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anonymous 29 October 2003

Well thanks to Recorderman I got a mounting bracket, and finally got around to building this today. COOL! I soldered a small cable end to the old NS10 speaker (the one from the Guinness Incident), and a short-run to a MALE XLR connector.

:tu:

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anonymous Wed, 10/29/2003 - 16:06

Yes, a sample would be cool ! Say in a with and without version. Or even cooler, say with your MD421 panned hard left, the NS10 hard right, both in a stereo file. Would be the ultimate possibility to play with a blend.

BTW, did you perhaps use the HPF on the '421 now you got the woofer-mic added ?

Just curious,

Peter

anonymous Wed, 10/29/2003 - 21:21

Yeah I can post some samples this weekend as I'll be tracking some drums. The stereo thing is a good idea Peter.

Today I played with the 421 in M position without any rolloff, I prefer to track full-on and cut later if needed. Right now I'm playing hunt-for-the-sweet-spot inside the kick drum. For the NS10, right up close to the front head seems to get a nice attack to the sub note.

anonymous Thu, 10/30/2003 - 08:26

golli - right now the speaker is not in front of a hole, I tried it in front of the primary hole and it didn't sound as good. But then there is a huge air blast coming out, it's a 24" kick.

vagelis - Yes I believe the speaker type is not as crucial... here are some links to other conversations on this:

The Recorderman thread-
(Dead Link Removed)

HomeRec article (they use a generic speaker)-
http://homerecordin…

Nuther good rec.org thread-
(Dead Link Removed)

anonymous Thu, 10/30/2003 - 10:29

Steal your bass player's cabinet. Treat it's input jack as an output, and run an instrument cable from there to a lo-Z input.

I've seen guitar cabs work, too- you'll have 4 12" speakers as a mic diaphram.

Haven't tried it with my 8-10 yet, tho. We'll see. But my little Peavey 1-12 cab sounds awesome.

Good luck!

Kase
http://

anonymous Thu, 10/30/2003 - 13:05

I made a thought!!!!! ....shoot it was over a minute ago and now I forgot.... oh yeah.. I've done the guitar cab trick in my sleep once, it was... nifty buttery

though once I tried it with my friends crappy fender amp that had a reverb spring thing in it, and it rattled all intense like, kinda interesting, almost like a snare

With a marshel half stack you can almost align it to capture the rack toms, though I've not tried that yet (I should?)

I'm sure the open/floating speaker method sounds much different though, how much I don't know..

anonymous Fri, 10/31/2003 - 12:02

Catoogie I ran across an ad from Recorderman in the For Sale section of the forum.

HEY here are some sound files. Please pardon my crappy engineering skills.

First is a stereo file, r121 in front of the kick about 3 feet back in the RIGHT speaker, NS10 Sub-kick in the LEFT speaker. You can play with balance to hear either.

http://heinzmuzik.c… 800k wav file

Second is a drum mix, first half without sub-kick, 2nd half with sub-kick.

http://heinzmuzik.c… 1.2MB WAV file

If your speaker system represents low end well, you'll hear it bigtime. I can barely here the sub freq on my NS10's (surprise), but on my AML-1's it's astonishingly huge.

golli Sun, 11/02/2003 - 16:25

Steal your bass player's cabinet. Treat it's input jack as an output, and run an instrument cable from there to a lo-Z input.

I've seen guitar cabs work, too- you'll have 4 12" speakers as a mic diaphram.

Haven't tried it with my 8-10 yet, tho. We'll see. But my little Peavey 1-12 cab sounds awesome.

