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Poetic lessons of the Heiwashin Experience:(think it in a country music voice and it sounds more poetic)

I learned a new trick recently. Pain teaches well in the absence of intelligence. I heard a loud noise in the shower. So loud that opened my eyes. I guess i had forgotten that i had just finished covering my head in high strength shampoo, which was covering my face as well. The moment i opened my eyes, my vision obscured by the foam of the shampoo, they instantly mashed shut with the frenzy of self preservation.

Upon closing, i experienced the full wrath of shampoo eye the likes of which had not been felt since my younger years where then, like now, ignorance earned knowledge. It was in that moment that i learned to abandon all reflex and hesitation, to open my eyes, and stare into the high pressure shower water as if it was the most beautiful horizon ever seen. It was, indeed, a beautiful horizon. It was one where all pain washes away.

Heh.

When I had Bells palsy a while back, keeping soap/shampoo out of my left eye was a significant challenge because I could not squeeze it all the way shut. Couldn't drink through a straw either, since you have to be able to completely close your lips to do that.

On the "pain as motivator" angle, gout has taught me not to eat beef jerky (I still sneak a little of it now and then), liver sausage, or sardines. It still hasn't taught me not to drink beer; I've empirically determined that I can continue to do so if I give up the liver sausage, sardines, and most of the beef jerky!

Stuff you don't learn in science class, freezing water generates heat. Take a glass of water and chill it to 30F keeping it as a liquid, then tap it to start the shock-freeze process. A temperature probe will go from 30 to 38F as the water freezes. Apparently that's enough heat to keep some processes active on Pluto.

Id like to thank you guys for pointing out that panty hose make good filters. I have a tunnel fan which has also become a dust filter for my cab thanks to that tip. I have used a bright light to track the path of dust when I turn it on and it manages to create a decent flow of air which cleans most larger particles in two or three minutes.

Kougar wrote:

Stuff you don't learn in science class, freezing water generates heat.

Water has a very high "latent heat of fusion". This is why ice is so good at keeping drinks cold. Since freezing ice releases large amounts of heat, the inverse is also true -- melting ice absorbs a lot of heat. Melting a given amount of ice absorbs 80x as much heat energy as it takes to change the temperature of an equivalent amount of water by 1 degree C. Or looking at it from another angle, if you start with a room temperature drink, a drink:ice ratio of just a bit under 4:1 should be sufficient to chill the drink ice cold (melting all of the ice in the process).

Seen on the way home. A car with both Fender and Gibson bumper stickers. This violates at least one quantum law of music.

Can't be in both states at the same time.

Sure, it can. In its initial state it is a Schrodinger guitar, which is a quantum superposition of Fender and Gibson. It doesn't resolve into one or the other until you actually hear it being played.

I personally have never cared about small scratches or dings in any of my cars. And a truck especially without a scratch is a truck that isn’t used.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

I personally have never cared about small scratches or dings in any of my cars. And a truck especially without a scratch is a truck that isn’t used.

Is there a backstory to this or did i miss a post?

just brew it! wrote:

Sure, it can. In its initial state it is a Schrodinger guitar, which is a quantum superposition of Fender and Gibson. It doesn't resolve into one or the other until you actually hear it being played.

This summer I played a PRS Custom 24 for the first time (the American-made version) and I'm hooked. After that, I got a PRS SE (Korean-made) Zach Myers signature model (picked out my own Father's day gift), which is basically the semi-hollowbody version of the SE 245, which has a single-cutaway body that kinda looks like a Les Paul. Note that I don't give two **** about Shinedown or Zach Myers. It's a light-weight, comfortable guitar that feels amazing to play, and the sub-$700 price was in my range.

The neck is wider and the strings are spaced farther apart, and the neck is also thicker than either a modern American-made Fender or Gibson (Standard models anyway) and it's themes comfortable guitar I've ever played. It doesn't really feel like anything on the "Fender to Gibson scale" that Schrodinger's guitar sits on.

I guess if it had to sound like one or the other, the dual humbuckers would put it closer to the Gibson end of the scale. It doesn't really sound like my Les Paul (Epiphone Standard model upgraded with Seymour Duncan 59s and an all new wiring harness) at all. At the same time it sounds way different than my custom-built Frankenstrat with the EMG single-coil pickups, which are very similar to Fender's pickups.

