Solar Studios

03/06/2020

Direct Bass has been released. This is a 96/24, six velocity zones, three round-robin zones experimental bass sampler. In other words, it's a very lifelike instrument. Direct Bass mixes very well, playing great even on a cell phone. It sounds like an electric/acoustic bass. Get it here:

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/direct-bass-by-solar-studios/details

09/03/2017

There are lots of comments to the tune of "wood doesn't affect an electric guitar's tone, only strings do".

That is utterly daft. Daft beyond words. Cretin.

A maple-neck Stratocaster sounds very different to an all-mahogany SG, as an example. Why? Not just because of the scale and electronics and so on. Also because of different woods.

The "rationale" behind the mad statement above is that electromagnetic pickups only sense steel strings, not the wood.

But, the strings' sound already includes the wooden tone. It's as simple as that; the only way strings won't have the tone of their underlying platform is if the guitar's built out of a stone or concrete wall (no wooden parts whatsoever). Even then there might be some stone or concrete overtones.

The vibration of strings' underlying surface (a slab of wood in the case of a solid electric guitar) is added to the metal tone of strings. The wood's resonant character affects strings just the same as it affects a drumhead. The physics are simple - strings (or drumheads) fire into the wood, the soundwave goes through the wood and is bounced back into the strings with the wood's resonant pattern and added (or subtracted) energy. As an example, basswood has next to no resonance except a boomy bass response (basswood drums are famous for being awful to mix because of that), mahogany has a "toasty" darkish tone with strong lower midrange when in an overdriven guitar, it is also used for thunderous, warmish drums; maple has a fairly high primary resonance frequency and so is great for recording in either drums or guitars (maple guitar necks are by far the cleanest-sounding). Ash (a favourite of Leo Fender) subtracts itself from a guitar's tone when used as a body anchor with a maple neck, hence the thinner, clear tone of higher-end Stratocasters.

A guitar with no wood (or other resonant material), just the strings set in a stone or lead or glass base, would be very dull. A glass guitar, as an example, would be utterly dead-sounding as thick glass absorbs sound instead of firing it back into strings. As an experiment, tape a glass ashtray to an electric guitar and hear the change in its character. It'll go dullish. All a fixed or sound-absorbing guitar might produce will be a rather hushed-up, dead string sound with next to no life and sparkle, no warm, thick body as that of a regular wooden guitar.

25/09/2015

Curious bits nobody seems to pay attention to...

Miller capacitance of transistor amplifiers is about 10-15 times that of valve amplifiers at higher frequencies. Simply put, Miller capacitance is the lag between line input and amp output. Transistors, therefore, lag in treble and even high midrange, compared to valves. Wonder why guitar players prefer valve amps? They've better contour and presence. Transistor amps are more neurotic/inaccurate in treble.

Copper has higher capacitance at higher frequencies than silver. Even though it is not by as much, it adds up to the rest of lag to make a serious difference in dynamics. Wonder why silver wiring is better? There's why.

Different types of capacitors have different sonic transparency. Again, this is because of lag at higher frequencies. Polypropylene, teflon, and silver mica are the most audio-friendly. Capacitors, especially electrolytic, can also have lag in high frequencies due to increasing resistance: this distortion type is called ESR - equivalent series resistance. Cheap electrolytics are the worst in terms of ESR - some are so bad, they audibly lowpass at 3 KHz.

Overall, the audio electronic engineers' fixation with numbers and frequency response is something of a bu**er, if only because they forget about dynamics and accuracy in the time domain. A playback device is so much better when it responds quickly - even if in measured terms a treble delay introduced by combined HF lag of transistors, copper, and barmy capacitors and resistors might be something like 1-4 msec., it's usually enough to make or break liveliness and realism.

16/09/2015

Interested in having a classic metal sound? Black Sabbath has noticeably improved its sound over years. Part of it though is easy to do on a budget.

Tony Iommi's most-used ("Old Boy", aka John Diggins' Custom SG) guitar setup is...

SG with a custom JD Special bridge (treble) pickup and JD/John Birch Magnum (neck/bass) pickup.

No idea about the JD Special, but the Magnum pickups are currently on sale at the John Birch EBay store. The other favoured Tony Iommi's pickup is the Gibson P-90, and John Birch makes a similar pickup, the Simplux.

Because of Tony Iommi's industrial hand trauma, he has developed a setup for easy, low-tension playing.

Strings are a custom mix of La Bella make, mostly light-gauge to ease tension. Every SG is set up with a low action. The bridge is lowered as much as possible. Tuners are locking, Sperzel. On all guitars there is a locking nut to prevent detuning (a locking nut also gives the sound a more metallic tint). The tuning itself is a step or 1.5 or two down, depending on how well it blends with a particular song ("Master of Reality" was the first album with a -1.5 steps tuning). Pickups are raised until going "hot".

Effects are usually set up this way: SG->overdrive->chorus->delay->amplifier. The actual effect routing is a lot more complex, using balanced wiring and master/slave amplifier head arrangements. A treble booster is used in the path to drive amp valves harder. Tony plays signature Laney TI-100 valve amplifiers.

