price per a decibel ..some commercial solutions would not only be cheaper - but take up one truck of space; not three ;)

also they quote the classic scoop cabinet; which is a long standing fave of the reggae folks.. it does however suffer a serious flaw - its doomed by the very nature of its design to have a lumpy smeared sound - the sound arriving out of the back of the cabinet is significantly delayed from that at the front. this causes two things; the higher bass notes arrive way before the lower ones coming thru the rear horn (which is also out of phase) & a huge amount of comb filtering occurs from cancellation points in the frequency response from the front and rear waves meeting. also, especially when blindly loaded with an unsuitable driver - they dont work anything like well ..will produce one or two loud honks in the bass register & produce a slurry of mushy mid racket often mistaken for 'dirty bass' ..please folks; keep the 'effects' in the studio ..not on everything your sound goes thru ;) :)

also the physical dimensions & the nature of this coupling wouldn't equate to deep, deep bass ..and not especially good bass ..but bass none the less.. if they where swayed by unbiased experience of sound systems & even modestly familiar with speaker theory.. they may have encountered well designed, single ended folded horn enclosures (for which diy plans are available on the web) which can, will and would blow any scoop or reflex out of the water on sheer bass depth, loudness to watt/$$$ rating ..oh and good ones have by principal very low distortion, flat gapless freq resp, their wavefronts behave in a directional manner when stacked in numbers (putting all the sound where its wanted)  & they punch like a frenzied boxer ;)

btw, their current mid highs are a batch of Tony Andrew's Funkiton one resolution cabs of the older design.. probably got a bargain on them on a install change over.. and yes they are a nice cab :) ..however it definitely looks like they abandoned the MH boxes in the background of the video; which are of a very old reggae cab design - in favour of an off the shelf box..

In fairness, its a bunch of guys who wanted their own reggae rig.. and ive got plenty of respect for them on that. iv'e done it myself. however it just feels like they tried to make it out to be a bigger ball game than that.. so much so that guiness book of records approached them asking if they'd go for a 'loudest sound system' whilst they where banging on about it.. they declined.

would i catch them sometime to hear it ? ..sure im always curious about these things :)

"experience is king" ..not to sound like a flame rant; tho i've spent a very long time designing, building, running & installing sound systems & i currently work with one of the uks leading pa manufacturers as their design engineer. However i dont go out of my way, to go on about that; and in that respect i would like to think that i know what im doing ;)

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Geezus i knew i couldn't give them props without you going spastic. I should a kept my trap shut.

they dont design & install systems for a living; and whilst they may have a respectable grasp of music & djing within their genere; that doesn't equip them to truely understand acoustics ..or even get it vaguely right.

No, but it gives them the perfect experience required to know what makes for good sound for their kind of music, and that's what the system is for. It also gives them industry contacts out the wazoo to help them and tell them what not to do.

(quote: "And artesia: screw literacy. Theory is crucial in my opinion") - viccar with a trowel, dj with a router ..just hang on a second - where's this 'theory' of theirs come into it ? ;) :)

If you're gonna quote me, don't take it out of context, and you won't have to ask pointless questions like that one. The rest of the sentence which you removed, answers your question. I didn't say they had theory, I said that I believe it's crucial, but they have experience.

its all in the details of what they say that has me and others chuckling.. Firstly, they start jibbering on about valve reggae sound systems.. yes very nice, however there isnt a single valve amp involved in thier rig;

Exactly, they were talking about why they named it the way they did, not how they designed it. It's paying homage, not copying. Your'e so busy being a hater that you can't even hear what's going into your ears.

Secondly they talk of building the whole system 'in 4-5 days', without any sleep.. and any woodworking experience ? ...come on ;) Thirdly "what of layers of stuff ? Yeah birch ply"

No, they said they built 16 bass bins, and they spent that much time on it. Not the whole system. It would not have been just those two guys, it woulda been the whole crew. What's wrong with not remembering the name of the wood (that you never heard before) your engineer told you to buy when you were pilled out of your mind?

there are plenty of bins around with good depth .. dj and his crew cant and dont want to bulk out the money for properly designed off the shelf kit.. and who can blame them for taking that route :)

Exactly. It's like midiboxing. Why buy when you can build.

