An interesting thing (for me) is that this time I have totally changed the way I work. Using only modern tools like ipad and laptop. I must say I miss fooling around with the tape recorder but this is way more effective in a already full schema. I doubt this have any effect on the production though as I have tried to create the same sound and feel as my earlier productions.

Sit down, close your eyes and let me bring you on a journey.

Download: http://music.proteque.org/album/demons-will-bring-us-together

Have a listen at http://music.proteque.org/album/the-inner-calm.

http://orbitoclast.bandcamp.com/album/catharsis

Opdøl Sinnsykehus

Today I brought Stein Vegard Stavik and did some more impulse response recordings. This time at a very special place. At the old and closed building from 1925 at Opdøl psychiatric hospital (Opdøl Sindsygeasyl).

It is a few month ago we started the process to get ourselves access to this old and majestic building. Thanx a lot to Helse MR for giving us access and giving us of their time to unlock the doors for us. There are two buildings of interest at the old hospital. One from 1913 and one from 1925. This time we covered the building from 1925. Maybe we will cover the building from 1913 at a later point but that building is in a very bad shape and would be quite unhealthy to breed (this typo was too great to be corrected) in there to be honest. Any way. The day was finally here and we got access to the building.

There was some spots in the building which had some very interesting reverbs and we managed to capture them. I will not go into the process of doing impulse response recordings now as I have done many times before (read more here if you are interested) .  We also did some ambient recordings to use in our ongoing music/sound art project. Stay tuned for more info on this project when it’s ready. Here are a few pictures from the day.

Inside the Hall. Stein Vegard walking

The view from inside. Thats the building from 1913

Recording inside one of the rooms. Me in the corner preparing.

This is me setting up the recorder inside the first room we recorded in

The recorder in one of the long halls

Glittering Concrete

I have released a new EP called Glittering Concrete. This EP evolved while I was trying to dig deeper into my synth and experiencing with more “easy listening” ambient. All 4 tunes are made in a short period of time and is very connected to each other. At least from my perspective.

This is also my first production where I got myself some external help on the mastering. My dear friend Klaus Lunde (Xerxes) was kind enough to use his time to dig out the details and make this sound exactly like I wanted it to. A great treat! Thanx a lot my friend.

You can download the EP here. (and you can find all my releases at my music page).

Update: It’s on Spotify:

An impulse response is for the normal people a recording of the reverberation that is caused by an acoustic space (could be: let’s say a room) when a short sound is played. The sound can be an electric spark, starter pistol shot, a swipe or the bursting of a balloon, for instance.  A recording of this approximated ideal impulse may be used directly as an impulse response in a convolution reverb like Space Designer or Altiverb. Provided that the pulse is short enough compared to the impulse response, the result will be close to the true, theoretical, impulse response.

How to make them

Impulse responses are actually very simple to record, but attention to detail is very important. There are two methods of going about it. One uses a short explosive sound (“spiking”) and the other a frequency-swept sine wave (“sweeping”). As I mostly record my IR-recordings at places with no power I use the first.

A few principles apply no matter what method you prefer. First: noise! Minimizing noise is always key, but ambient noise is particularly troublesome when recording IRs. However they can be quite hard to remove if the ambience is made of animals, traffic, etc. If you happens to be recording in a room with background noise as air-conditioning, heating, road noise, machinery, and wind you are in trouble. Even when using very high-quality equipment, unwanted ambience noise might easily drown out the quiet tail you need in a good IR recording.

So. Before starting. Take a few minutes to listen for any ambient noise and take all possible steps to reduce it. If the ventilation can be shut off, do it. Noisy appliances? Unplug them. You get the picture!

Time to setup the gear. There are cheap stuff you can use that actually works very well. Zoom has a very handy stereo recorder that I have tested myself with great result. I suppose other manufacturers have cheap alternatives as well. No need to use a lot of money on this.

For the making the IR-explosions you also have a few options. What you need to make is a short and loud explosions. A starter pistol is ideal but you can go the budget way and use a balloon.

