Binaural headphone recordings.

zuccarelli

A guy called Hugo Zucarrelli recorded some stunning recordings in the 80s of what he called and trademarked as Holophonic sound.
Pink Floyd’s dark side of the moon is an example of the technique creating a very spacious 3D soundstage which is amazing on headphones.Unfortunately all the music I have heard associated with the recording technique seemed to be dark rock or weird esoteric recordings.I would like to have a more mainstream approach to the recording style.It took me years of research to get a decent sound and I think I have become very close to capturing what he did.
These examples are just mp3 snipetts of some tests I did a while back.I will keep adding to the database as I get more material that is guaranteed to fool the senses.

It was very impressive at the time and also very secretive.All we ever know is that he liked to study bats and that Ringo the holophonic head was a closley guarded secert.Tell me how close you think I got with these.

ringo_2

I have made some binaural recordings in the past.This is a taste of things to come – these are the most natural smooth sounds that IMHO can be humanly attained.The orginals are recorded to my MR-1000 at 5.6 mhz so in a nutshell – cannot tell whether I listening to the live microphone feed or the playback it is that good.Get some headphones out and enjoy.

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Met up with Andy Wright

A few years ago I worked ever so briefly with a gentleman named Andy Wright – produced Simply Red and also Pavarotti and a few other amazing artists.

Anyway he produced a version of ‘Our Zimbabwe‘ that I have always loved.I will be releasing this next year sometime so watch this space.

I caught up with him the other day at his studio in Battersea and bottom line is that I have a wonderful arrangement now and will be working on it over the next few months.

andy_wright

Some more interesting Q-clone colours

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PLEASE NOTE THAT I NOW HAVE A NEW SHOP FOR ALL MY PRESETS AND ANY OLD POSTS REFERRING TO MY OLD SHOP ARE NOW DEFUNCTAll my presets are now here

This here is a release that I have made from presets I have used and will use in my upcoming albums.
These are colour presets with the ability to really radically change the tone of your mixes so although some are subtle the colours are more on the side of tone shaping.

Demo of samples

If you haven’t already got my first preset pack go here to get a very nice high end eq indeed.

Q-clone IMHO is the best EQ in the world……oh and Nebula is even better………Anyway – I hope that you will enjoy this small library of mine.I have been saddened by the lack of q-clone libraries around the net and have decided to do something about it.I have been transferring some of the presets I have used in projects to presets I can share.

I have here assembled a set of presets that allow you to sculpt a mix easily and quickly to add colour.This in most cases is not your run of the mill set but one that can radically altar the tone of your instrument in many cases.It really is an adjunct to the tools you already own so you can shape the tone with q-clone and do any other surgical cuts and boosts as desired with a more precise tool.

Simply place the folder anywhere on your HDD and use the open function within q-clone.Personally,I wouldn’t add them to the waves folder as once the folder contains a lot of presets the drop down list becomes a pain.Trust me – I personally have more than 100 presets per folder!!!

I would advise that you add q-clone first in your effects bin and then add the rest of your signal path – but it’s up to you to go where the sound you desire leads.

This selection of presets is just a small sampling of over 2000 presets ( and growing ) of my passion for sampling analog gear.

I have access to great analog eq’s such as a Portico 5033,GML 2032,Mackie Onyx 1220 (Perkins EQ ),Millenia eqs,Pultec,High end digital eqs, and many other exotic eq’s at a nearby studio that allow me to build these presets.

More coming after Christmas 2009

Enjoy,God bless and have a good one.

Oh and do leave a comment on the blog if you like the stuff.

I may make the whole set available for purchase if I have the time to do so but that depends on demand – so if there is a demand for this then I will make the 2000 preset Library available as is but only if there is a demand.The library is about 350 MB right now and it may grow to a gig with all my additions to come.So let me know if it is feasible.

Extend the battery life of your Korg MR-1000 DSD Recorder to DAYS!!!!!On the cheap

Yes you heard me – days!!!!!! In my experience I have gone a number of days before needing to recharge the battery.

