Peluso Article in Tape Op

[sr1200]

http://tapeop.com/interviews/btg/96/john-peluso-bonus/

I enjoyed the interview, figured I'd share since a lot of us use his products in our builds.

 

[okgb]

I called them a couple of times , never returned my calls , sure looks like allot of rebranded chinese stuff
trying to compare the sd mics  to schoeps ?  they do some stuff in house other than the QC ?

Actually I was doing a mic shoot out with a friend who bought some peluso ld tube mics , and they sounded
very similar to my modded apex 460 tube mic w/ stock chinese capsule [ & cinemag xfmr , upgraded caps &
lower gain tube ] another modded one I had with a new capsule sounded duller compared to both of those .

 

[Pip]

Yes I have a mixed bag to report as well. I have purchased tubes from them and I guess their QC (quality control) of their products is OK as I have heard good things about the mics. But I have stopped recommending them for repairs as that record sadly is not good. I also question the QC tolerance of their capsules. I am not saying they are bad but I get the feeling they are what does not make the cut for the full mic builds. In acknowledgement of my awesome at times ability to be totally wrong I will confess I wonder this about any manufacturer of Mics who sells capsules on the side.

 

[Moby]

I was never impressed with his product mainly because is China made but I totally agree with this

People are just recording dry and putting a different reverb on every source.

Yeah, yeah! And dry in a drywall room. Drywall has a resonant frequency of about 200 hertz on stud walls, so you get all this upper low-end or lower mid-range mud that is in the same range as fundamentals of a lot of instruments.

Worst thing I ever experienced in the room acoustics.

 

[Pip]

I was never impressed with his product mainly because is China made but I totally agree with this

People are just recording dry and putting a different reverb on every source.

Yeah, yeah! And dry in a drywall room. Drywall has a resonant frequency of about 200 hertz on stud walls, so you get all this upper low-end or lower mid-range mud that is in the same range as fundamentals of a lot of instruments.

Worst thing I ever experienced in the room acoustics.

Bit off topic but OK. You are lucky if thats the worst in room acoustics you have ever had to tame. There is a report that was done by the BBC in the fifties on room size and responses. If I can dredge it up I will post. But in short if you don't have at least 15000 Cubic feet of air in an enclosed space to allow for propagation of low frequncies it is virtually impossible to get proper low end responses.

 

[okgb]

Allot of 70 's recordings were dreadfully dry little rooms ,  and I had just finished watching
a youtube making of apocalyptic love cd, [ not bad ] where the studio looked to be allot of unfinished drywall
[ not that it was what I was hearing ] but I think there's  " some " generalizations  in the interview

 

[sr1200]

Im just gonna throw this slab of meat into the lion pit.  If you have a microphone 6" away from the kick drum,  does it really matter if you have 40' or 4' behind the kick.  (lets assume you're not getting reflections from the wall no matter how close or far it is)

 

[Moby]

You are lucky if thats the worst in room acoustics you have ever had to tame

worst thing after finishing acoustics treatment, yes. I made a couple of studios in the past and I never had a bad experience with wood. One room I finished with the drywall  sounded really funky so we decided to remove 80% of the drywalls and finish it on the old fashion way. But it can be the matter of taste, of course. Sometimes drywall "cardboard box" can sound interesting

 

[okgb]

or less of a factor depending on room size ?
when it became fashionable and acceptable to record in funky spaces
for the average joe , it almost legitimized basement recording [ lots of drywall , of course ]

 

[Pip]

Im just gonna throw this slab of meat into the lion pit.  If you have a microphone 6" away from the kick drum,  does it really matter if you have 40' or 4' behind the kick.  (lets assume you're not getting reflections from the wall no matter how close or far it is)

Sometimes physics says oh yea daddy or no way. Absolutely no if ands or buts. In this case size does matter (or more importantly change things). Close micing definitely changes the way the source is captured by the mic. Proximity effect, less energy loss and just plain oomph! Does a drum sound louder and change timber the closer you put your ear to it? Yes. But how that drum sounds in different rooms is really what were talking about. Or world class acoustically designed spaces are just a bunch of hooey!? Acoustic coupling is an important reality to any space thats why designers put in air gaps between spaces. It is to couple the air so that it has more room to move. Want to read about a really elegant use of this read up on Steve Albini's space.

Close micing started arguably in the 60's with the likes of the Beatles. But this was in tried and true acoustic spaces like EMI (AKA Abbey Road) studio 2. It was done because it made things sound big. Or bigger than the world was used to. Then close micing now accepted was used to remove the room as much as possible, by getting more source and less room, usually in crappy rooms. But that source still sounds different in different rooms close or spaced mic technique aside. And waves eventually make it into the mics.

Oh yea then the world really went crazy with the Patented Live End Dead End room design concept. Oh yes and the ensuing law suits and badly implemented copies. Some of us remember the banks of Kepex gates for the drums and oh yes the reverse delays on the snares. Argh!!!

You can always get a decent recording in any room if you work at it. But in my experience the magic happens in those magic rooms were things are thought out and the physics are as right as they can be. Or spaces that just have a natural accidentaly arrived at acoustic voice.


Sorry way off subject and I had an energy surge.

