Small Room, Big Absorption, Strange Graph

[Northward]

Originally Posted by localhost127

so if i am reading you correctly, psycho-acoustic research has been rendered invalid based simply on being "30 or more years old"? can you please provide any citation to this? what else has been rendered invalid by basis of simply being "discovered in the past".

and you do realize that anyone on this forum or elsewhere attenuating destructive early arriving, high-gain indirect specular reflections (forming effectively anechoic ISD) - and reintroducing later-arriving energy as a lateral, semi-diffused soundfield via the use of reflection phase gratings is actually emulating the LEDE response, yes? maybe you missed this thread: Who needs a Haas Kicker?

the root of all of your confusion is you still simply do not even understand what "LEDE" is - yet you pretend to speak with such authority!

i believe FTB and boggy's MyRoom design use diffusers on the rear wall? yes? the same rear wall diffusers that you insist "collapse the stereo image"?

It is correct we have diffusers on the back wall (and ceiling) of FTB Rooms but they do not perform to the LEDE/RFZ criteria, and are very specific - they are purpose designed for a unique function.

Their interaction with the speakers is engineered to be minimal (pretty close to non-existent in fact). They are aimed at self-noises interactions with the mix/recording engineer. You will notice they cover a very small area of the back wall - a ratio that follows a strict rule/equation based on room size, distance to cue, and so on.

So while it is correct that there are diffusors there, you simply cannot put all the eggs in the same bag.

I would not agree to a -12dB return à la LEDE or RFZ as some suggest in any of my designs - I do believe this is detrimental. Once you've learned to hear what that does, you realize a few things. And start questioning. It's this questioning that kick started research that led to FTB.

Before the FTB concept was finalized and tested + approved on the first builds, we were designing RFZ/LEDE. So this statement is not based on theory only. But on a practical knowledge and experience of building quite a few of these too.

LEDE/RFZ are not bad rooms - but in my opinion are far from optimized and do have a series of issues that need to be addressed. I think what DanDan means is that since these were created, and no one will deny they were very important steps in our small field of studio acoustics, a lot of progress was made.

It's like in any other fields, you learn from what was done 30, 20 or 10 years and even 6 months ago, and you build on it. Some things you may drop because in retrospect they are not all that good or needed. Maybe because for ex. the available data 30/20 years ago was "incomplete" or not detailed enough to allow to segregate between particular phenomena (when you knew about their existence) and made acoustic engineers honestly think this one thing was a good thing when in fact, while it indeed had some good to it there were some significant downsides to it too that simply cannot be ignored. Today with more advanced knowledge, we know better how to try and retain what is good and drop what is not needed or actually detrimental.

At one point, in a few decades maybe, the knowledge in this small field will be such that we'll reach a point where we'll more or less hit a glass wall in terms of what can be practically achieved.

For now, some have chosen to go forward and try news things, building on the knowledge accumulated so far. And going forward sometimes means dropping things that in retrospect were not optimum and trying new things.

FTB is doing well. We are building a lot of rooms. I also think that what Boggy came up with is very clever. I have a lot of respect for what he does. It's not easy to survive in this small area of engineering where research means are very limited and the market a niche of a niche.

I can only hope that more models will emerge and thus keep things moving forward. And keep things interesting.

[bwo]

Thomas:
If the goal of FTB is to hear the recorded signal as good as possible, I would really appreciate if you could explain how that is accomplished. And also why you believe and what researchers say that LEDE/RFZ doesn't that as good.
Maybe a new thread?

[Northward]

Originally Posted by bwo

Thomas:
If the goal of FTB is to hear the recorded signal as good as possible, I would really appreciate if you could explain how that is accomplished. And also why you believe and what researchers say that LEDE/RFZ doesn't that as good.
Maybe a new thread?

Bwo,

"Researchers" that's a big word. There's maybe 20 competent guys working on this stuff worldwide.

Not going into the detail, will keep things quick and dirty:

Man's audition is made to function in a "forest" environment. Clap your hands in the forest and be surprised by how "live" it is. You can perceive reverberation in there. It' s not dry.

So once we're out of these parameters which are our median/default parameters, we're slowly getting out of our auditory comfort zone.

As we all know dead environments don't work for us and trigger all sorts of "alarms", that distort our hearing system - purely as a function of survival instinct. Huge leap forward: we all agree that we cannot create studios as dead spaces.

Note: Music contains both environmental data and semantic data. Hence it is able to create complex emotional responses from the listener.

