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so in my studio I use a bunch of
different kinds of microphones Dynamic
mics for recording electric guitars
condenser mics for recording vocals and
ribbon mics for violin but when I want
to have fun when I want to do Sonic
exploration I almost always reach for
one of these a contact mic also known as
a pzo microphone they can be had in many
different shapes and sizes and they're
Dirt Cheap in fact I just got this one
for $8
so my plan for this video is we'll talk
a little bit about what these
microphones are and then there's a flea
market this weekend we'll go over there
and hopefully buy something we can
record with a contact mic speaking of
which what is a contact mic anyway well
unlike traditional microphones which
capture the sound of vibrating air
molecules contact mics pick up
vibrations from physical objects for
example here I've attached a contact mic
to the surface of this desk and I can
pick up a whole world of vibrations
coming off of the desk rolling a pencil
tapping the
desk everything sounds different when
you listen to it this
way every so often I'll set aside 20
minutes to collect sounds for sound
design I find it to be sort of a
meditative activity the process is very
simple clip the microphone onto anything
within Arm's Reach then interact with
the
object tap it bow it crinkle it almost
any object makes some kind of useful
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sound once you've got a bunch of
different recordings you can do sound
design by putting them through
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effects or if you're like me you'll get
distracted and make weird collage music
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by the way this is just one of those
rubber balloons the kind that gets used
to make balloon animals I'm going to
make a note to come back to this sound
cuz I actually want to sample it and try
to use it as a bass instrument in one of
my songs one of the other benefits of
contact mics is you can put them in
places you would never dare put a
regular microphone for example here we
have a solid block of ice with a contact
mic embedded inside of it let's plug it
in so we can listen to it by the way you
may notice that I've been recording
through this little amplifier in general
you'll get a much better sound if you
plug your contact mics into an amplifier
that's designed for a high impedance
signal these art pre s are cheap they
have the right specs and as long as
they're not broken they sound pretty
decent okay back to our experiment let's
take the ice out I'm going to put it
into a larger
container and then I'm going to try to
just dump seltzer water onto
it that's pretty cool the sound of
thousands of little bubbles popping
against the contact mic
that was a weird noise as the ice heats
up it cracks I guess that's what those
sort of tearing sounds are it's funny
cuz it looks so peaceful in
there it's like in one of those Nature
Documentaries where they've recorded the
sounds of ants going up a
log from a sound design perspective
recordings like this are very useful to
me it can be layered on top of other
sounds used as an Impulse response to
create a soundscape or if I want to
process it I can even turn it into a
melodic instrument check it out I'm
going to start a new Reaper session and
I'm going to take just a small chunk of
the Audio I recorded next I'm going to
add an equalizer to the track I'm very
partial to M equalizer from Melda not
just because it's free but because it
lets you dial in frequencies based on
notes of the musical scale and that's
actually just what we're going to do I'm
going to use it to boost certain
frequencies in my source
signal and then I'm going to turn up
harmonics this means I won't just be
boosting the frequency I chose but the
octave above and the octave above that
etc
etc next I'm going to put the signal
through another free plugin Valhalla
super massive if you don't have this on
your computer you definitely should it's
a grab bag of different delay and Reverb
algorithms and new ones are being added
all the
time that sounds
cool just like that we have sort of an
organic pad sound and here's what that
sounds like if I to use it as an
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instrument not bad for like 3 minutes of
work and all of that sound originated
with just a little bit of ice and
seltzer water kind of hard to
believe okay I think we've done just
about as much as we can with the stuff I
have on hand I think it's finally time
to head to that flea market I'm on the
hunt for any object that can be used to
make musical sound bonus points if
there's some way to attach a contact
mic it's a usual collection of bricka
Brack old telephones and typewriters
lots of objects that once had a purpose
but are now being used more for
decoration objects like
violins wow and they're
$10 I could certainly attach a contact
mic to these this is too good to pass
up I ended up buying three violins the
woman I bought them from explicitly said
she was selling them as decoration but
she also said she hoped somebody would
use them as actual instruments so I
promised her that that was my intention
but now that I've got them home I kind
of have my doubts they are a mess this
one actually comes with a bunch of
Hardware so that's where I'm going to
start first things first I'm going to
put the pegs
in next I'm going to attach the tail