All that to say this: no two models of guitar sound alike. Heck, no two guitars sound alike, even. I've watched enough of Rob Chapman's "shootout" videos at Anderton's in the UK to figure that out.

Once I get done with school, the final tuition reimbursement payout from my employer is going to go into that aforementioned Custom 24 10-Top. I've been saving up those reimbursements and paying tuition out of pocket, I can afford a $4000 guitar.

On the subject of audio, I have a buddy who's looking to build a basement recording booth for vocals. I know these things should be built and soundproofed in such a way, but the best dimensions, materials, methods, are all beyond my scope of my knowledge. I could try to read up on it, but if he wants high-quality work in any reasonable timeframe, I'm thinking he'd do better to consult a professional.

Anyone know how to go about finding an actual pro for such a specific and specialized area? I don't really know where to start.

Lol, plenty of professional musicians record albums in random rental houses with a large cardboard box with some foam on it protecting three sides around the mic. You can work it out without copying studio setups.

Heiwashin wrote:

Lol, plenty of professional musicians record albums in random rental houses with a large cardboard box with some foam on it protecting three sides around the mic. You can work it out without copying studio setups.

*shrug* If it came down to it, I could also sleep on a mattress on the floor with no sheets, but I like my bed

This is more to have a quality, permanent location for doing vocal tracks without disrupting the rest of the house. It's not necessarily beyond my ability, but that we're both procrastinators, and I can see 2-3 years passing with it still in an incomplete state.

My brother built a studio in his basement a number of years back. He put a lot of insulation in the ceiling to provide acoustic isolation from the rest of the house, and IIRC the biggest problem turned out to be cooling -- it got really hot and stuffy inside the recording booth.

You'll probably want to install foam acoustic panels on the walls and ceiling of the booth to provide additional isolation and deaden reflections.

On the procrastination angle, yeah I think it took my brother about that long to get it mostly complete, and then he re-did some of it shortly thereafter.

Jump to about the 8:30 mark in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTsyXNflpjE

This guy runs a small (but successful) studio in Nashville and he's getting tight vocals with just a couple of mattress-looking foam things. It's cheap and it apparently works.

just brew it! wrote:

You'll probably want to install foam acoustic panels on the walls and ceiling of the booth to provide additional isolation and deaden reflections.

A good cheap way of achieving same is cardboard egg cartons.

derFunkenstein wrote:

Jump to about the 8:30 mark in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTsyXNflpjE

This guy runs a small (but successful) studio in Nashville and he's getting tight vocals with just a couple of mattress-looking foam things. It's cheap and it apparently works.

I'm not even thinking of setting up a studio and I thought that was really interesting.

So this mountain man's thing is: "if it works, I use it." He got several acoustic blankets to provide sound protection in his new studio (see linked video for his installation and results). IIRC, air can act as a sound insulator as long as you have something solid on either side, and that's the principle of these blankets (they create a small air gap so the blankets don't have to absorb as much). Anyway, he also links to Vocal Booth To Go, so you can probably check them out for some additional solutions.

For actual construction, I'd assume that your best bet is finding a contractor through your app/website of choice. If you know of a local recording studio, though, you might be able to narrow the search by asking them.

Look for appropriate UL ratings on any acoustic foam you purchase. Otherwise you're building a firebox.

just brew it! wrote:

derFunkenstein wrote:

Jump to about the 8:30 mark in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTsyXNflpjE

This guy runs a small (but successful) studio in Nashville and he's getting tight vocals with just a couple of mattress-looking foam things. It's cheap and it apparently works.

I'm not even thinking of setting up a studio and I thought that was really interesting.

Not as cheap as I originally thought ($254 for the pair) but with sufficiently-thick foam you could probably build your own wooden frames and get similar results.

Compared to what you would spend on lots of other studio equipment it's just a drop in the bucket, regardless.

Some interesting videos; thanks for the links. The heavy acoustic blankets look like a decent option if you need to cover a large room on the cheap. In this particular case though, I'd like to steer him away from portable or makeshift solutions for the most part. He does some pretty heavy vocals which can be disruptive to the rest of the house (and even the neighbors), plus they also have dogs which are known to randomly bark. Since he owns the house now and this will be almost exclusively for vocals (not much area needed), I'm thinking a legit vocal booth, fully decked out and acoustically isolated is the way to go.

just brew it! wrote:

My brother built a studio in his basement a number of years back. He put a lot of insulation in the ceiling to provide acoustic isolation from the rest of the house, and IIRC the biggest problem turned out to be cooling -- it got really hot and stuffy inside the recording booth.

