aktuell q1 2023:

res wepfer's fuhrwerk band: album mix und mastering

grosse band und grosse musik! res wepfer, spiritus rector des legendären pfannestil chammer sexdeets (r.i.p.) wollte seine songs auf der bühne und mit angemessener instrumentierung zum besten geben. mit dabei: ändu hug von patent ochsner, shoppers etc. am schlagzeug, jüre schmidhauser am kontrabass (ex-züriwest, shoppers etc), simon ho am flügel (ex-pcs, etc.), lisa gretler an orgel und posaune (ex-pcs, kabinett etc.), michael gassmann am flügelhorn (m.g. quartet etc.), michael wernli an cello und perkussion (ex-irrwisch, kasbek etc), marc portmann an der e-gitarre (ex-andreas vollenweider, tinu heiniger, bo katzman etc.) und der meister himself: res wepfer an komposition, text, gesang, akustische gitarre und v.a. an der königin der instrumente: die ukulele! die hälfte der songs hat res studiomässig und selber aufgenommen, die andere hälfte stammt direkt aus einer konzertprobe, somit ohne schnitt oder doppelten autotune-boden.

illusonic: center channel eq

wiederum copy / paste des facebook posts von illusonic, denn mastermind christof faller bringt es auf den punkt!

"previously mentioned center loudspeaker timbre difference forced us to re-tune the center equalizer.

goal is that lr => lrc converted signals with center loudspeaker have similar timbre in sweet spot than corresponding original lr signals.

we let our consulting sound engineer patrik schwitter tune an equalizer to center channel for this purpose.

the result is shown in the graph figure. note that lr => lrc conversion is applied only above approximately 100 hz.

a simple logic is not apparent in the center eq curve. a spherical head model would give a different result. though several listeners found after the tuning session that center loudspeaker is well timbre matched by this eq.

even though patrik is sure of it, we want to test this eq in a different room with different l-r-c matched loudspeakers. to verify that earliest reflections and the specific loudspeakers had no specific effect.

even though i wonder to which degree patrik's hrtf's flow into this eq. but as said, informal listening indicates the eq is reasonable for other people as well. we have for more than a decade used human-tuned eq on center channel and never got any complaints about it. current hypothesis is still that human-tuned eq is good and better than an eq designed by theory."

massenburg design works: endlich drc für daw...

nach über 20 jahren des warten bzw. versprechens von george, dass er seinen sagenhaften gml 8900 dynamic range controller drc als plugin produzieren wird, ist er nun tatsächlich da! tä tääää: der mdw drc 2! "it's just better..."

mixworkshop #2: steady as you go!

stefan köbeli, seines zeichens drummer von maxell90 (cooler name, hä!) ist hart im nehmen: satte 8 stunden hat er meinem high intense output in sachen "wie mischt man einen mix" stand gehalten und nahezu unbeschadet vieles davon aufsaugen können. und dies bereits zum zweiten mal! (wobei er beim ersten mal mit bohemian like you der "dandy warhols" bereits nach läppischen 7 stunden schlapp machte...)

das vorgehen: in maxell90's übungsraum zeichnet stefan ihre lieblings-covers studiomässig in playback-manier auf und ich darf dann hin und wieder einen söttigen tune mischen! (aktuell song #2 der raconteurs) später dann schneit stefan bei mir vorbei und ich veranstalte ein saftiges de-constructing meiner büez. mache ich sehr gerne!

illusonic: shift happens!

mein start bei illusonic ins neue jahr begann mit einer unerwarteten ernüchterung. christof' faller's original auf fb:

"sh*! happens!

a couple of years ago, we replaced the main loudspeakers (l, r, c) in our immersive setup with the largest and best loudspeakers we have had, psi-audio a-25. as we owned only a pair of those, we used for center the legendary studer a5, which we had traded with a friend for four non-needed subwoofers.

studer a5 is the predecessor of psi-audio a-25. the builds we have had of both models, implied they should be very similar. without systematic test, we felt the system worked well, and it did (but with a pitfall - hang on).

yesterday, our consulting sound engineer patrik schwitter came, to address the following problem statement:

playback a:

– left = mono signal

– right = mono signal

playback b:

– center = -3 db mono signal

compare both, and design an eq, which makes the timbre of a and b more similar in the sweet spot. (as we had changed some internals of our center-extraction technology, we were going to re-do this eq).

but how are we sure the eq is tuned independently of system-specific early-reflections and loudspeaker-features? this is why this time, after tuning the eq with the psi l/r and studer c, we set up other loudspeakers in the lab, to check whether the eq would work equally well on the other loudspeaker models.

on the genelecs, b sounded more bright than a. and also on the other loudspeakers we tested (smaller psi models) we felt that this effect was reasonably similar.

so the eq seems to work similarly on all alternative loudspeakers (always condition that l, r, c are identical), but differently on our reference setup, where we used for center a predecessor model of lr. bad luck. It seems that the 30 years age of the studer indeed had an impact. the loudspeaker sounds less precise, more muffled on its tweeter. though indeed the eq was able to mitigate a good portion of this effect. but as we need a system for any customers and loudspeakers, this is not useful in general.

we have to exchange l, r, c in our lab and re-do center eq tuning!