One of the problems I have with older LEDE (dead front wall) is the use of the speaker playback interaction with the room to in fine feedback environmental data about the room you are in. By doing that you actually willingly deteriorate the speaker to engineer response to compensate for the lack of environmental data of a too dead room. So while you indeed create a nicer environment to be in, by doing that you influence negatively the very thing you want as pure as can be. A -12db feedback from a diffusor after an anechoic gap of 20ms is no drop in the sea. It's a far from negligible impact on sound.

So why not understand the lesson in there, which on the positive side is that somehow we need to retain a "natural environment" for the listener to be in, but try and get rid of the negative one which is: why do that partially using a technique that measurably and clearly deteriorates the perceived sound? You think you hear with better accuracy only because you relax your brain by feeding it "second hand" environmental data - not because what you're listening to is more accurate per se. "First it giveth, then it taketh away". (ref: QOTSA)

Older LEDE are tiring rooms and not very accurate in terms of translation (maybe you have been in one? There aren't many left around with absorptive front end). I believe one of the reasons is for ex that the Haas Kicker is making the brain do a very tiring exercise. This I understood from cross referencing various studies about localization in space / with surfaces and interactions of the auditory system and the environment, and by doing some research and testing myself for the area I felt needed more data.

Again to keep it short: the brain is very good at extracting data from seemingly "confused info" (read in our case: diffused). We found out that the brain can still extract reliable info from a diffused feedback. Often with pretty surprising accuracy.
What that means is that the brain is actually way more sensitive to the Hass Kicker than most here think it is.

The loop can be seen as such: in these earlier rooms, the absorptive front end did not provide a lot of environmental room data when sitting in the engineer's chair. There were little "self noise" interactions in a way. The room environmental interactions would follow at best the same path as the speaker to room path. So even before any music would be played back, the brain would enter a state of "stress" and enhance our localizations cues to compensate and "look" for missing data. Hence you've successfully distorted the response of the very tool you need to use while mixing. Your ear's response.

Comes the music playback. Original sound ---- (x)ms ISD Gap ---- Heavy diffused feed back (-12dB!) from which the brain can in fact still extract info and endlessly tries to see if it indeed is a reminiscence of the original sound - so wants to find out constantly if this is a "new sound" or a reflection.

Think about it this way: how does the brain suppresses and fuses the reflections within the Haas effect but still allows new event to be heard within this gap? It's not like it shuts down sound altogether for 30ms. There is a "tool" in there that lets the brain know if this is a new sound or an "old" sound, a reflection. Without that tool, there would be no Haas effect possible as the brain would simply not know what to fuse. This is a simplistic explanation, but you get the point. I have always been fascinated by the brain's capacities btw. You think that what you hear is reality, but it isn't. It's a complete alternate reality, reconstructed by your brain.

The lack of ER from self-noises or musical playback only enhances that gymnastic as because of what we see, the brain is expecting ER it doesn't get neither from the "room playback" nor from self-noises. Note: this is an automated function, even if you are fully conscious of the deadness of the front wall you're facing, your hearing system process cannot be altered and thus still expects ER. Making you really tired after sometimes just a couple of hours. And making you take really strange Delay/Reverb decisions (a "fun" by-product of these issues)

Enters RFZ rooms. They solve a lot of these issues. First, you have lot more interactions with the room thanks to a "live" front wall. So they translate much better for starters. But there is still (in my opinion) some issues: the need for an ISD gap for ex. (Another would be that they are pretty "long sounding rooms" - they don't like "fast music". It's in fact too reflective in there to be optimum and to work with all styles of music. )

Do we actually need the ISD gap? Could it be that all what we need is a proper series of cues that allow the brain to be "relaxed" and couldn't we allow this to happen without using partial interaction of the playback with the room? That would be great if I could have both a pure speaker to ear path and a good series of room environmental cues.

On top of it, the ISD gap is irrelevant when you do electronic music, where there is no "Live Room ISD gap". Or if you travel from studio to studio.

The ISD gap idea suddenly has weak ankles. Some of it even becomes a nonsense.

Idea: why not design a room which is both a NE with a very pure speaker to ear path (Thanks Mr Newell!) and a Normal Room that is feeding back enough data that we are putting our auditory system in a relaxed normal state?

Enters FTB, using self-noises to feedback environmental info independently from a NE speaker to room response.

A new thread: I simply do not have the time to participate to a thread like that. Sorry :(

I'd rather organize a week-end at our office/Studio in Brussels for those interested in a chat and do things properly.

