Producing

This final semester I got to record and produce four songs written and performed by two different groups (two songs each).

The first group was a solo act (Grant Prusi), where he sung and played every instrument except bass. He did two songs that really started out as ideas he was playing with at the beginning of the semester. We spent the first month or so really just working on writing the songs and what they would be.



Opposition is an instrumental song that Grant originally wanted to be an industrial song, but he came up with a funk bass line so it kind of morphed into a funk song. Since Grant was playing most of the instruments he first had a midi demo of the song done and he practiced to that. When we came in to start laying down tracks the practice showed, he was able to play each of the instruments in time after only a couple of takes.




Down was recorded much like Opposition, except for the fact that vocals were added to the mix. They proved to be the biggest challenge

The second group was a full four piece band (called The Groundlings) and they did two songs that they have been playing for awhile now. The two songs sounded very similar initially so one (See You Through) was sped up to have a more upbeat rock feel. The second song (Save Me) was made into an acoustic song.

(Link to come)

For See You Through the band was recorded live, all playing in the same room. It was just the best way, and then overdubs were added on top of that, though in most cases the live take was actually better than the overdub.

(Link to come)

 To record Save Me a live take was recorded, then everything except drums was overdubbed on top of that. This was probably the hardest song to do because coming in See You Through and Save Me sounded almost identical. After trying out a lot of different versions of the song I heard DJ and Nick (the main singer/guitarist and the rhythm guitarist) doing a simple acoustic version and knew that was what it should sound like. So we scrapped everything we had recorded and rerecorded everything to build upon that acoustic version. I like this song the most, after spending so much time trying to get it right I think it turned out the best.

Epimetheus

Overview:

        I set out to create critical listening speakers that will be enjoyable in any room you put them in. This was accomplished by creating a floor standing pair of speakers with great off axis response to make the largest “sweet spot” to fully enjoy your music. I believe speakers should be flexible enough to be an afterthought when you are relaxing to your favorite music. Epimetheus utilizes a passive 2.5-way crossover design which means, compared to a 2-way crossover, there is an additional woofer that handles only the bass frequency. Features: +/- 2 dB from 70 to 17k Hz Great Off Axis Response Under $800 Floor standing F3: 60 Hz Drivers: Tweeter: The Morel MDT29 was selected for it’s good off axis performance, and low frequency extension that allows it to be crossed over around 1800 Hz Woofer: The Seas L16RN-SL was selected because its Q(tc) indicated it was suited for a sealed box, plus it has good low frequency extension for its size.






Documentation:


Testing Report

Crossover Schematic

Drafting

Testing Results:

Full Range

Purple: Full Range, Red: Tweeter, Blue: Mid-Woofer, Green: .5 Woofer

Full Range, Mid Woofer Inverted




Horizontal Off Axis Response

Purple: 0º, Red: 15º, Green: 30º Blue: 45º, Orange: 60º

Vertical Off Axis Response

Purple: 0º, Red: 15º, Green: 30º, Blue: 45º, Orange: 60º

Harmonic Distortion:




Step Response: 




Impulse Response:




Minimum Phase Response:



Waterfall:

 


Tweeter Response:




Woofer Response:







  Epimetheus by Russell Goddard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Speaker

This semester I've been designing a pair of speakers. They are a floor-standing (almost 48" tall) and utilize a 2.5 way design, which means that in addition to the normal 2 way design of tweeter and woofer there is an additional woofer that does solely low frequencies.

The drivers I am using consist of the Morel MDT 29 and the Seas L16RN-SL, with a box that is made up of an outer layer of 3/4" Baltic Birch and an inner layer of 1/2" MDF. All told they will weight about 90 lbs.

I think so far they are turning out quite well, the crossover still needs some tweaking, but I can't wait until they are finally finished.

Assembling the side panels.

The basic shape of the box with all the pieces dry fit.

Gluing the front baffle on.

Inside the box, you can see the two braces.

The first iteration of the crossover.

Speaker Testing.

Orpheum Theater

In May 2011 I started working at the Orpheum Theater in Hancock, MI. It is a old vaudeville theatre that has been renovated and now hosts live music. Initially it used a Yamaha O1V96 digital board, but that soon was replaced by a 48 channel Allen and Heath board.

In addition to running front of house for many of the shows here I also help maintain the system and help book and promote some of the bands that come through here.

The house of the theatre.

Another angle of the stage.

The Allen and Heath board.

Jazz Backstage in the Rozsa

This semester I, along with Spencer Karlovits, was able to record the Jazz Backstage in the Rozsa concert. The concert was much more intimate thanks to the location and the mood was great. There were some issues the first night of the concert, but the second night went smoothly.

For mic placement, most instruments were close miked with the exception of the brass section which were recorded with a stereo pair of Blue Mouse, which you can see in the bottom left picture.

Tutorial Videos

Right now I am currently working on creating 6 tutorial videos along with Tim DeYoung that explain basic aspects of audio software.

The six subjects are:

Logic Basics
Sculpture
Flex Time
Reason
Melodyne
Sink Drive

Fly Covered Candy

In the spring of 2011 I recorded a friends band called Fly Covered Candy they had been playing together a long time and the songwriter was graduating so they wanted to record some of their songs before he left.

So late on a couple of weekends we came in and took over the second floor or the Rozsa Center and set up to record. To try and get as much isolation as possible the guitar and bass amplifiers were spread out through the building, but they were all playing in the same room listening to the mix on headphones. It was decided to overdub the vocals so we wouldn't have to worry about putting the singer in an entirely separate room.

This set up created reasonable isolation, and once the band got use to it created some good takes of their songs.

After the band recorded all the songs and they were roughly mixed the singer was brought in and over two days he overdubbed his vocals. As a spur of the moment decision sometimes the lead guitarist and songwriter would double some of the vocal parts.

Everything was recorded and mixed in Pro Tools.

The rhythm guitarist's amp was put in an
isolation booth.

The lead guitarist's amp was placed in
the hallway.

       

The drummer was placed in the room with all of the
band members.

Another view of the band room, where they recorded.

The bass amp was put in the instrument
room, and was also DI'd.