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soundmanjohn

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Everything posted by soundmanjohn

  1. I'd say the Classified section is pretty much moribund. I've tried twice to contact sellers on that section and had no response whatsoever. The fact that there are now only two ads there (one of those for a simulated Leslie Speaker - not exactly relevant) and almost all of the interesting action is on the members' section speaks volumes. I'd ditch it, quite frankly. Regards, John
  2. For the sound design work you're doing, record at a sample rate of 96K and 24 bit. This will give you more flexibility when you come to do pitch changing and other manipulations on your sounds. One other thing: ditch GarageBand and learn Reaper. GB is slow, clunky, and a resource hog. Reaper is free to try out and then pretty low cost if you want to be an honest user. It has a minimal resource footprint, but a steep-ish learning curve if GB is all you've used in the past. Persevere with it and you'll learn to love it. John
  3. There are two new-ish iPad apps that get used for simple theatre shows that may be suitable for this kind of use: PlayFadePause - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/playfadepause/id493685404?mt=8 which sells for $4.99 Go Button - http://gobuttonapp.com/ which sells for $19.99 Both are robust and simple. John
  4. I was lucky enough to have worked with her in my world (theatre) some years ago. She was tough, funny, acerbically witty and charming and appreciative of the work that us lesser mortals did on the show. On my addressing her as Miss Bacall, prior to recording an off-stage line so that she could concentrate on a quick costume change, she said "Call me Betty, would you like a drink?" When I left at the end of the production period to go and lecture in Hong Kong for a few weeks, she thanked me for the work I'd done and kissed me goodbye. You really don't forget moments like that. John
  5. Hmm, via Facebook only. That lets me out. John
  6. Back when the Japanese synths came on the market, people offloaded their old analog stuff and I bought an EMS Synthi AKS in Denmark Street, London, for £150 - about $300 back then. I've still got it and used it a couple of weeks ago and was quite surprised to find that they're rather collectible these days. When Abbey Road had a huge sale a few years later, the two Studer J37s from Studio 2 went for £500 a piece, and included a 4 track copy of the Sgt. Pepper master. I was late to the auction and missed out, not that I had the room for one, but I didn't really consider that. I bought a Teac 3440 for about the same money in the end: more practical, but it didn't hold it's value. John
  7. Actually, not my office, but that of my friend and colleague Seb Frost, who's the sound designer for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo this year. He kindly invited me to watch the dress rehearsal of the event, which is an annual display of military bands, dancers and musicians from all over the world. He and his team have to juggle 42 wireless mics, 18 IEMs, a rock-band on a mobile rostrum, a separate rhythm section, 36 dancing fiddlers, Hakka chants, Zulu drummers, lone bagpipers, sundry other singers and instrumentalists, assorted sound effects and a commentator, live, every night for the next few weeks, from a mix position high in the specially constructed stand. The imaging and foldback problems caused both by slap-back from the castle walls and the size of the arena are countered by the use of a dynamically adjustable delay system, which they've programmed rather well, I must say. It was a chilly night, but considerably livened up by the only military steel-drum marching band in the world, that of the Trinidad & Tobago Defence Force, playing the Banana Boat Song as they marched into the arena. Oh, and a couple of fully armed Marine Commandos materializing absolutely silently from a trap-door immediately above and behind me at one point in the performance. Sorry about the picture quality - camera phones aren't great at night... Slàinte, & lang may yer lum reek! as they say in these parts.
  8. Mind you, I wonder where they're going to be performing? I suspect that mostly they'll be responding to aircraft, leaf-blowers, scaffolders, pile-drivers, kids' parties, fork-lift trucks, fracking drilling rigs, bird-scarers, car alarms and shouts of 'Oi, get off my land!" if my recent excursions are anything to go by... John
  9. Richard, I have a Soundfiield ST450 and Harpex if you want to experiment before the gig. It's fully Rycote-ed and I normally record to a 788, so it's all portable. I'm up in bonny Scotland opening a show at the Fringe, but back next week and free-ish. PM me if you'd like to try things out. John
  10. Happy Fourth! This month's deal contains 27 firework effects, from single bottle rockets to a long 12'54" July 4th display recorded in Manhattan. Still only a dollar and now options to buy a six month pass and all previous offers as well. Usual place: http://www.johnleonard.co.uk/styled-10/index.html
  11. The people in the apartment above ours let their place out (contrary to the terms of the lease) for Wimbledon fortnight last year and it was a complete nightmare. Slamming doors, loud TV, noisy kids, late night drinking parties. Hideous. Best of luck with the shoot... John
  12. Welcome to the UK and to the city of my birth. (38 Queen's Road, Ashley Down, if you want to go and gawk at my humble beginnings.) Feel free to ask about anything Bristol-related and I'll get the skinny from my brother, who still lives there. All the best, John Sent from a darkened auditorium about 12 miles from you during a matinee of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. (In between sound cues and all on my own in the upper circle.)
  13. Also not wanting to derail the thread, but the staid & proper BBC service Radio 4 ran a series about a fictional station called Radio Active some years ago: the cast names were variously Mike Channel, Mike Flex, 'Uncle' Mike Stand, Anna Daptor and the "oh-so-daring Mike Hunt'. One epsiode title was "Radio Active's Mass Debate." They also had a musical segment, once featuring a band called The Hee Bee Gee Bees, whose hit song was entitled "Meaningless Songs In Very High Voices." I gather the parodied ones were not amused. The show eventually moved to television, when it was re-named KYTV. See? Back on top-ic. John
  14. It did get noisy! (recording via Soundfield ST450 and SD788 - sounds great in surround!) https://soundcloud.com/soundmanjohn/sets/taxi-demo-in-central-london Enjoy, John
  15. I've been using an H2n for a while now: I bought one from someone who'd been given it as a gift and had no use for it, so I picked it up pretty cheaply. My thoughts so far: Handling noise - just as bad as all the other plastic body recorders and, if anything, the noise transmitted through the headphone cable is worse. Recording quality: using on-board mics, better than my H2 & H1, but not top-notch. Disappointing LF (I'll link to some nature recordings when I have a moment). M/S set-up is handy and works well in raw mode. Surround is odd, but useable, although you're restricted to 48k. I didn't find the HF to be too bad at 96k- again, I'll link to some birdsong files later. Battery life - seems to run forever on a acouple of AA cells. Not needed to replace the 'test' batteries that came with it despite many hours of recording. Build quality - nothing's broken or fallen off mine yet and I'm pretty heavy-handed. The unit lives in a mesh bag with a Rycote and gets dumped in whichever bag I'm using that day. My H2 lasted about a week before I dropped it and the screen protector broke. This seems to be a bit more solid. Quick conclusion: fine for quick grabs, don't touch it or even look funny at it while recording, use a Rycote, a few other refinements would be nice, like an S/PDIF input, but for $100 or so, what can you expect. The H5 is due out this month (Like the H6, but with fewer inputs) but for the better quality work, I'll stick to my SD7xx recorders. Must go now as London cab-drivers are planning a demonstration in Trafalgar Square and I think it might get noisy! Regards, John
  16. soundmanjohn