[diggo]

Originally Posted by Northward

Comes the music playback. Original sound ---- (x)ms ISD Gap ---- Heavy diffused feed back (-12dB!) from which the brain can in fact still extract info and endlessly tries to see if it indeed is a reminiscence of the original sound - so wants to find out constantly if this is a "new sound" or a reflection.

Think about it this way: how does the brain suppresses and fuses the reflections within the Haas effect but still allows new event to be heard within this gap? It's not like it shuts down sound altogether for 30ms. There is a "tool" in there that lets the brain know if this is a new sound or an "old" sound, a reflection. Without that tool, there would be no Haas effect possible as the brain would simply not know what to fuse. This is a simplistic explanation, but you get the point. I have always been fascinated by the brain's capacities btw. You think that what you hear is reality, but it isn't. It's a complete alternate reality, reconstructed by your brain.

The lack of ER from self-noises or musical playback only enhances that gymnastic as because of what we see, the brain is expecting ER it doesn't get neither from the "room playback" nor from self-noises. Note: this is an automated function, even if you are fully conscious of the deadness of the front wall you're facing, your hearing system process cannot be altered and thus still expects ER. Making you really tired after sometimes just a couple of hours. And making you take really strange Delay/Reverb decisions (a "fun" by-product of these issues)

I wrote the following text as a draft before Thomas's two posts above and then got sidetracked by work. When I later visited this thread to post the text I saw Thomas had very elegantly made some similar points, along with some great info about other factors. Thanks for the excellent posts, Thomas! My thoughts became redundant, but I thought it might still be useful to post what I wrote anyway:

Originally Posted by bwo

But work on the low frequencies first. Later you can move on to treating early specular reflections and then late ones.

This is the main point. In small rooms, diffusion is less important than the primary goal of reducing low frequency resonance. BIR nulls are also a bit less of a problem than resonance, given your head is not in a vice and we have two ears. Even though 125Hz is quite a long wavelength with an 8ms cycle, a fixed mono mic doesnt hear what your two ears hear as you move your head. Your head will rarely occupy the exact position of your mic. You'll certainly hear the dip at 125Hz, but it wont sound as bad as the chart seems to indicate if it is BIR.

BIR nulls and modal nulls look bad on a static plot and they sound bad when listening to a pure sine, but they arent as bad as low frequency ringing when our ears are listening to music in a room. Our brains are pretty good at dealing with BIR and unmanaged specular reflections above Schroeder, but we arent good at dealing with masking caused by low frequency room resonances. This is also one of the reasons why we typically focus first on correcting resonant peaks rather than trying the much more difficult task of correcting deep nulls....coincidentally (or not) that's also why room DSP is pretty good at reducing resonances but less capable of improving nulls.

Humans love audio reflections. It's why we sing in the shower, add ping pong delays to reggae, enjoy choirs in cathedrals, love the drum sound in When The Levee Breaks etc etc.

This has a basis in evolution - like most animals with two ears, we evolved from organisms which possessed excellent location faculties (often based on deriving cues from reflections) to identify prey or foes. We rarely needed to decode those cues within a pile of low frequency resonances, although I guess that might apply when attacking a herd of stampeding bison, but we used our eyes for that

I'll say it again: a mono microphone does not hear what a mobile human head hears. We dont listen to music with our head in a vice. A mic doesnt have HRTF. A sine sweep is not music (despite all audio being made from sine waves). BIR is relative....and what we hear isnt necessarily the same as the way a chart displays the data. The displayed data is very useful and very informative, but BIR is not a reason for despair or aspirin unless you obsess over graphs and cant live with the graphs not looking perfect. In your case, I'd be more focused on frequencies below 80Hz. Fix those and your room will sound better. More importantly, your mixes will translate well.

What you want is a room you can work in and be reasonably confident that what you are hearing is sufficiently accurate for you to make valid decisions. That doesnt mean you need a room response which looks perfect on a graph. Dont get caught up chasing BIR perfection unless you are building a mastering room (which you would probably not attempt to do with your room). Mastering rooms need to be as close to perfect as possible because that's the whole point of mastering - it's the final QA check before manufacturing. Home-based project studios typically dont need that level of precision.

You said this earlier:

Originally Posted by SirTralala

use the little intelligence for science i have to find some inexpensive, easy solutions to improve the sound of my room a bit (including the use of acoustic material I already built).

As you've discovered, the problem with that statement is two words: inexpensive and easy. Dealing properly with small rooms cheaply is not easy. But you can achieve enough by easy cheap methods to ensure you can work productively.

