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Weald - A Wood Based Sound Effects "Processor" and IR Library

#61
ole Jason said:
IMO, from what you've shown so far, the IR's really don't impart anything like what they represent in real life
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Actually, If you had heard the clip he posted above.... in "raw" form, (I have, several times) and also with other different IR's attached... This one of the acoustic bass has imparted some VERY lifelike qualities (in parts with certain string attack styles, like he mentioned ) especially when compared to the original unaltered sound.

Michael, that is the most drastic change I've heard so far!
Can't wait 'till you create your own IR from those contra basses!!
michaelwayneharwood said:
  • Voices of the Forest: Wood
  • Voices of the Earth: Stone
  • Voices of the Forge: Metals
  • Forbidden Places: The inside of skulls, etc
Click to expand...
Very cool!:thumbsup:
You are really on to something here, in my opinion!
 
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#62
Rôckhewer said:
Actually, If you had heard the clip he posted above.... in "raw" form, (I have, several times) and also with other different IR's attached... This one of the acoustic bass has imparted some VERY lifelike qualities (in parts with certain string attack styles, like he mentioned ) especially when compared to the original unaltered sound.

Michael, that is the most drastic change I've heard so far!
Can't wait 'till you create your own IR from those contra basses!!

Very cool!:thumbsup:
You are really on to something here, in my opinion!
Click to expand...

Thanks man! One of the most important things for me in creating the IR's is that they are accurate. The IR's I made last night (birch plywood and redwood) 100% accurately reflect the characteristics of the wood. When I used the wood as a "speaker" I recorded "All Along the Watchtower" by Hendrix playing through it. Applying the IR to the song and comparing that to the version recorded via the wood sounded identical, and a frequency analysis with a spectrogram lined up as well. I am not going to do anything to modify the IR's to try and make them meet expectations of what a species of wood is supposed to sound like.
 
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#63
I have been busy working on getting boards milled and captured, and thus far nine different woods have been converted into impulse responses. The results have been curious. Each IR by itself has it's own distinct character to add (or subtract) from an audio signal, though stacking the IR's produce excellent results. The combination of cedar and russian olive has become a favorite as a master plugin for an overall mix. Santa came a bit early today, and the parts for the pedal arrived. The amplifier board has a very cool design that does not require soldering for connections, and that will make prototyping much easier. This is going to be fun!

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#65
I love the smell of solder in the morning. A quick mock up was thrown together to make sure the amplifier board works, and I am pleased to report success. Plugging a bass into the quarter inch jack drives the tactile transducer with little noise. The next step is to fashion a small speaker box. I will need to go through all of the IR's I have captured and figure out which one to get started with. I am thinking the first three I will be focusing on are maple, limba, and mahogany as those are three woods that have fairly widely accepted consensus opinion as to their tonal qualities. That being said I may go in other directions as the winds of my whims change.

I have a shipment of samples from assorted wood species on it's way. Thanks again @Rôckhewer - you are awesome!

As Willy Wonka said "The suspense is terrible! I hope it will last..."

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#67
Why Nautilus‽ said:
I'd be interested to hear the tonal qualities of woods that might be too small to work with normally. Do you have an updated list of woods?
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Here's the list of woods I have on hand, or will have on hand shortly. I would love to expand the list, but I am limited to what I have access to. ;) Is there a list of woods you are interested in not covered by the list?
  • Alder
  • Ash
  • Ash (Thermally modified)
  • Balsa
  • Basswood
  • Bubinga
  • Cedar (Western Red)
  • Cherry
  • Ebony (Pale Moon)
  • Hickory
  • Jatoba
  • Katalox
  • Limba
  • Mahogany (African)
  • Maple (Hard)
  • Maple (Soft Quilted)
  • Maple (Spalted)
  • Mesquite
  • Oak (Red)
  • Oak (White)
  • Pecan
  • Pine (Radiata)
  • Plywood (Birch)
  • Poplar
  • Redwood
  • Rosewood (Indian)
  • Sassafras
  • Shedua
  • Teak
  • Walnut (Black)
  • Walnut (Peruvian)
  • Wenge
 