The only problem with these chaps rushing into diy

<"I know more that these guys" rant removed>

would i catch them sometime to hear it ? ..sure im always curious about these things :)

I'm sure you'd find some way it was not perfect to pick on.

it just feels like they tried to make it out to be a bigger ball game than that..

Of course they did! What the hell do you expect, they should spend a small fortune building a sound system for a crowd and then try to not attract a crowd?

"experience is king" ..not to sound like a flame rant; i would like to think that i know what im doing ;)

I never implied otherwise. Dunno why you thought that my boosting their effort was an invitation to put up a defense wall like you just did. We all know that you know your shit - that's obvious - the point is, so do these guys, and you hanging shit on them for their hard work is just wack. It only serves to make you look bitter.

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Ah come on strydy, lets get realistic. The guy doesnt have a clue about half the the stuff hes talking about.

He seems to be really stoned or something.

Did you watch the computer one?

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/4247_recording-studio-computers.htm

"2.8 Gigabytes, i mean Mhz!"

LOL

I love the way it cuts on "ummmmm!" too lmao.

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Ah come on strydy, lets get realistic. The guy doesnt have a clue about half the the stuff hes talking about.

....

i have to say, despite the comedy gold of the "yo dawg, d00d" etc, there's not too much i disagree with.

he has some good advice for a budget home studio.

the behringer can go away, and so can the carpet all over the place...

i can forgive him for not getting into real acoustic treatment in a budget studio,

but then maybe neumann and genelec don't belong either...

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christ ..lol :)

i think i'll go make me a cuppa tea..

Well you could get down to Custard Factory tonight and hear it for yourself.

For me, a brief experience during "Mad Professor's" set in Manchester last December, said very heavy dense bass sound, loud to the point pf 'ice picks in your ears',  bass was very much a block of sound. Hard to form any opinion of clarity at that volume level - 30% of your hearing has shut down by then. Probably very good if all you like is D&B, I would expect it to sound awful with another musical style. Like any good Reggae sound system, makes the kind of bass you can feel through your partner's body.

For me, the Holy Grail of sound systems is still Ben Duncan's Ambisonic system experiment as used by Underworld at Glastonbury years ago. I heard it on test and was amazed,

As an aside, back in the 70's as a skint student, I augmented my income by repairing amps for people. One Saturday afternoon two black guys with heavy Jamaican accents turned up at my digs with a huge amp on a built in trolley. It had been built by an old guy in Liverpool from a GEC design. 2 x V1505 triodes transformer driven. 1100 Watts of valve power. Had it's own bias metering built in, and an HT rail of 2.5KV. I've only done one repair job that scared me more than that. The builder was a stone pro: it was like a textbook layout under the chassis - all hand wired on tagstrip. It used 2 KT66's for drivers, (that's the output stage of a Quad Valve Amp).

For those interested here is the circuit diagram The builder in Liverpool hand wound his own transformers. If anyone is really interested, I have the famous GEC book, with all the details, and a few other dewign s too - including a multi pair 400 Watt amp containing 10 (small mortgage!), KT88's, I can scan up anything of interest.

(edit for yptos and added valve amps stuff)

3464_Valve-1100W-Amp_jpg1985ba61907ffc68

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Ah come on strydy, lets get realistic. The guy doesnt have a clue about half the the stuff hes talking about.

He seems to be really stoned or something.

Did you watch the computer one?

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/4247_recording-studio-computers.htm

Youre talking bout the vids from the first post, we're talking about the 2nd post... now who's smokin :)

Hey guys:

Remind me to hang shit on every imperfection of all your midiboxes one day.

Oh wait, noone here would ever do that, because we respect other DIY efforts for what they are... right?

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Forgive me for not quoting this before i posted:   :P

Bah cut him some slack... it's kinda like 'studio advice in 20 words or less'... In 20 words or less I dunno if any of us could do a lot better ;)

The reason its 20 words or less is he because he keeps getitng mixed up and stalling! LOL

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Hey guys:

Remind me to hang shit on every imperfection of all your midiboxes one day.

Oh wait, noone here would ever do that, because we respect other DIY efforts for what they are... right?

oh but you don t have enough shit for mine ! ;)

anyway i don t see anybody here trying to pimp his box like that: why? because we know our limits and have self respect, if you respect yourself, you respect the others and the others respect you, if not... well this is the net: luckily there is moderation but no censorship.

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