Most playing is done with the treble pickup, at about 3-5 tone k**b value and 7-10 volume k**b.

How to achieve a similar sound on the cheap? A simple setup is an SG (could be Epiphone or Yamaha or Suzuki make) with Marshall Jackhammer or Guv'nor effect, a negative chorus and a delay effect (these two could be software in case of a direct sound interface feed/connection). A treble booster is also a plus.

This instrument was built in Birmingham, England by John Diggins, now Jaydee Custom Guitars. The exact date of its manufacture is not recorded (or remembered!), but will certainly be between 1975 and 1978. The guitar was first used for some overdubs on the ‘Heaven and Hell’ album. It was then used m…

14/09/2015

Ever wondered what that watery guitar effect is in Nirvana's "Come As You Are"?

It's negative chorus+delay:

http://www.solarstudios.net/MP3/EM-1-Test-4.mp3

14/09/2015

Die-cast hoops make a lot of sense. All right, let's re-phrase this: regular stamped hoops don't make sense. Die-cast hoops kill off barminess and increase projection/stiffen the tone. Drums start sounding more solid. Die-cast hoops also help improve recorded definition, which is the point of it all. So swap stamped hoops for die-cast as soon as possible if the drumkit is to be recorded.

26/03/2015

Reverse-engineering and hacking :-) the Roland Sound Canvas drum samples (with real drums and equipment) has produced interesting results.

All of this is just an educated guess, but it's a fairly accurate guess.

Let's start with the basics: the drums were equipped with Remo Ambassador Clear heads. This is a simple deduction from the woody tone of the drums (melodic toms, single-sided) combined with a typical clear Ambassador splash. Bright heads were used to increase projection. Remo and Roland have a long-standing relationship, among other things Remo designed the sensor heads for Roland V-Drum controllers.

Heavy sticks were used. This is obvious from a stronger fundamental tone.

The drums were made of birch or some sort of a hybrid or similar dense hardwood (hard maple?), to increase projection/clarity.

Drums were recorded with condenser microphones slightly angled, so as to pick up enough woody tone and reduce treble harmonics. Possibly on a wooden, stone, or brick floor. Condensers were at least a drum's body distance away, likely more.

Analogue compression/limiting may had been applied with a typical "power drums" profile: compress 2:1 above -20 dB, flatten 1:1 below -20 dB (or similar settings, remember this is a guess, something like -18 dB or -24 dB looks feasible).

Midrange/high midrange/treble was boosted to increase mixing clarity (that leads many people to complain SC-55 drums have a "cold digital" feel, that's just digital rectification/foldover of treble due to undersampling).

Samples were gated and/or cut (remember, this was over a quarter century ago) to fit into limited RAM, and squeezed into a 32-KHz/15-bit (roughly) sampling format. Which again, makes many people complain of cold digital sound.

In hindsight, the techniques used are wise, the endurance of SC-55 GM/GS sets is proof to that. Still, the default Roland SC-55 drumkit doesn't sound too new now, does it?

21/11/2014

Solar Battery update:

High tom design (GS tom 5 and 6) frozen.

High snare design (GS snare 2, G #, Tama Superstar) frozen.

By an odd coincidence, tom 5 sounds exactly like a Yamaha CS-2X tom, but slightly brighter and with a real decay tail (the old synth's sample is shortish).

24/05/2014

Here's a hint for guitar players... Use metal picks. The harder a pick, the brighter and harder the string tone. Even hard plastic picks are mushy, soft, and uncontrolled compared to a metal pick.

Here's the difference between picks:

* Plastic picks, hard: soft, mushy, slow, not very controlled.

* Brass metal picks: solid, hard, yet darkish tone. Not very resonant, good for controlled solos and maybe even quiet playing.

* Steel metal picks: solid, bright, hard tone. Brilliance increases over both plastic and brass, great for playing a shimmering guitar solo over the rest of the band.

As an example, on my SG with a Marshall Jackhammer distortion effect, palm mute tones with a hard plastic picks sound like porridge, distorted yet grainy, soft, mellow. A brass pick gives it a mean, dark, hard tone. A steel pick makes it hard/bright/shimmering and lets the guitar cut right through the mix even when muted.

28/05/2013

How to Wire an XLR-to-TRS Cable

XLR to TRS balanced cables are often needed for when, say, the place/studio you're at mostly has XLR microphone cables, and your interface has TRS socket outputs. Or just for mixer/interface/monitor speaker connections (some pro monitor speakers have only balanced XLR inputs, but many mixers only have TRS balanced output sockets).

Here's how:

XLR pin 1=TRS ground, sleeve;
XLR pin 2 (hot)=TRS tip;
XLR pin 3 (cold)=TRS ring (middle).

That's all.

11/04/2013

How to tune to A=432 Hz, C=256 Hz. This is also known as "Verdi tuning" and is the most harmonic/natural/warm-sounding tuning scale. If you want to get that "Jimi Hendrix" or "Bob Marley" relaxed-yet-powerful/warm vibe, tune like this:

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