Could I then perhabs use the http://www.activemu… Fender Frontman 25B  as an kick mic?

anonymous Mon, 11/03/2003 - 07:46

Hey Guys, this is so cool. Too bad we can't make all the gear we need for so cheap. I made a sub mic with an old Kicker 8" speaker. It's 8 ohm, I hope that dosn't hurt anything. I miced a kick with it and a D112 inside the drum facing the beater. The first time I did this it sounded great. The next day I miced it the same but with a different pre on the D112 and the rest of the kit miced as well and I had some phase issues. Even when listening to only the two kick mics I was having problems. WHat was happening was, with the phase normal the sub mic added super lows which sounded pretty cool BUT it was giving the kick a hollow sound. With the phase reversed it sounded much more full with added upper bass (the low bass was still there but not as apparent). Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Also, anyone know of a good place (book, link, website,) to learn of how to recognize and control phase problems. I use 10 to 14 mics on a drum set, 2 to 6 mics on Ac gtr all the time and never really notice any phase issues. Then I was reading an article the other day where the P2 Analog has a meter to help place mics properly for no phase probs. Made me start thinking that I really know nothing about phase. Thanks for the help.

Jason
ps is a NS-10 a 10" speaker or 8" speaker. You'd think its 10" from the name but in the pics it looks smaller. Thanks.........J

RecorderMan Mon, 11/03/2003 - 08:26

Originally posted by Jason James:
Hi James.

It sounds like you already have an ear for phase. Continue to listen for it. That hollow sound you heard was the cancellation of frequencies caused by the D112 and the speaker being out of phase relative to each other. When that happened the frequencies in that situation were the lo's of the D112 and the Upper lo's (compared to the sub's) of the speaker. When that happened you were able to hear the subs easier because those frequencies were not being masked by the more dominate frequencies just above.
Experiment with a lo-pass filter on the speaker and a hi pass (50hz-80hz) on the D112.
For phase: listen in mono (preferably one speaker, but you can use two...hell you can even hear it in stereo...one speaker mono just makes it easier).

If you can spare about three hundred dollars you can get a absolute phase clicker. It comprises of two boxes. One emits an asymmetrical pulse the other analyses it. you place the emitter in front of the mic, and he analyzer in front of your monitors...it lets you know if each mic is in absolute phase. That means that a positive waveform on the mic results in a positive (forward) motion of you speaker. Once you know all your mics are initially set-up (or even just one, kick the D112 to start) you can use your ears and check mics against each other for relative phase.

Here's a link for two. The first is a German model, that's distributed by John Hardy (the Mic pre-amp guy). It's the best I found and the one I now use....reflected by it's $395 price. Unfortunately there's no picture or info on his site other than the price. But it's the best one I've found.
http://www.johnhard…

Alternatively, Mercenary audio sells one as well:

for $375

And lastly, Gold-Line, with two models priced @ $313 and $333.
http://www.gold-lin…
I used to have the cheaper Gold-Line first, but twice (granted over 6 years) it needed repair...the second time it broke I got the model JH sells.

Hope that helps

anonymous Tue, 11/04/2003 - 07:03

Hey Thanks Recorderman

I'll check out the phase units you were talking about. So can you tell a big difference when you use these and when you don't? Just trying to justify $300-$400. Would you use it on room and overheads or all the mics on a drum set? Mostly on drums or other things too? Sorry, I just don't know much on this subject. As far as the Sub mic and D112, I don't understand why one night it sounded fine and the next night it didn't. Same drum, mics, every thing except for the second night I ran the D112 thru a Neve unit. Well, I rolled off the top of the sub mic down to probably 100hz. I added some point to the D112 and cut a little 250 or so. But I didn't cut the Low bass of the D112. I'll try that. Basicly with reguard to phase, hit the phase button and what sounds good is good, right? You say listen in mono. When I'm pulling up the D112 and Sub they're in the middle of the mix. (not panned) Isn't that mono? OR do you mean go to the main bus and make it mono.