Here's one thing I'd do if I was determined to stick with a DIY solution: I'd return back to the beginning, take everything out of the room except for one speaker and the mic. Put one of the absorbers over the window. Put a square cube absorber in each of the 8 tri corners. Measure. Move mic up, down, sideways. (12 inch and/or 24 inch movements). Measure after each move. Do the same with the speaker. Add cloud. Measure again. The low frequency resonances should be reduced at this point. Add side wall specular absorbers. And so on. By the time you've done that, you should know what is causing the big null and how to reduce the problem. And the low frequency resonances will be controlled.

SirT, can I suggest your most efficient approach (if you really want to nail all of the problems and are unable to buy some Modex Plates) is to engage someone to assist you professionally? It's not a service I provide (I'm not an acoustician), but I can highly recommend Jeff Hedback. He's not at all expensive and he is experienced with the kinds of problems you are encountering (and he knows a lot about space couplers).

Sean

PS dont worry about the mild bickering amongst the pros here - acoustics is a science, but the methods of fixing problems are as varied as the opinions on the relative merits. Whatever gets you to the point where you can work comfortably is all that matters....and there are multiple ways to achieve that. As Thomas says, you can count the people who really know this stuff on your fingers and toes. I'm certainly no expert, but Thomas most definitely is.

[SirTralala]

sean, Im not worried, this discussion is becoming quite interresting. I only understand half of the science, but when looking at it from a more philosophical/evolutionary point of view, good thing !

You should continue with that if you like, and someone should bring back DanDan, unfortunately he got banned from this thread, if someone has the power to do that please use your power to bring him back.

Anyway, don`t worry about my room troubles, they are not real troubles, I learned a lot from you already, and I can handle that room so that it suits my needs. It just makes me happy, if can post some pictures, or graphs, or show what I`ve done from time to time. It is just like thinking loud, and if I can grab one or two good things from you, it is fine. I don`t need perfect studio acoustics lsitening enviroment in that room to do my stuff anyway (when I need special acoustic & equipment to do some stuff, I know where to go).

[diggo]

Originally Posted by SirTralala

sean, Im not worried, this discussion is becoming quite interresting. I only understand half of the science, but when looking at it from a more philosophical/evolutionary point of view, good thing !

One thing to consider is the conscious mind vs the unconscious (which is indirectly what Thomas was referring to) Your unconscious mind is orders of magnitude faster than your conscious mind. It's running your nervous system and conducting countless tasks every second.

We also have an equivalent of "stored procedures" (a database term) where many of the things we do regularly are stored for quick and unconscious access - that's how we learn to play complex guitar parts while singing (for example). The stored procedures are partly run by the unconscious, so we seem to be able to do them without thinking. This really kicks in when we encounter danger - evolution has ensured we have lots of stored procedures which are instantly available when we encounter danger. We cant control many of these responses - they happen much faster than our conscious mind can arbitrate.

This is why so many people are still literally terrified at the thought of a harmless spider crawling on their skin, or touching a harmless snake, despite the conscious mind knowing no harm will result. It's why dogs instantly attack snakes, even if they've never seen one before. Our responses to such potential dangers have been been hard-coded via evolution.

We should be far more terrified of driving motor vehicles than spiders or snakes, because (by comparison) motor vehicles cause a huge number of serious injuries and fatalities. But evolution hasnt yet had the time to embed such responses - evolution is a very slow process. In my country (Australia), there are huge numbers of wildlife roadkill, especially kangaroos. The kangaroos havent learnt how to avoid cars...and by the time they do, we probably wont be using motor vehicles any more!

The unconscious is very much in charge when we process sounds. A lot of this processing is focused on two factors: determining if a sound is prey or foe and deciphering human speech. We cannot consciously control our immediate reactions to auditory events. Our reactions occur faster than our conscious minds can process. Similarly, we cannot control the limitations and shortcuts taken by our auditory system, which are exploited very successfully by lossy algorithms such as MP3.

Our conscious mind's attention can only focus on very small chunks of data at any particular point in time. Much smaller than most people realise - our minds make all kinds of assumptions and interpolations to get around this physical limitation and the limitations of our senses/nervous system. These limitations/assumptions/interpolations especially apply to sight and hearing, which is one reason that psychoacoustics exists - our perception of sound is often different to measurement data derived from tools. This is also why magicians and illusions can baffle even the brightest minds. But our unconscious is less limited because it doesnt need to "think" - our unconscious is mostly limited by the physical limitations of our autonomic senses/nervous system, as opposed to the constraints of the feedback loops required for conscious processing. Think of your conscious mind as a hyperactive butler providing services to the unconscious, assisting the unconscious to interpret incoming data and implementing decisions. Google "readiness potential" if you want to learn about some of the spookier ways this manifests - for over 20 years now, multiple tests have (arguably) shown we commence motor movements before we consciously decide to commence the movement. This is being used in development of brain>computer interfaces for people like Stephen Hawking.

