DIYing

dear visitor,

The problem with posting info and pics of homemade DIY-stuff is that the devices are constantly re-visited, modified and improved. So the pictures can actually be misleading and outdated by the time they hit the internet.

I'm currently more active on kaada.no and on my twitter account

hope to see you there!

KAADA

transformer based guitar bass recording channel

Here's the recording channel that is being built these days. I wanted to learn some more about impedance issues concerning guitars, bass and amps, and there's no better way to learn than to build something. So off we went.zoom in on picture for details.active DIs on each input, with different transformer options. class A circuitry, balanced, two filters and two send/return with blend option. This unit will consist of independent buildingblocks, so that it is easy to modify and swap certain parts later.

sound ideas

chimes
Hang resonating objects in ropes, next to each other, and set them in motion. Shells, bamboos, forks, sticks, ice, screws… whatever you've got, and believe in. These sounds are great for blending into pads or strings and especially in film-related settings. They can bring synthetic sounds stuff to life

On some filmwork I did last year, I used a violin-bow on some dangling metalchimes. Came out pretty nice in the end, as a light angelic atmos-thingy tingeling-thing,

Typewriter
If you’re into doing strange stuff, take it apart and install the typing-hammers it in front of other objects. Maybe piano strings(!) or mallets?, strings, Drums ?

live perc

(SISU) A bunch of perc in the studio will guaranteed fresh up your tracks. Loops and programmed stuff will come alive and make it easier on the ear. When you play perc live – there’s an unlimited amount of small details, that will happen, and you’ll get vitality in there that you would never get through programming. When you reach for the Rex-loops or the Apple-loops, remember that millions of other people work on exactly the same loops.

scraping

Scraping percussion are usually associated with guiros – an instrument found in the perc section of latin-music. But you don’t need a standard guiro to make scraping sounds. In-fact anything with ridged surfaces can be used, from guitarstrings to radiators.
Select the pieces that will work by judging its clarity in tone, its sound and pitch. Focus on the mid-tones, and the richness in the timbre. Much mid-tone is an advantage, and gives more character.

Some objects might surprise you. And reveal timbre that you would not have guess by its appearance. Some smaller things might produce rich and deeper sounds, while other bigger objects might be brighter than expected. With close mi-placements you can get great bottom-end even with small instruments.

The guiro that we like to use is made out of bamboo. The one I like to use is a closed guiro with small beans inside. So it also works as a shaker, two instruments in one. It has a lovely soft scraping sound. Another favorite is to scrape the deeper pianostrings (the death-scrape). But we have also collected industrial scrap and offbeat materials ranging from accordion parts to artillery shells, washboards, sandpaper, huge springs and large screws

BICYCLE WHEEL
The spokes are struck with mallets or bowed. Preferably with a bassbow or cello bow. You can also spin the wheel while holding some hard paper or stick into the spokes for a guiro kind of quality.

Household instruments

Gonna expand my blogwritings with some info about how I work with sound – in a broader sense. It’s about seeking the possibilities that are there, be open minded, and seek what possibilities that are inherent in the instruments, and whatever you might have at hand. Let the sounds inspire you to go down new creative roads. Let´s start in the deepest end in the perc dept. with the bassdrum.

USE DOOR AS BASSDRUM
I’ve had some success by sitting on the floor while holding a open wooden-door with my knees. Placing a mic on one side, and striking and hitting the other side. With your knees and your body, you adjust the sound by dampening the vibrations. The last time I did this, I used a regular SM57 mic close to the center of the door. Sounded very cool, bit "Tom Waits´ish". A bassdrum mic might be cooler for more bottom.

other household alternatives
With a mic up close, you can achieve a deep bassdrum sound by hitting a wall. Depending on the wall, and the sound, but find something not to hard- but not to soft either to use as a stick. Maybe just the palm of your hand is enough. A resonating big woodbox – preferably with a mic inside, can also produce some quite fabulous kicks. These can be stepped on, or just struck like a normal drum. A nearby solution can be to pull out a drawer, empty it, and turn it around on the floor.

washing-machine tub - you could try to make a drum out of the tub from a washing machine A trashy metallic sound! It will look kinda cool. And all the small drain holes will contribute to a special perc sound.

neumann EQ

A w492 equalizer built in a 3U box. Jørgen Schou transformer on input, Sowter on output.

DIY The Analag Poorman Fairchild 670

6As6 tube injector

These electronic projects are just getting more and more fun for each build! I´m hooked and actually addicted to this stuff now. No way out. must.... build ...more...agh...bzzzss-.....zap!

A tool for getting some life and soul into samples or a bit of tub'ish harmonics into tha tracks. This is a clone of a more famous tube distortion, but the schematics can and will not be shared. sorry. have to keep these papers for my-selves. anyways, it functions as a tape-emulation, but with two 6AS6 tubes for stereo. 10K:10K transformers on both in and output. stepped attenuators and a Voltage Regulator Stabilizer Tube in the PSU. Mostly wima caps in the audio chain. They gave a more "crispy" sound than the other caps I tried. By the way, you just can't go wrong with Wimas. E88cc tube on the output

dual LA-2a with switchable input iron - 1:1 and 1:9

A DUAL LA2A

TRIDENT EQ

Homemade Trident EQ based on the kickass S80 series

thanks to PeterC (!) and to all the the prodigy-pro guys

philicorda

And this is a Philicorda organ. You can get them pretty cheap on ebay these days. They have a fuckin cool spring reverb. It is mono, and it says spiong, but spiongs can be ok too, especially if you are into spaghetti westernish dessert guitars. See, on each side of the keyboard there, I drilled holes for extra jack-input and utputs - to be able to play directly into the spring-reverb- blocking the organ.

studer 169 upbrush

Salute to passionate audio engineers all around the world! Guess what? I found a 10channel Studer 169 at a flea marked. Covered in sand and trash. The electrolytes and some of the film-caps were no good. Hope to test it on an upcoming mix here at the Wrongroom ...real soon.

A supergreat source for servicemanuals, mods and other interesting documents can be found on studers ftp. ftp://ftp.studer.ch/Public/Products/Mixing_Analog/169-269/

The pre-amps sounds absolutely stunning, just brilliant!, both clean and overdriven. Kinda like API desks? This desk will be on every mix from now on, in some way or another.

I did almost every mod documented in the papers from studer. The insert-outs were moved to after- the filters, mute and faders - so that each channel can be used separately in a mix.

PULTEC MIDTONE EQ

LAWO & SRPP HAND IN HAND,

New build. Two MEQ5 equalizers in one! Both sounds cool, and very different from each-other. The LAWO is a slightly modded DV973/3 board. (Had to change a few resistors to get the same gain as the SRPP). Had some troubles with hum, but some unexplainable experimental grounding-cabling removed most of it. The power-toroid was put in an external box. And I had to swap the 3K3 2W resistor into a 20K to get the correct voltages on the PSU part of the SRPPboards
The eq-inductors are from Sowter
Under the large caps, there are 560K bleeder resistors
The AC/DC PSU for the LAWO is from JLM. it takes the 12VAC to 24VDC

DIY 33609

A Neve 33609 is born. 10000 thanks to Igor (tech-genius) for the pcbs and for all the group-diy guys! Got me some old Belclere trannys on the inputT1 & int.T2 and Carnhills on the output. Aiai, I still cannon believe how unbelievable cool it sounds, and how veritable it is.

behold, the almighty Thor

Been up all night making a fxpedal. Found the case at a local market, and I just had to fill it with something meaningful. At runoffgroove.com I found pcb layout and schematics for a pedal they call 'Thor'. Which they claim is a Marshall 100W Super Lead adapted for use as a stompbox.

Hohner Pianet / clavinet DUO

This is the Hohner/Pianet Duo. It has never sounded any good, just irritatingly dull. Something had to be done. Added a booster and an EQ before the output. The pianet sounds more aggressive now, and the clavinet-parts actually sounds like a clavinet.

two new pots (boost vol and eq) :

delaybonanza

got the case and the pcbs from some crazy circuit-bending kids on ebay a few years ago. And it's been with me on every concert ever since. Done quite a bit of soldering work on it. Had to stabilize the circuit and make it more predictable.