If you haven’t heard DSD at 5.6 mhz – you haven’t heard the best in audio.This two track recorder is in my humble opinion the best analog recorder period.But the poor battery life is a pita – perhaps 2 hrs at most if you are recording at the highest setting.

Well my tutorial will set you free of the shackles of poor battery life.You will need a soldering iron with solder,a length of power cable,heat shrink insulation,a 12 volt rechargeble sealed lead acid battery,some connectors for the battery terminals and the right connector tip to connect to the MR-1000 ( I used one that came with those universal power adaptors).That’s it.Now you just need a bit of DIY passion………….

You do this at you own risk but IMHO this is safe as I have used it for months now without problems.The MR-1000 actually uses 12v power from the mains power adaptor – see where we are going?When the rechargable battery runs out the MR-1000 inteligently switches to the built in battery pack.Cool hey…..With the right connections you can simply upgrade the battery life to as long as you like.I have chosen a YUASA 12 v 2.1 AH which fits perfectly in the bag.The battery can be purchased at MAPLINS in the UK.In fact all the parts are available at most DIY stores for probably less than £ 50.

First solder the battery terminals taking note of polarity.Brown cable connects to red battery terminal.On the other end that connects to the MR-1000 – the inner prong is the positive(brown cable).

Then make a little hole in the carry bag that corresponds to the hole where the power connector is on the bag ( I used the soldering iron hot so it sealed the hole). Make sure you have the orientation of the Korg correctly in the bag before doing this of course.

Basically it’s not rocket science – solder the stuff end to end and when you are done – cover the ends with heat shrink.Mount the battery in the compartment of the bag and away you go.Perhaps unplug it when the recorder is not in use.Now go an record some amazing audio without any shackles.Peace and God bless – enjoy your Christmas everyone.

Film making

Soon and very soon Tara and I will be heading up to Scotland to do some shooting of that wonderful landscape.I will aslo be doing some shorts with our good friend Sarah Wrigglesworth in the coming days.The big news however is that I will be going to be hopefully making my first feature length film next year.Lets say it may involve a well known cricket club I am associated with.tsk tsk Still in two minds what to shoot on.

SR11,HFS100,GH1,5D orwith or without SGBlade and whether to do it to Cineform.Oh well – I would love the best but portability becomes an issue.Perhaps the cinedeck is the way forward.

Well at least audio is sorted out

Q-clone presets in the pipe-line

All my presets are now here

Well I had a few days off this week and I spent about 30 hours creating tonnes of Q-clone presets .I have 1500 to date ranging from kicks to snares to bass – in fact I am trying to cover the bases of most requirements in a studio so I will be attempting to cover the spectrum of useful frequencies.
If I were to choose between Acustica audios Nebula and q-clone I would choose q-clone from a workflow perspective.It is faster,sounds as good has a tiny footprint,use so little CPU on my workstation and uses little ram as well.The problem is one needs access to high end eqs and these are not easy to come by.But Nebula has a vast library of these and they sound fantastic.
There are a lot of people who need to get a mix sounding great fast and the presets I am working on do just that.They sound amazing out of the box.

Anyway I have decided to make these presets available in the coming months for those who care and let me just say before I release anything – you will be blown away at what this plugin can do.It is not a one trick pony at all.In fact it can even sample subtle delays – yes you heard me.Don’t believe me? Well come back in a month or so and you will get them do demo.

I will also be making available a nice little neve box that I own.Amazing quality and the presets just shine.That’s for later though………..I may even have some available before Christmas.

I begin preliminary mixing on my next three albums soon.I reckon we are looking at a mid 2010 release for them.

Gospel

Covers

Classical.

I also want to give a plug to a wonderful group of developers who are sampling gear to the highest standards.Support these guys as what they are doing is revolutionary.

http://www.analoginthebox.com/

http://www.alessandroboschi.eu/html/en/alexb.htm


http://cdsoundmaster.com/