not just a display piece

Laying down timing tracks for the new album, finally. I did four and a half tracks yesterday – this is a quick process. None of these recordings will make it onto the final, but it’s a helpful step.

For the moment, the new microphone is living as a display piece in the corner of the room, on the shelf with all the other microphones. Every time I see it, I consider more places I might actually use it on this album. XD

This whole thing got started by looking up how to fake bullhorn vocals, like I needed for the new single, Pee Police (on Bandcamp, YouTube, and Soundcloud). Universally, people said the best way to do it was use a real bullhorn. I mean yes, I’d wanted to build a carbon microphone for a long time. But in terms of actually doing it, this was the prompt.

If you want a specific sound made by a specific thing, the best way to do it is have that thing. $19 in parts later, I have it!

“Starship on Fire” is so far the most likely track to get some carbon mic vocals in the mix. Since it’s told – sung? – from two different viewpoints at once (past character, present character implied), one of those viewpoints having this kind of effect makes storytelling sense. I will at very least try it, and see how it sounds.

I’m going to use the Korra On the Air icon for all the LJ and Dreamwidth crossposts that mention this microphone forever, aren’t I? Yes. Yes, I am.

It’s a long weekend for a lot of people reading this, so – yay! Go have some fun.

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
Bandcamp (full album streaming) | Videos | iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby

la la la la lightbulbs

A couple of weeks ago I needed to replace a floodlight and discovered makers have mostly stopped listing CRI numbers, which pisses me off, and that I think is probably because they've decided 80 is Good Enough, which - okay, it's pretty good, and it's a lot better than anything off a compact florescent bulb. But >90 bulbs are available and I want them!

So I started ordering high CR and replacing/relocating-to-less-important-area other bulbs and it's kind of got away from me a bit. Because if CRI data is going to be difficult to get I'm gonna buy a lot of bulbs that I know are right and install them because they will last a good little while, so.

(Don't get me wrong, 80 is entirely reasonable. But I can get 92-93 and I will pay extra for it, where 'extra' translates to "$1-2/bulb.")

I also figured out that what I was really doing when I was mixing colour temperatures of CF and traditional tube bulbs wasn't so much for the colour temperature itself as for filling in the gaps in spectrum and improving the overall CRI.

So if anybody in your house cares, these are good:

A19 60 watt equivalent: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O75K6AS/
A19 40 watt equivalent: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RQPHU5K/
BR30 (overhead can) 60/65 watt equivalent: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LTAOIA8/

"A19" means "ordinary bulb" for people who don't speak bulb types. The BR30s are not always as good in dimmers as the packaging says, according to reviews; I don't have any of that type dimmers, so I don't care.

If anyone is wondering, the CRI of LED filament bulbs is 80, which is, again, perfectly reasonable. But one can go above that if one so desires.

Collection: Microphone Buildout Projects

Building microphones is fun and seems to be of interest to readers, so here’s a collection post for posts about that! These posts discuss building both microphones, and, when applicable, their matching microphone driver circuits and/or pre-amplifiers.

Building a Carbon Microphone:

• A Microphone of Constant Sorrow, Part I – I just wanna be able to sing into a can, just like them fellers down at the radio station (19 May 2016)
• A Waveform Sung Into a Can, Part II – test of a driver circuit: version 2 (v. 1 didn’t work – 20 May 2016)
• Building the “Can,” or the a carbon element mount, Part III – wherein I build a shielded containing structure for the carbon pickup element. (23 May 2016)
• Once Upon a Time in a Catalogue, or A Microphone of Constant Sorrow, Part IV – putting the driver circuit into a case, as well as additions to that circuit, and the interface design (25 May 2016)
• Not Just a Display Piece, Part V: a final photo and ideas for use (27 May 2016)

Related posts:

• Understanding Something Better Now – wherein I discuss how building this microphone has made me understand magical technology in 1930s-1960s science fiction.

Building a Crystal Microphone:

• Crystal Gems would use crystal microphones, right? Sure. Yes, I’m building old-technology microphones again (9 June 2016)
• Confused by Background Radiation, wherein nothing makes sense and everything is terrible (11 June 2016)
• It’s 1944 forever: the crystal microphone, part II, wherein it works, and that was not a fait accompli, things got real weird (13 June 2016)

Building a Ribbon Microphone:

• Ribbon Microphone Buildout – it’s surprising now simple a build this is (9 December 2013)
• Calculating the Terminal Velocity of Falling Microphone Ribbon – ruminations on how incredibly thin this material has to be to work (5 December 2013)
• Microphone Preamp Build Report – build the necessary preamp. Also works with dynamic microphones, but cannot receive or send phantom power (2 December 2013)
• Should Have Seen This Coming – a short note about debugging said preamp (4 December 2013)

Building a Large-Diaphragm Condenser Micrphone:

• Let’s build a Micparts RK-47/990B kit microphone! – the complete build report (24 March 2017)
• A Bit of Errata (and something I forgot) – turns out the “complete build report” was only mostly complete; I neglected to mention an interesting build option. Also, I guessed wrong about the design’s “omni” mode behaviour (26 March 2017)
• Let’s listen to a Micparts RK-47/990B kit microphone! – with test recordings and comparisons (27 March 2017)

Other microphone and preamp customisation/modification posts:

• The ART TUBE MP microphone preamp, and Let’s Try That Again with Russian Aid, which is to say, a Russian-made tube of more interesting qualities (March 2016)
• Mod Report: re-componenting an Oktava MC-012/MK-012, wherein Oktava mics have great designs but sometimes iffy components (November 2016)

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
Bandcamp (full album streaming) | Videos | iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby