I actually looked into a design like that, but in my little cube-shaped room the rather nasty standing wave problem doesn't really kick in until about 65hz, and it's gonna take a damn big resonator to address something like that. So I'd like to try some sort of broadband resistor, but poking around on newsgroups and going over my SynAudCon materials, I've not really beeen able to track down much information on what the salient issues governing the design of acoustic resistors actually are. The primacoustic corner resistors claim "bass control down to 40hz" but what the hell is that supposed to mean? Judging by the size of them my bet is that they roll off pretty steeply after 85hz or so ...
I've always been amazed that there aren't more drum and bass bloggers out there, as the blog medium seems pretty apropos to the DnB media culture and distribution model generally(shitty business practices notwithstanding).
Posted by: Analytic at October 13, 2003 10:28 AM
Regarding traps for sub bass, check this:
http://www.ethanwiner.com/basstrap.html
You may know of them already, but there are plans for the DIY inclined. The advantages are the fairly low profile and inexpensive costs...the downside is that you have to build it yourself...which I'm doing anyway. The time it takes is discouraging, but if you can't afford $4,000 for the commercial equivalent, you've got no real choice.
Follow all his links, to RealTraps as well, as he's got test results for the designs so you can verify the claims he makes.
Is your room a true cube? That's rough. I hope the height is different at least. Mine's a fairly classic rectangle, but quite small, with a low ceiling.
As for drum and bassistas blogging, yes, given the propensity for online communication via all the boards, you'd think there'd be more of it. On the other hand, how much can you really talk about in regards to drum and bass, without there being a dialogue? I hardly ever mention it here...there's just not a lot to say and I don't want to talk about myself and my records interminably. Boring I think.
I've kept this whole thing fairly well divorced from dnb. In fact, as far as I can tell, most of the people who read this site really don't have much--if anything--to do with it either. I kind of like it that way. That said, if drum and bass fans find it and migrate here and decide it's worth arguing the merits of Johnny L's new album, or having the egregiously tiresome argument over breaks in contemporary dnb, I'm game. Lord knows I've got opinions. Ask anyone on the Streetbeats forum!
Big up the essay-in-the-comments-section crew!
Posted by: pk at October 13, 2003 12:30 PM
The room is not a true cube, but it only deviates from a true cube by a couple of inches in a given direction and some built-in shelving, and yes it's tiny. Further complicating matters is the semi-permanent nature of my digs: I live in a one bedroom apartment, and the less drilling and hammering and whatnot I can do to the apartment the better off I'll be whenever I finally decide to moveout. Part of the appeal of the resistor-type traps is that they're comparatively light and easy to mount, but at this stage I don't know enough about materials and dimensions etc., to warrant the trouble building one. Probably a big chunk of super-dense foam would do the trick, but I just would like to see at least one rundown of the design considerations before I start down that road.
RE: blogging, message boards and DnB: I suppose what I mean to say is that I'm surprised that drum and bass people don't often make use of the weblog format as an avenue of self-mediation. It's not like people on the boards confine themselves drum and bass or even music discussions in the first place; there's plenty of threads devoted to what kind of sneakers we're wearing or pictures of our cats or what we thought of "Kill Bill" or what-have-you. I don't really blog about DnB either, and I wouldn't expect most people to. It's just weird that none of the massive are blogging about anything at all ...
But, while we're at it, the "scene" in general and the Streetbeats gang in particular is forever whingeing about the industrialization of the scene and big-media pretensions among certain labels and distributors, but when if gets down to the business of actually implementing some sort of grass-roots method for getting the word out, and connecting with people in ways that put a face on the individuals creating the music, they've got nothing. Zip. Zilch. Except maybe Spectraz, and I'm not too sure that qualifies. Criticism always takes the form of "we need more female vocals," or "we need more live bands", or something similar. But that's baloney. How about we start with "my name is Bob, I live in New Zealand, and I make drum and bass. Check out my new lawnmower." And there's this RSS thing and this trackback thing in place, which is such a potentially useful way to connect people of similar interests, in a fantastically organic, democratic, nonlinear way, and interest among the jungle crowd is next to zero. And that surprises me.
Re: essays in the comment section: here,here!
Posted by: Analytic at October 13, 2003 03:33 PM
Re: resistor bass traps.
Check the link I posted. There are quite good plans for building them. I can understand if it seems a bit intimidating at first, but it's easy. A year ago, I wouldn't have trusted myself with a rotary saw. Now, I could almost build an entire house myself (or so my carpenter neighbor tells me). The materials are cheap and mostly readily available. The hardest to source are the fiberglass boards, but I just found a local source at a good price, i.e., 96 ft/2 of the 1 inch thick 3lbs/ft/3 board for $70. That's way, way cheaper than any of the foam stuff and it's one third more dense and is lower profile. You can get two inch thick board at 6lbs/ft/3 for I think around $120. That's even better for bass, but not as good for high end. 96 ft/2 will yield 12 2x4' panels. That's good coverage for a small room. The same coverage of foam will cost more, look worse, take up more space depth-wise, and still not perform as well.
You want either Owens Corning 703 and/or 705, or, Johns Manville IS 300 and/or IS 600. Check around with your local commercial insulation dealers (consumer building supplies won't have it). That site I linked also sells the 703/5.
You'll need that material to build the bass traps. Then you just need some decent quality plywood, the pine boards called for, hardware, etc...and then a day to build one. Cheap, easy...just time consuming.
Re: dnb blogging. I think you're right. The discussion so often strays from the music...which is great! I've always argued that there's no such thing as an off-topic post because the best feature of those boards is that they're places for people to come together and talk about things within a shared context of common interest: drum and bass. That's the common ground or springboard or whatever you want to call it, and from there, anything goes. Drum and bass itself is, unfortunately, not rich enough to support endless conversation about it.
"And there's this RSS thing and this trackback thing in place, which is such a potentially useful way to connect people of similar interests, in a fantastically organic, democratic, nonlinear way, and interest among the jungle crowd is next to zero. And that surprises me. "
Beautifully put.
I've written at some length in the past about the democratizing principles at the heart of blogging...but I'll be damned if I'm going to go look for the posts. Some of them I know are on my old, extinct blog, so there's no finding them for sure.
Those are the same technologically driven principles that liberalized the means of production in music...especially in more electronic forms of music. ACID and the like set a million people free to try their hands at it. Before, you had to conquer the formidable hurdles of MIDI, samplers, hardware, modules, sequencers, subtractive synthesis, SCSI, and all the rest of it. Now, it's available to anyone with a computer.
Anyway, you've given me this odd idea of an aggregate blog for dnb/EDM producers/DJs/fans that posts feeds from everyone's individual syndicated blogs. Kind of like your three-rings.com.
Yikes...too much writing in this small box!
Posted by: pk at October 14, 2003 01:00 PM
Yeah, I actually ran the same idea across ASC and I think it went over his head. But I've wanted to do that for some time, and I could host the thing for free. We even opened up the design of the three-rings front page so that anyone could change it, which explains it's current frankensteinian looks. Probably not a great idea in the grand scheme. In any case I'd certainly be up for something like that ...
Posted by: Analytic at October 14, 2003 03:10 PM
It's not so Frankensteinian. You want Frankenstein? You ought to see my custom, home-made meter bridge! Some serious grave-robbed high-tech meets low-fi business...scars and exposed circuit boards, nuts, bolts, and all. Just finished building it today.
Do you guys have your own servers? I'd be interested to look into that collective blog idea; at least syndicated, if nothing else. I'm not sure who'd be interested and who I'd be interested to share a forum with, but I suppose it could have the potential to be something half way between a forum/messageboard and a private website, for a number of people involved. Sort of to drum and bass how blogcritics.org is to the blogosphere in general, except syndicated.
I dunno...nice idea; not sure how much time I'd have to contribute to getting it in gear. I'm already over-extended, but maybe if we let the idea gestate, something will come of it.
Posted by: pk at October 17, 2003 12:56 AM
RE: Your meter bridge: whoa.
Do we have our own servers? Not exactly. Our web hosting is pretty affordable, we have unlimited space and bandwidth, and on top of things,we've got a benefactor. So while it's not technically free, it's free to me and I'm free to do what I want to with it. Said benefactor also has other hosting options that are free even to him, and eventually we might move things to one of those truly-free servers, but for now, it's just virtually free.
You wrote: "I'm not sure who'd be interested and who I'd be interested to share a forum with, but I suppose it could have the potential to be something half way between a forum/messageboard and a private website, for a number of people involved."
That's the rub. I'll have to poke around and see how much interest there is down on the ground, but so far the response has been pretty mute. If I can't get at least six or seven people together in the beginning I don't know if it will be worth the effort.
As for what the site would be, to start with I would probably just slap the script up and pipe all the text into a default MT template and then watch it go for a couple of weeks. If there's a decent turnover of content after that period we could begin coooking up a full-blown website with threaded comments and whatnot. I'll begin looking around for some scripts we can use to aggregate the blogs (the one we're using now is homegrown and kind of fiddley) as well as asking around to see if there's enough interest among DnB folk to actually get something off the ground. I'll mail you about it if I actually get round to doing it.
Good luck being over-extended; might want to look into a modafinil prescription, cut back on that pesky sleep ...
Posted by: analytic at October 18, 2003 08:51 AM
A heap of wheat, says the Song of Songs
but I've never seen wheat in a pile :)
did you like it?
Posted by: Peter Jackson at July 23, 2005 06:31 PM
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