    Headphones

    I replaced the pads on my 7506 with a velour pair from Beyer DT200s - Part No. 942704. They're a very tight fit, but they stay on and they're much more comfortable than the Sony pads. Regards, John
  17. A favour for a friend: recording a double-bill of accordion orchestras at St. John's Smith Square, London. The Morley Accordion Orchestra and The Nuremberg Accordion Orchestra. Two hours of accordion music and not one polka! Gershwin (Rhapsody In Blue - friend was playing the piano), Host, Elgar, amongst others. An interesting evening... Regards, John
  18. I missed posting about the last couple of months' dollar deals in case I was in the wrong place so to do, but no one's castigated me, so here's a link to the June Dollar Deal. This month we have some nice machine sounds, eminently loopable, as well. Twenty effects for a dollar! How good is that? January & February deals still available. http://www.johnleona...d-10/index.html Regards, John
  19. Not sure if this is too late, but thought it worth a mention to any NY-based sound people. I'm a big Tekserve fan and this event looks like it could be fun, plus a way to pick up some low-cost gear, if your elbows are sharp enough. http://events.tekserve.com/event/gathering-gear-audio-technology-fair/ Regards, John
  20. As promised: Two circuits: the first for unbalanced 9v operation, the second (which is what's inside the DPA 6001 adapter) for balanced 48v Phantom operation. Best to check with a mic you don't mind losing if you're not sure about construction. Don't blame me if it all goes wrong! Regards,
  21. I have the Core Sound 4060 DPA rig which I like a lot. I also have two other rigs, based on old DPA 4061s, one of which is permanently mounted outside a window in our apartment and connected to my spare SD702. You can hear the results of Sunday's International Dawn Chorus Day recording here: http://soundcloud.com/soundmanjohn/dawn-chorus-reduction/s-QlSiD The other set uses a simple circuit to power the DPAs from a 9v battery and which I use for high-level, low-profile recordings. This one feeds whichever of the three Zoom recorders I've remembered to bring with me and is great for noisy transport recordings and the like. It'll be doing duty in ten days, when I'll be sitting behind a twelve cylinder un-silenced Rolls-Royce engine, weather permitting. I'm on the move at the moment, but will post the powering circuit once. I get home. Useful little mics, those DPAs. Regards, John Sent from my comfortable seat in a 1st class carriage on a First Great Western High Speed Intercity 125, currently going at about 12.5 mph. (Age has its advantages - discounted rail tickets being one of them.)
  22. I was a Soundsnap contributor but not any more. I couldn't work with the one-off payment structure, particularly after noticing that several of my effects had been downloaded many thousands of times, for which I got one-off payments of $5. I think he's more interested in attracting the big names these days and the other contributor perk, which was life-long use of the library for free, disappeared some time ago. I have material with AudioSparx and Pond5, which brings in a few bucks, but selling direct gets me a much better return, although the e-commerce rates can be a bit steep for large amounts of data. Regards, John
  23. Jeff, Not having seen Alvaro's posts, I'm concerned that I shouldn't be offering my effects on this section of the board: I do think my stuff is good and it's priced insanely low for the lists I'm on and the Dollar Deal is pretty good value too, but I'll post links whereever you say is correct, or not at all, if you prefer. Cheers, John
  24. Belated birthday greetings and many thanks for a great site. Best wishes, John
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