Here's a good link which examines the issues for/against the resulting philosophical and physical conundrums (which are the continuing subject of much argument among philosophers and scientists). New advances in brain imaging techniques are really opening up this terrain, but the arguments continue to divide. The famous biophysicist Francis Crick spent his career pursuing this. Crick's frequent collaborator Christoph Koch recently released an excellent book which is beautifully written in easy language for non-scientists. Great book.

Needless to say, there is a lot going on when we listen to music....and most of it is beyond our control. To understand how and why, look back to our very distant past and consider why we can hear at all. Also bear in mind that we process (and store) music a bit differently to other sounds (which is one reason why pure sines arent the best way to determine what we perceive we hear when listening to music in studios etc).

Sean

[bwo]

Thanks for the answer Thomas/Northward.
I'm not going to continue discussing the topic in length here. But I do want to briefly comment that you mainly pointing out weaknesses as how LEDE started out before one had measurement equipment rather then what it developed into. From what you are writing it seems like you haven't understood LEDE/RFZ.
I don't see anything of researches that says "we no know better and have moved on". I'm only hearing this from people who doesn't understand the LEDE concept or are selling something else.

When one doesn't the need of an ISD gap, one also doesn't pay attention to to hear the recording room alone and are including the sound of the control room in the mix. That's really sad to hear. I believe the music itself and the place where it's recorded should be the main attributes.

[kasmira]

Originally Posted by bwo

I don't see anything of researches that says "we no know better and have moved on". I'm only hearing this from people who doesn't understand the LEDE concept or are selling something else.

Not to dismiss your point, but I felt like I needed to single this out here. You know that Northward used to build LEDE rooms, and have moved on to something their research has proven to them is better, and are building those rooms now - yet they don't understand the LEDE concept nor is there any research relevant to this? They have done their own research, come up with a conclusion on it, and stuck with their findings.

[bwo]

Originally Posted by kasmira

Not to dismiss your point, but I felt like I needed to single this out here. You know that Northward used to build LEDE rooms, and have moved on to something their research has proven to them is better, and are building those rooms now - yet they don't understand the LEDE concept nor is there any research relevant to this? They have done their own research, come up with a conclusion on it, and stuck with their findings.

Where did he get his learning from (about LEDE)? Self taught?
This summer I visited a control room in London who claimed on their website that they had built a LEDE/RFZ room. When I entered the room, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It did not meet the LEDE/RFZ criterias in any way! What's my point? The fact that someone say the build LEDE doesn't mean they truly do so. There are a lot misunderstanding of what LEDE/RFZ is out there.

From what he is writing, I have hard time believing he understands the LEDE concept and have followed the criterias. He is after all separating LEDE and RFZ when they are essentially the same!
Where I can find a RFZ Design prototipe for my control room?
I'm sorry to be so direct, but he's using strawman arguments to make a point about his own concept. Arguing against old LEDE, which died after the introduction of TEF and developed into something else. So if his comparison is against old LEDE, it's not difficult to understand why they preferred FTB.
His own researches doesn't necessarliy give any answers if his concept of LEDE is wrong. Get it? I would love to see measurements from those rooms and researches, but I doubt we ever will.
And that will be my last words on LEDE in this thread. SirTralala is asking for advice, not a discussion.

[diggo]

Originally Posted by bwo

Where did he get his learning from (about LEDE)? Self taught?

I reckon that's a tad impertinent. Who would teach? There arent many true experts, just as there arent many true experts left in many areas of audio engineering. Why? Because the various demographics which pay for such services (acousticians, audio engineers) have been shrinking at an increasingly rapid pace for the last few decades without any sign the shrinkage will recover. Ever.
There's no money/confidence for people embarking on careers to chose these two disciplines nowadays, and many of the real experts are either close to retiring or they've left this mortal coil already.
Increasingly, the real experts will be self taught....and acoustics is never fully understood without many years of practical experience anyway. It's an experiential discipline.

Originally Posted by bwo

And that will be my last words on LEDE in this thread. SirTralala is asking for advice, not a discussion.