Geez.....I hadn't even considered that aspect of things. Of course any type of ventilation would hurt the acoustic isolation, but I'm sure the pros have some sort of method. Maybe pre-cool the booth with a portable AC unit?

superjawes wrote:

If you know of a local recording studio, though, you might be able to narrow the search by asking them.

That's actually not a bad idea. Though on second thought, there's a small conflict of interest, as I'd be asking them to help me not use their services. I plan to use the booth myself though, for non music-related vocal work (possible future change in profession), so maybe if I pitch it to them that way...

derFunkenstein wrote:

Jump to about the 8:30 mark in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTsyXNflpjE

If I hadn't turned on my computer audio I would have assumed that those panels were Magnepan speakers.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/time-travelin ... 41478.html

Ryan Bort, Newsweek wrote:

A man arrested in Wyoming this week says he had traveled back in time from the year 2048 to warn civilization about the imminent arrival of aliens. On Monday night, authorities in Casper received a call about a visibly drunk man claiming to be from the future, according to KTWO. Officers arrived to find Bryant Johnson warning that aliens would be coming next year and that people should leave as soon as possible. He claimed he was from the future. Johnson was so concerned about his mission to save humanity that he requested to speak to the "president of the town." Cops said Johnson had bloodshot eyes, slurred speach and a blood-alcohol reading that exceeded legal limits — but the alleged time-traveler had a perfectly logical explanation: the only way the aliens could send him back in time was to fill his body with alcohol and making him stand on a giant pad. He was arrested nonetheless.

I thought that the drunk guy from the future was supposed to warn us about terminators.

A minor miracle this AM (besides the lovely early AM conjunction of Venus and Mars; wish I'd got pics):

Had to hit a satellite campus of the VT health/teaching hospital megaplex for an ultrasound on my creaky gall bladder. I was directed to arrive at 8:00 AM for check-in for an 8:30 AM procedure. I fortified myself with a dense sci-fi novel (Charles Stross - Accelerando) for the inevitable long wait.

I arrived 5 minutes early, was "admitted/processed" exactly at 8:00 AM, and was called to the ultrasound room at 8:20 AM. My butt hit my car seat at 8:40 AM. Whatever this campus is doing to drive efficiency and throughput should be replicated system-wide.

The Egg wrote:

superjawes wrote:

If you know of a local recording studio, though, you might be able to narrow the search by asking them.

That's actually not a bad idea. Though on second thought, there's a small conflict of interest, as I'd be asking them to help me not use their services. I plan to use the booth myself though, for non music-related vocal work (possible future change in profession), so maybe if I pitch it to them that way...

They have to assume that you're only asking because you've already done the value analysis, right? I mean anyone needing a vocal booth at home is obviously going to use it regularly.

But if they do get a bit salty about it, there are other places that require soundproof environments. For example, schools, radio stations, music(al instrument) stores, and combination lesson and instrument sales (like Paige's Music from my student days). Even your chain stores will have to contract local work to get the job done correctly.

20 of the 36 Ferrari 250 GTOs built all in one place for their 55th birthday. That's roughly $1 BILLION worth of cars in the same spot.

http://autoweek.com/article/classic-car ... errari-gto

Captain Ned wrote:

20 of the 36 Ferrari 250 GTOs built all in one place for their 55th birthday. That's roughly $1 BILLION worth of cars in the same spot.

http://autoweek.com/article/classic-car ... errari-gto

I assume the other 16 were briefly exposed to humidity higher than 3.8% and promptly disintegrated into a shoebox' worth of rust sometime between 30 and 54 years ago.

ludi wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

20 of the 36 Ferrari 250 GTOs built all in one place for their 55th birthday. That's roughly $1 BILLION worth of cars in the same spot.

http://autoweek.com/article/classic-car ... errari-gto

I assume the other 16 were briefly exposed to humidity higher than 3.8% and promptly disintegrated into a shoebox' worth of rust sometime between 30 and 54 years ago.

Yeah.......they look nice, but for someone like me, there would be no enjoyment in owning something that I'd never drive without having the roads blocked off and a police escort.

In St. Louis for some meetings this week and spotted a guy from another office that I'm pretty sure would not be a member of my fan club. This is why I like working from home. No need to see people face to face.