SM57's!!!

Well I just got my 2 Shure SM57's delivered in the mail today! I bought both of them of of eBay for $130. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me! So why did I get them? To modify them of course! I am going to take the transformer out of one of them and maybe cut the body of the mic down a bit. Bob Strakele (FOH Billy Talent, Simple Plan, Bouncing Souls) told me about how people used to do it in the 70's, and there are numerous articles about it all over the internet so why not! From the articles ive read, removing the transformer attenuates the mic my 10dB and gives it a little more low end, and mids, giving it a darker sound. We'll see!


I want to make the body shorter so I can mount it on a rim clamp or claw or something along those lines and put it on a snare drum. It will also be a nice conversation peice it I make it look good.



Matt

How to Install a "Holz" Kick Drum Ring

The Holz "Snapperz" ring allows a a drummer to put a protected hole in their kick drum skin to allow for the placement of a microphone. A common problem with kick drum skins is that almost all common replacement skins don't come with a hole pre-cut. This means you have to cut it yourself. This is scary because even the smallest flaw in the cutting of a hole will eventually (and usually quickly) evolve into a huge tear, meaning you just wasted $40-$60 on a skin. Also, even if you manage to cut a perfect hole, it is still a weak spot and the smallest abrasion like the skin rubbing up against a poorly placed drum mic can make it eventually tear. The Holz "Snapperz" allows you to not only cut a perfect circle, but also protects the edge of the hole from damage. Its not hard to put these in either. I installed the following one in a hotel room in under 15 mins.

Here's how to install a Holz "Snapper":

1. Clean all surfaces the ring will be touching with alcohol. Peel the wax paper off of the adhesive backing on the "female" ringin the package and stick it carefully onto the back of the drum skin making sure the rim is facing up. Make sure the "Snapper" edge is at least 2" awayfrom the rim of the skin.



2. Carefully begin cutting the hole from the opposite (front) side of the skin by using the pre-stuck ring as a guide. make sure to cut smoothly and consistantly and hold the knife at aprox 2o degrees as shown. Make sure you dont cut into the plastic ring, or cut away any of the adhesive tape.

3. Remove the wax paper from the "male" ring in the pack and place it on a flat surface. You want to start press fitting the female ring over the male ring. Make sure you line up the ring first. You dont want to have to peel off the adhesive tape to start again. Its foam and it will rip. Take your time an make sure the thing is snapped in properly.

4. Admire your work!


Cheers,
Matt

Time Off!

So we have 2 days off in Chicago! Inward Eye played a show at House of Blues in Chicago and we ended up staying here for a couple days before a show in Lansing, MI.
Yesterday we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, and today I want to go to the Field Museum and see the pirate exhibit. Its nice to have days off in big cities. It seems far to often you end up in a middle of nowhere town with nothing to do for a few days.

Subkick in Action

Well I finally tried out my Subkick! I tried it out at the WasagaDome. Probably not the best place to try it out. The acoustics were FAR from good. It's an echo chamber. Its a big metal and plastic dome that reflects every bit of sound made within its walls. It was weird. I could hear the conversations of people across the dome perfectly. If you stand in the middle and talk, I swear it makes you want to fall over. It sounds like your talking behind yourself! The truss structure seemed a little out of place too. Here's a pic of The Trews soundchecking in the dome of doom.



I wasnt overly impressed with the performance of the subkick. It seemed to lack a lot of the lows I was hoping for. I am going to try and find a bigger speaker, and mount it differently. I think the mic stand I was using may have had a little too much movement/play in it which was taking away some of the punch of the speaker.

It was neat to try it out at Wasaga because Tod Cutler (Sound and Tour Manager for The Trews) was using his homemade Subkick that night too. He was the one who inspired me to make my own subkick actually. His mounting system was far more solid than mine, and naturally his setup sounded significantly better than mine as well. He was telling me that this is his second creation. His first one actually got stolen, and he said his first one sounded better than his current one.


I am going to make a totally new Subkick when I get the time and mount it properly. Eventually I would like to mount one inside the kick drum and test that out.

Stay tuned my fellow sound geeks!

Matt

Inward Eye and Our Lady Peace

I tried the Digi Design Venue today. I didn't like the layout. The profile is way easier to use. Everything is in front of you. The Venue's features seem to be more buried in the software. I admit though that once I got the hang of it it wasn't too bad.

Bottom line, Inward Eye put on a kick ass show...as always.

Homemade Subkick Mount

It's been a while, but I finally figured out a way to mount my Homemade Subkick. I was considering using drum hardware to mount it but I came up with a few drawbacks. A drum stand would be fairly big, and heavy which isn't good for airlines, and if it were to break, or get left behind somewhere the Subkick would be rendered mountless. I decided to mount it using a standard mic clip. That way I could use any standard mic stand and not have to travel with one.

I had a Sennheiser mic clip laying around so I took off the clip part, drilled a hole in the the metal bracket part of the speaker, put the bolt through it with a couple washers, tightened it all up, and DONE. Now I just have to try it out! I am going to use it this weekend in Wasaga Beach at an Inward Eye show. Wish me luck!

Self Tuning Guitar

Last weekend I got to try out the Gibson Robot Guitar. This handy guitar tunes ITSELF! Dave Faber of Faber Drive has the guitar on loan from Gibson, and naturally I couldn't resist playing with it.

The guitar has special tuners with motors and servo's that work with a built in computer to tune the strings in a matter of seconds. All you have to do is pull out the fancy knob on the body, select the tuning you want, push the button, and strum the guitar once. The lights on the knob start blinking like crazy, the tuners turn themselves, and when all the lights are green you're ready to play!
Check out the direct link HERE.