#70
Why Nautilus‽ said:
Also as I'm browsing wood databases, caragana is another wood that is too small to work normally. I suppose my question would be, are we missing out on certain sounds because we are unable to use that wood?
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Potentially, yes. The question becomes how much effort and expense should be put into obtaining wood samples for species that are not presently on the list, and whether it's worth the chance that the results are less than you hope for. I am more than happy to sample any species provided to me, but I do not have the financial means to do everything I would like. I will be adding morado (pau ferro) to the list as I will be picking up a board this week to use as a fingerboard for a 8 stringed headless fretless guitar build, but the list of my own desired woods is, sadly, out of reach at the moment. Here's a short list of some wood I would like to get to eventually:
  • Bamboo
  • Bloodwood
  • Bocote
  • Box Elder
  • Cocobolo
  • Ebony (Macassar)
  • Goncalo Alves
  • Koa
  • Lacewood
  • Mahogany
  • Makore
  • Padouk
  • Poplar
  • Sitka Spruce
  • Zebrawood
  • Ziricote
 
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#73
Jon Clegg said:
Hey Michael, have you experimented with different dimensions of the same species of wood?
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I did. What I found what that thicker material dampened the sound enough to be detrimental in capturing it properly - 1/8" was the best compromise between responsiveness of the wood and still getting a good saturation. 5" by 8" is a decent size to get good vibration coverage, and helps to eliminate having to laminate larger pieces together. An 8" by 8" square, or larger, would be ideal....but that makes the project cost prohibitive.
 
#75
A bit of work was done on the IR's this evening - I have captured 22 of the 33 woods in my list. The list has change a bit based on some wood purchases - yay Xmas! Here's the list - the wood marked with either a dash or asterisk are undone. The "pedal" build is slow going due to my focusing on finishing up a commission bass build, so bear with me.

Alder
Ash
Ash (Thermally modified)
- Balsa
Basswood
Bubinga
Cedar (Western Red)
- Cherry
- Ebony (Pale Moon)
- Ebony (Macassar)
- Hickory
- Jatoba
Katalox
Limba
Mahogany (African)
Maple (Hard)
- Maple (Big Leaf Quitled)
Mesquite
Oak (Red)
Oak (White)
- Pau Ferro
* Pecan
Pine (Radiata)
Plywood (Birch)
Poplar
Redwood
- Rosewood (Indian)
Sassafras
Shedua
Teak
Walnut (Black)
- Walnut (Peruvian)
Wenge​
 
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#76
At the family chaos...err...yuletide gathering last night I spoke with my upright playing cousin who has committed to allowing me access to his three stand-up basses next week to generate some IR's. He's the band director for a local high school, and I managed to wheedle out some potential time with his school's orchestra instruments to gather the other instruments I am interested in as well. That and being gifted with a beautiful 36" long piece of 4/4 macassar ebony made my night. ;)
 
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#77
My apologies for the long interval since my last update - chaos intervened and I had to prioritize getting a commission out the door. Life has calmed down a bit and I now have time to get my focus back to this project. I am working on building a small sound box out of limba for some tests, and hopefully by tomorrow evening I will have some initial observations. ;)

sound_box.jpg
 
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#78
Since the glue joints are not going to get significant stress I was able to pull it out of clamps fairly quickly, and get the top glued on. I'll give that a couple of hours to set and then trim it up, sand the edges down, and give it a quick coat of Tru Oil on the side where the exciter will be placed.

limba-box-top.jpg
 
#80
I have gone as far as I can for tonight on the box. It is shaped and has a spit shine coat of Tru Oil. I am going to let it sit for 24 hours and then get to seeing what we can see.

The IR's for 23 of the woods can be found here if anyone is interested in playing with them.

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