piece and the chin
rest we can start to think about where
the bridge is going to end up I've got
this old bag of strings that I bought in
England some of these strings are over
100 years old I'm going to use more
recent ones
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though here's what it looks like when
it's
done a day has passed I think I'm ready
to move on to the next violin in theory
this should be the same process one
complication is that it's missing its
sound post the sound post is a little
egg that stands up inside the body of
the violin it's there both to propagate
sound waves and to make sure that the
violin doesn't cave in even with a
special tool it's a real nuisance to get
these in
place next we do the chin rest in the
tail piece luckily I have a box of
violin parts and I'm able to find pretty
much everything I need for both
remaining
violins as I'm working on each
instrument I look for markings that
might tell me something about their
origin the only one that has a label of
any kind is the third one which just
says made in Germany and here they all
are all told getting these up and
running took about 3 hours not too bad
now that we've got our violins in a
functional State let's try them out I'm
going to switch back and forth between
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them okay now let's hear the same thing
on violin B
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and finally violin
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C so yeah each one seems to have its own
sound and here's what they sound like
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together pretty nice these violins are
actually coming at a good time my friend
Cameron and I were planning to work on a
string sample Library anyway so I might
actually want to use these violins as
part of that project but anyway let's
talk microphones the sound you're
hearing is a combination of the ribbon
mic which I have set up in my studio at
all times and this contact mic that I
have attached to the bridge of each
instrument by the way here's the sound
of just the contact
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mic so yeah it's very dry and a bit
muffled and here's the sound of the
ribbon mic
and to me even though the ribbon mic
sounds way better what actually sounds
best is a combination of both
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microphones the contact mic adds a
little bit of warmth it makes the whole
thing sound a little bit less brittle it
also gives me one other Advantage
normally there's no way to plug an
acoustic violin into a guitar effects
pedal but now I can just plug my contact
mic into whatever effects chain I might
have currently set up and yeah I always
have an effects chain set up in the past
few days I've been experimenting a lot
with the solar 42 from Ela music the
solar 42 is of course a drone
synthesizer designed for ambient music
but it can also be used as a signal
processor it has this unique cartridge
system each cartridge comes with three
algorithms I'm just going to pick one at
random and try it out this one just says
magic let's try it out I'm going to play
something on the violin and see what it
sounds like
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that's really cool by the way what
you're hearing is a mix of the sound
from the room and the effects chain if I
were just to play the effect signal
here's what it would sound
like okay let's mess with the settings a
bit
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okay that is really fun to play that's
the pit shifter from the solar 42 I have
an idea let's try to use the pit shifter
on both the solar 42 and the mood pedal
I'm going to pit shift up an octave on
the solar 42 and then I'm going to use
the mood pedal to kind of chop things up
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oh that's so cool I'm going to record a
bunch of notes quickly and then see if I
can turn it into a sample
library now that I've got my recordings
I'm going to chop them up label them and
map them out onto the piano keyboard and
here's the resulting sample
Library what we're hearing is just the
effects chain I'm going to turn this
knob and that should introduce some of
the natural sounds of the violin
it's funny This was meant to be a video
about contact mics but I guess now it's
a video about violins as
well all in all quite an adventure of
course it doesn't end there not only
does each effect unit have a large
number of different modes and algorithms
but each responds in a unique way to
different playing Styles the
permutations are nearly
Limitless over the months that follow
Cameron and I each do hundreds of
experiments recording many different
playing Styles and articulations both
dry and into various effects chains we
also bring in other instruments two
cellos and three violas the result a new
sample Library called string
flows I'm so proud of this Library I
think it sounds gorgeous all told it
contains a whopping 62 different presets
which of course range from the
conventional to the more
experimental for the next 2 weeks this
library is $29 after which it goes up to
its regularly scheduled price of
$69 so if you're looking for an
interesting string Library you may want
to pick it up now while the price is low
also refractions is back on sale so if
you've been meaning to pick that up
now's a great
time okay I think that's it see you soon