When the gear is in place start the recording. Make sure you have enough gain to grab the tail. PUT ON SOME PROTECTION FOR THE EARS. You don’t wan’t to damage your ears. After starting the recording wait for silence before making the explosion. Make sure you (and your helpers) don’t move, fart or talks. Then make the explosion. Make sure you wait long enough after the tail so you are sure you have everything before you start to move, fart and talk again.

Thats it! Time to get home and into the studio.

In the studio.

There are a few available convolution reverbs out there. Altiverb from Audioease is the leading in the industry but you have some alternatives like Space Designer from Apple (a part of Logic pro) and IR-1 from Waves. I am using Space Designer.

Before importing the IR-recording into the convolution reverb you need to trim the audio file and remove everything before the peak in the “explosion” and after the tail. Make sure you get the complete tail though. You can use audacity or simply your DAW of choice for this.

Importing into the convolution reverb is usually easy. In space designer you simply drag the trimmed sample into the window and Space Designer fix the rest.

Thats it. You now have a close to the true, theoretical, impulse response of the room you recorded in and anything you play through the Convolution Reverb will sound like you recorded it in that room.

Example of use

I have prepared an audio file where I demonstrate the use of the Convolution Reverb. In this example I recorded the IR of an old nazi bunker which was halfway filled with water. Quite a special reverb as you may imagine. Added a picture of the hall so it is possible to see the room.

In the demonstration I have played the same recordings with and without the IR’s in the convolution reverb (Space Designer) to let you hear the difference. I have included a clarinet, some drums, a cowbell and a guitar to let you hear how it sounds with different instruments. Here goes:

Why use them?

Do you believe in magic? Probably not. But the rational reason to why use them is to make it sound like everything in your sound production is recorded in the same room. The not so rational reason to use them is to “capture the feel” of a room. I use this in my dark ambient music. This may or may not work in the result but it works in my process of making it. If you wan’t to listen you should check my album Screaming Silently

Thanx for reading this very simplified howto on how to do response impulses. I know this can be explained a LOT more detailed but this is the easy way to get started. Now go out there!

Some people needs to get a big thank you. Those people are Stein Vegard Stavik and Arild Lillebostad for helping me out on the recordings at Julneset fortress, Marcus Ranum for the great photography of Yarrow that is on the cover and Synnøve Holdhus for the great logo and help on the cover design.

To get a copy of the album simply visit your favorite music distributor (iTunes store, Spotify, Wimp etc) or get it directly from me through my bandcampsite or a CD copy.

http://music.proteque.org/album/screaming-silently.

Luckily it’s just three music/sound nerds wanting to grab some reverb impulses. The guilty three are me, Arild Lillebostad and Stein Vegard Stavik. An impulse response is for the normal people a recording of the reverberation that is caused by an acoustic space when an short sound is played. The sound can be an electric spark, starter pistol shot or the bursting of a balloon, for instance. We went for the ballon! A recording of this approximated ideal impulse may be used directly as an impulse response in a convolution reverb like Space Designer or Altiverb. Provided that the pulse is short enough compared to the impulse response, the result will be close to the true, theoretical, impulse response.

The place for the reverb impulse recordings was the coast fortress at julneset just 10 minutes west of Molde, Norway. There where three of the rooms we wanted to cover in this first session (I guess we will do more later on) and the result will eventually end up in my next album. So this is more a teaser of what’s to come really.

So what we did was to mount a stereo mic in “human height” in the place the “listener” would be to record. Then made a loud bang when the balloons pops in “instrument” location. We did this in a bunker with a long drone reverb, a claustrophobic bunker with door and in an open bunker with whole around on all sides in shooting height (for standing and shooting through).

When all recording was done it was home and crop the recordings to capture the reverb and put them into Space Designer and give it a listen. Success. The reverbs is spot on! Well at least very close to what it sounds like in there.

Some pictures from the day:

That’s all I can say about that!