- May 1, 2014
- 2,494
- 2,341
- 56
- Disclosures
- Owner Melodious Resonance Constructs
I have been posting a bit in this thread in Luther's Corner, and am posting here to continue the discussion as this seems to be a more appropriate venue for what I am doing. Here's the story....
I was recently sick as a dog and on OTC medication that kept me from using power tools, which kept me out of my shop building instruments. The side effects of the chemicals in my system, and my general malaise, banished decent night time rest and I was up at odd hours. Lack of sleep does funny things to my already strange mind, and for some reason my thoughts centered on the process of creating impulse responses to capture resonant spaces. I have used acoustic body resonances to create interesting effects on recorded bass lines and wondered if anyone had created IR's for different wood species. I could not find anything, so I pulled out a few of pieces of scrap (maple, shedua, cedar, walnut) and recorded the sound of my striking them with the handle of a screwdriver with a condenser microphone. I then converted the resulting recordings into IR's and experimented with them. Applying the IR's to a recorded bass line produced results that I very much liked, and I was intrigued. The maple IR affected the tone in the same way that many people say maple affects tone of an acoustic guitar. I then looked up the published properties of the other species on the Tonewood Datasource, which is a web site dedicated to compiling information of this sort. Interestingly enough my very rough samples were affecting the tone very similarly to what was documented on the site.
Not satisfied that my samples were truly representing the EQ of the wood due to the methodology I was using to collect the samples I ordered a tactile transducer and proceeded to collect samples using a sine sweep, which produces more accurate results. The resulting IR's are much cleaner, and reinforced the results from the first round of tests. I was giddy. The way the IR's affected the tone was wonderful to my ears, and I immediately thought that it would be a shame to keep this to myself. The results also spurred on new lines of thought. Could this be used outside of the studio? Absolutely - a $200 IR loading pedal could free these for use on stage. Woods that would be impractical or undesirable to use in an instrument build (e.g. balsa, etc.) could be "modeled" and used to color tone if the effects are found pleasing. I am in the process of gathering wood and producing IR's, which will be released to the general public as a free IR library.
Traditional IR's are not able to capture as much of the physical properties of how sound is affected when passing through a material as I would like....what could I do to replicate this experience? A pedal...perhaps a large pedal, depending on how large the wooden modules will need to be to produce significant differences between wood species.... What if the modules were in two varieties? Solid blocks will produce tight sounds, and hollow modules *might* produce more resonant effects.
I have ordered all of the parts to build a prototype and have no doubt that it will produce something useful, even if it's not what I expect. I already have a list of the things I know will be problematic, and certainly more will become apparent as I play around. I think that the foot switch will need to be in a separate enclosure to avoid large spikes of noise being picked up by the microphone in the unit. It might be larger than is desired. Would a piezo with a large frequency response included in the module provide interesting results? It would require an additional preamp built in, but that's doable. What about having both a piezo and a condenser mic....perhaps with either a switch, or additional blend pot... There's a lot of potential for an interesting and unique effects "processor".
If there is any interest in this I would be happy to post my pedal build here, and provide links to download the IR library when it's done. I feel compelled to state a few things just so you know where I am coming from:
Any interest?
I was recently sick as a dog and on OTC medication that kept me from using power tools, which kept me out of my shop building instruments. The side effects of the chemicals in my system, and my general malaise, banished decent night time rest and I was up at odd hours. Lack of sleep does funny things to my already strange mind, and for some reason my thoughts centered on the process of creating impulse responses to capture resonant spaces. I have used acoustic body resonances to create interesting effects on recorded bass lines and wondered if anyone had created IR's for different wood species. I could not find anything, so I pulled out a few of pieces of scrap (maple, shedua, cedar, walnut) and recorded the sound of my striking them with the handle of a screwdriver with a condenser microphone. I then converted the resulting recordings into IR's and experimented with them. Applying the IR's to a recorded bass line produced results that I very much liked, and I was intrigued. The maple IR affected the tone in the same way that many people say maple affects tone of an acoustic guitar. I then looked up the published properties of the other species on the Tonewood Datasource, which is a web site dedicated to compiling information of this sort. Interestingly enough my very rough samples were affecting the tone very similarly to what was documented on the site.
Not satisfied that my samples were truly representing the EQ of the wood due to the methodology I was using to collect the samples I ordered a tactile transducer and proceeded to collect samples using a sine sweep, which produces more accurate results. The resulting IR's are much cleaner, and reinforced the results from the first round of tests. I was giddy. The way the IR's affected the tone was wonderful to my ears, and I immediately thought that it would be a shame to keep this to myself. The results also spurred on new lines of thought. Could this be used outside of the studio? Absolutely - a $200 IR loading pedal could free these for use on stage. Woods that would be impractical or undesirable to use in an instrument build (e.g. balsa, etc.) could be "modeled" and used to color tone if the effects are found pleasing. I am in the process of gathering wood and producing IR's, which will be released to the general public as a free IR library.
Traditional IR's are not able to capture as much of the physical properties of how sound is affected when passing through a material as I would like....what could I do to replicate this experience? A pedal...perhaps a large pedal, depending on how large the wooden modules will need to be to produce significant differences between wood species.... What if the modules were in two varieties? Solid blocks will produce tight sounds, and hollow modules *might* produce more resonant effects.
I have ordered all of the parts to build a prototype and have no doubt that it will produce something useful, even if it's not what I expect. I already have a list of the things I know will be problematic, and certainly more will become apparent as I play around. I think that the foot switch will need to be in a separate enclosure to avoid large spikes of noise being picked up by the microphone in the unit. It might be larger than is desired. Would a piezo with a large frequency response included in the module provide interesting results? It would require an additional preamp built in, but that's doable. What about having both a piezo and a condenser mic....perhaps with either a switch, or additional blend pot... There's a lot of potential for an interesting and unique effects "processor".
If there is any interest in this I would be happy to post my pedal build here, and provide links to download the IR library when it's done. I feel compelled to state a few things just so you know where I am coming from:
1. I did some experiments and observed some interesting results.
2. I discovered I could create some things *I* think are cool.
3. I am sharing all of this with you so you can do something of your own with it if you are interested.
4. I am not trying to prove anything, or convince anyone of anything, and refuse to engage in the tonewood debate. Proselytizing and/or debating is not my thing, sharing is.
2. I discovered I could create some things *I* think are cool.
3. I am sharing all of this with you so you can do something of your own with it if you are interested.
4. I am not trying to prove anything, or convince anyone of anything, and refuse to engage in the tonewood debate. Proselytizing and/or debating is not my thing, sharing is.
Any interest?