homebuilt vacuum tube compressor

Fuck I'm starting to get fat from sitting here doing electronics all day. So I decided that I'd rather spend some time on an update than soldering and crying, picking at the scabs around my genitals. Here is my new home assembled compressor. Sidechain for lowend and saturation control build in. Thanks to everyone at the prodigy-pro forum for valuable info and inspiration

fuse

When a tube blows or a rectifier diode goes west - something will get burned before the fuse reacts. This is a pic from inside my mesaboogie - which blew on the last Cloroform tour. We've actually been using it on the drumset. One mic over the bassdrum, and straight into the amp. The fuse should have been 1.5A, but we had a 5A in there or something... kaboom.

yeah recapping man

damn, how important it is for musicians and studio owners to know how to recap. I honestly didn't know how much diffenence it could do. If you wanna take it further than just recapping, and are looking for a well written electicity-book, I would recommend a book called “Tab elecronics : GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING ELECTRICITY AND ELECTRONICS”. This is the first book that I really enjoyed reading, and that finally made me understand the concept of good biasing among other things.

today, I worked on my Fender Twin. After recapping, it felt like the cleanest Fender, most beautiful amp, ever. If you're into vintage instruments and stuff, then you have to get comfortable heating that soldering iron.

and here's a pic of my recapped ol' Peavey Classic. Didn't have 200uF caps for the PSU, so I put two 100uF in parallel. The springs and the depth-tremollo in the old peaveys are extremely cool.

oh, When I record 4x10 or 4x12 cabinets, I often disconnect all but one speaker. Depends on the song off course, but generally the sound gets cleaner and easier to work on when it only comes from one speaker instead of four.

RAYTHEON RL-10

The tolerance for electrical-noise is low in the world of filmmusic (where I do most of my studiowork) so if I'm gonna use old equipment, then they need to be pretty clean sounding. The hum in my Raytheon RL-10 has been growing quite annoying, and therefore it hasn't been used much. So I gave it a shot. Here's some pics of how it came out. All the parts that could be changed, was changed with newer and better parts. The rotary switches was cleaned with a supersonic cleaner and all the cables was changed and got earth-shield. This was my first compressor-tubeunit repair project. The next time I work on it, I will hope to be skilled enough to swap tubes, and to improve the circuit. And not just swapping parts with newer ones. Ugh... so much to learn...

BACK :

FRONT :

KEYTARS

The pics of the Weiltmeister Basset in the last post caused quite a stir. So here's some other pics for you keytarslutz. Om tuesday (March 4), I'm gonna play on a show in Trondheim (samfundet) with a choir+, .....yes, me on keytars... haha. 60 singing men plus keytar! ohboy

weltmeister basset

The Weltmeister Basset. It was used by dance-bands in east-germany- probably late 60'ties. Sounds pretty cool, and it was originally made for bass-lines. Haven't decided yet what preamp I'll build for it yet. But for the left-hand button, I'd like to build in some kind of "wahwah" filter.

mini-celesta

moog liberation

gonna do a Jan Hammer tribute performance in about a month from now, so the Keytar needed a shapeup. For now I just cleaned out the dirt, and changed a rotary pot + the sliderpots. But it will need a full re-wiring before I can take it with me on a longer tour. The wires are so rusty. Found the sliderpost on ebay. Did a search for moog sliders, and there they were. perfect.

homemade summing unit

DIY summing...Using it for summing my external FX's, together with a neve 8816 - Based on a Neumann 475-2a and a bunch of 5.11K resistors.

AMS RMX16

My adventures in the exiting world of audio-electronics continues with an upbrush in my AMS rmx16 - the all time favorite reverb, ever!... Its an evergoing project to keep this thing alive, and every year another component goes down. The chips are a nightmare to swap. And sone of them are almost impossible to find. Thanks to David Kulka for all the good tips

I've searched and looked for the schematics for the AMS rmx16 for two years now. It seems like it was never released. So I just had to jump in, and see what could be done with my limited knowledge. After cleaning the unit for old stuff and sticky glue (thanks to degreaser)
After cleaning, I changed almost all the capacitors. probably around 100! I even took out some of the pF caps. Ugh... Found some nasty tantalums in there plus some really rusty ribbons. Then I cleaned the buttons and swapped some of them, +swapped the battery, and rebuild the PSU plus the components placed below the battery.

look! new tantalums!

- Got the new fan, buttons and ribbons from www.studioelectronics.biz. .... Wonder how long it will last before it goes down.... again