Cool, Thanks guys,
Jason

RecorderMan Tue, 11/04/2003 - 08:59

Originally posted by Jason James:
Hey Thanks Recorderman

I'll check out the phase units you were talking about. So can you tell a big difference when you use these and when you don't? Just trying to justify $300-$400. Would you use it on room and overheads or all the mics on a drum set? Mostly on drums or other things too? Sorry, I just don't know much on this subject. As far as the Sub mic and D112, I don't understand why one night it sounded fine and the next night it didn't. Same drum, mics, every thing except for the second night I ran the D112 thru a Neve unit. Well, I rolled off the top of the sub mic down to probably 100hz. I added some point to the D112 and cut a little 250 or so. But I didn't cut the Low bass of the D112. I'll try that. Basicly with reguard to phase, hit the phase button and what sounds good is good, right? You say listen in mono. When I'm pulling up the D112 and Sub they're in the middle of the mix. (not panned) Isn't that mono? OR do you mean go to the main bus and make it mono.

Cool, Thanks guys,
Jason

Yes up the middle is mono. Close enough. I's use your ears and save the money. If you can confirm the wiring throughout your room (pin2 vs pin3) and know where your at ... then use your ears. Being able to quivkly verify absolute phase can consistently set you up for more punch, easier and faster, especially if you work in many differrent rooms. It's so easy to miss this stuff and let it get by. It's subtle ... unless you can directly A/B...then not so subtle. LOL.
Anyway...if you can afford it get it. Either way you still must listen for relative (between any two or more mics/sources) phase.

RecorderMan Tue, 11/04/2003 - 09:02

Originally posted by heinz:
Good stuff. Another tool I am very interested in is LittleLabs IBP, allows you to rotate the phase alignment of a signal relative to another to get it RIGHT THERE.

http://www.littlelabs.com/ibp.html

I've two of those. I don't use them every time. But when they're the right thing, they're really the right thing.
Great if you're using two mics on any one source.
Great for the D.I. side of a D.I. and Mic/Amp on a bass Gtr.

anonymous Tue, 02/17/2004 - 13:43

I just tried this with a small Fender speaker cabinet (made for a small PA) that has an eight inch woofer in it. I just hooked up a 1/4" to XLR adapter and plugged it right into the speaker jack and took that to the mixer.

Wow! You only need a little bit and it just adds some BIG BOTTOM to the bass drum sound. Way cool!

anonymous Wed, 02/18/2004 - 19:21

Gotta say I've been using the Yamaha "SubKick" on my last few projects and really do like it. I had drawn up a plan to use a 6.5-inch speaker from a pair of Tannoy monitors (one side of which was blown) and a bunch of home despot aluminum angle, etc., then saw the Yamaha. Basically its a NS10 woofer in a nice drum-like shell with a solid stand. Looks a lot better than what I was planning to build, and only ran around $250. You do have to be careful with phase cancellation; I time-align to get the best sound I can but am thinking of trying one of the Little Labs IBP things to see what that might do.

Mike Potter
Orion Sound Studios
Bawlmer, hon!

anonymous Wed, 02/18/2004 - 19:45

Just thoutght I'd chime in too...

I put my Mesa Boogie Tremoverb combo (O.B. 2x12 W/Vintage 30's) in front of my Taye Studio Maple 18x22 kick, and WOW!

I'm shocked at how much level this setup produces...still needs attenuation into a +4db line input!

Not to mention the best part: super low frequency tones that are still very punchy and tight.

Recorderman, I do believe that you've got the knack. Just lots of great suggestions on recording technique coming from your posts.

I'm listening.

Dean

anonymous Mon, 02/23/2004 - 19:43

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the reason you would want to use an NS10 is bacause that way you get subharmonic that won't overload on a pair of ns10s and by default on most anything else...
what you put in is what you WANT out. If you used an 18 you might get tone that would sound great through another 18, but might need some roll off to work through somebodys home speakers, not to mention that you might not be moving enough air to really get a good signal through a speaker that large.

just though I'd mention it.

anonymous Wed, 02/25/2004 - 15:12

Cataldo,

Don't you use a tranformer to rise the output impedance and balance the signal ?

Nah, it's a super hot signal from a super low impedance source.

You should get a very clean transfer, even through a fairly long unbalanced cable.

The one thing you'll probably need to rig up is a voltage divider to cut the signal down to a sane level.

Dean

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