 

[sr1200]

naa thats kinda what i was goin for.  Someone to chew that to bits

Because of my space limitations, I've found getting a "room" sound to be a little more difficult in my current studio than it was in my old place which was over 1000sqft for the live room.... miss that place.  But even still, as you said, people find creative ways to make things work in less than ideal situations.  Back to the room thing, though, I was under the assumption that resonances were a result of the entire area, not of a single component.  My inner walls consist of studs with rigid foam between the studs, a layer of rigid foam ON the studs, homasote (a fiber board type stuff, really dense) then drywall.  The way in which they are all connected together changes the resonance as a whole and isn't just whatever the outside layer is.  Plain old dry wall on stud with nothing else... yeah, like playing in a cardboard box.

 

[Pip]

My use of the term gaps is really incorrect. What I should have said is apertures or openings which result in room coupling I don't mean the vibrations of the walls or the flutter waves or the resonant frequencies of the room. I'm talking volumetric air pushing. The difference between the responses of complex audio information in a control room when the door is closed and how the sound changes when the control room door is open. I have been in studios that have the rooms connected to vertical or horizontal shafts to chimneys if you will to add volume of air to the larger space to alter the low end characteristics.


This gets more to my point.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=archengfacpub&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Dacoustic%2520room%2520coupling%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D1%26ved%3D0CCwQFjAA%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fdigitalcommons.unl.edu%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D1011%2526context%253Darchengfacpub%26ei%3DIT_qUbH3K9O04APEuoHoDg%26usg%3DAFQjCNHfdoUG-cszdnkMjAbekX4x_DZt3A%26bvm%3Dbv.49478099%2Cd.dmg#search=%22acoustic%20room%20coupling%22

 

[emrr]

Patented Live End Dead End room design concept.

I try to bring this up every time I see it mentioned.  Live End Dead End is a 1930's studio concept.  That is EXACTLY WHAT THEY CALL IT in countless trade magazines.  I'm curious exactly how anyone ever got a patent, and successfully defended it, decades later. 

I've never encountered a Peluso, no experience. 

 

[Pip]

Patented Live End Dead End room design concept.

I try to bring this up every time I see it mentioned.  Live End Dead End is a 1930's studio concept.  That is EXACTLY WHAT THEY CALL IT in countless trade magazines.  I'm curious exactly how anyone ever got a patent, and successfully defended it, decades later. 

I've never encountered a Peluso, no experience.

LEDE (Live End Dead End) as a 30's concept is new to me. But as a Trademarked design implementation which incorporates various patents it is not. It was very popular in the seventies as a tracking room concept and is still used in control room design and HiFi listening environments (Now Called Home Theater). I believe it was initially intended for the control room though. There are also variations on the theme where specific groups of frequencies are incorporated and others excluded.

Whether it was ever truly defendable as a design Trademark I do not know but it did go to court because a lot of people sold rooms to people claiming they had the right to when they didn't nor did they truly understand the science and botched it.

There is a lot of info on the web so I won't bother putting links. Just do a search for LEDE or Live End Dead End Acoustic Treatment.

You tried and you did. If you have any info on the thirties design initiative I would love to read it. And yes we have strayed far from topic.

 

[emrr]

Even funnier if it was trademarked.  I'll have to read some more on it, I'm sure I was made to study it in the late '80's in school, and forgot all about it.  The 1930's term 'live end dead end' was always a recording room approach, not a control room approach.  I haven't seen detailed technical commentary, but it's frequently there in discussions of new facilities in the trade mags of the era.  I would imagine you'd need to find NBC/CBS/etc archival information to get more detail. 

 

[Pip]

Patented Live End Dead End room design concept.

I try to bring this up every time I see it mentioned.  Live End Dead End is a 1930's studio concept.  That is EXACTLY WHAT THEY CALL IT in countless trade magazines.  I'm curious exactly how anyone ever got a patent, and successfully defended it, decades later. 

I've never encountered a Peluso, no experience.

I agree I thought it was odd then and still do now. I am going to remain off subject because I love this world and the wacky things that can happen. If you ever want to really go to Super Geek Gold Card Status you must read this book. http://www.amazon.com/The-Inventor-Stereo-Works-Blumlein/dp/0240516281. In it is discussed the invention of television as he had a lot to do with it. In 1937 the working name for TV was.... wait for it..... High Definition Television. Yup you got it!!!

By the way it is a truly fascinating book about a man whos name and legacy is used in the audio industry many times a day and few know of him but we all know what a Blumlein array is. It is also a compeling tale of a time which I hope is behind us.

Yea i know still off topic!

 

[ricardo]

(lets assume you're not getting reflections from the wall no matter how close or far it is)

Err.rrh!  You must be in Unobtainium Land.  You get reflections even in the BEST anechoic chambers.

I won't join in the debate over room treatment, traps bla bla but have two recommendations.

- If you ever get a chance to do a purpose room, try to get all the surfaces non-parallel .. including floor & ceiling if you can.  Just 2 degrees will make a huge difference.

You'll have a lot more flexibility with treatment, T60 bla bla and still have good sound.

- Open Bookshelves (with books) are some of the best things to stick on walls.  Much better than fancy treatment.  It's no coincidence that the music room in old stately homes was often the library.