Actually, in his last post he said he really wants discussion, to the point where he asked for DanDan to be allowed back.

Personally, I'd prefer to see more respectful discussion rather than bickering between professionals. There is no "last word" on these issues and the needs of every room are different, depending on what the room's owner is seeking, costs of the available solutions and even nebulous factors such as how the room looks.

It's a bit like the bickering which occurred a few months back regarding the difference/similarities between SBIR and LBIR, when all reflections (including modal) are manifestations of Boundary Interface Response on some level. The main difference in the modal range is the ringing of standing waves. Bickering over definitions doesnt really help anyone on GS - it just confuses (and frustrates?) people who arent fully conversant with the terms. Most of the posters to the acoustics threads just want simple answers which they can parse without their brain melting at the complexities.

One of the frustrations which seems to percolate and cause little volcanoes every few weeks is the continuous opening of new threads on topics which have already been discussed at great length. The posters often seem to make no effort to pre-parse the various stickies and guides which have been painstakingly compiled by experts. When the experts post links to those guides and previous discussions, it's obvious that a significant portion of the thread starters dont bother pursuing the links, but just continue to ask more questions. I can see how this causes frustration for the professionals who try their best to contribute here......and maybe sometimes the bickering is a symptom of underlying frustrations - there's only so much time a professional can dedicate to providing free help. All forums suffer from this problem and there is no fix except to take a break for a few days or weeks.


Sean

[boggy]

Originally Posted by bwo

Where did he get his learning from (about LEDE)? Self taught?......

We are all self taught. Nobody can teach us anything (even in the school), if we aren't, at least, curious....

I find your question is pretty uncivilized for my taste, so there can't be (a civilized) discussion, with your approach...

[SirTralala]

So many things to answer !

In my special case, I did follow every advice, read throgh every thread several times (I mean DanDan was very patient with me, he posted me the same link over and over again - the BIR one, but it was hard to understand, it took some time, and for those kind of threads it is hard for a beginner to filter the essential information, although the fights there have been interesting to watch, like hyperintelligent professors who know about big secrets in science, but acting like beeing in childrens garden (anyway, I was happy not to be involved having to accomplish an opinion there, it is always easy to watch when not involved, and I am in childrens garden with my opinions very often).

I even read through the different threads on building pressure based absorbers, after you sean mentioned that (three times or more) to me, and not only I did search this forum, but other interent forums, and got me the master handbook of acoustic.

One of the main problems, for a newby, in my opinion, is also to find out who is wrong, and whos opinion is something you can rely on. I mean, first I thought DanDan was making fun of me when he suggested to turn the speaker upside down. like: "don`t wear socks while mixing, but burn the tail of an oppussum and drink some kangooroo blood" (okay, with ozzy osbourne maybe it helped to improve the mixes). But what DanDan suggested, it really helped, and later I figured out, why it helped. So why punish him ???

Another problem for newbys: It is quite hard if someone gives you hints on a solution and then you go to the hardware store, load your car with materials and start to build something, and in the middle of your building someone says, that you might better try something different - specially when you have a dead line for a project, and just figured out that there are possibilities in acoustics larger than the universe and I could (should) spend years and years on it before doing my mix, and your room can always be better !

Anyway, this forum is a great thing, and my wife is great too (but we also have our very very different opinions sometimes and then our living room turns into kindergarden, but I love her).

Here we go:

BOUND TO BE - Sir Tralala | Musikvideo zum Film "Die Vaterlosen" - YouTube

And then I can also put something about concious/unconsiousness, and psychoaccoustic, but I must try the absorbers I built !

And bring back DanDan, remember, everyone was picking on Nicolai Tesla, but in fact he was inventing this AC/DC thing.

(And the Tesla Coil, which is great for beeing controlled by MIDI, although never build one).

[diggo]

Originally Posted by SirTralala

I even read through the different threads on building pressure based absorbers, after you sean mentioned that (three times or more) to me, and not only I did search this forum, but other interent forums, and got me the master handbook of acoustic.

Sorry if you felt my comment was directed at you SirT - it wasnt. I was speaking very generally. You have been very willing to do the hard work associated with learning to DIY successfully.

Sean

[Northward]

Sir Tralala, I'm very sorry the thread took this turn. I'm just answering this once and I'm out. Tim, feel free to clean/delete this if necessary.

Originally Posted by bwo

When one doesn't the need of an ISD gap, one also doesn't pay attention to to hear the recording room alone and are including the sound of the control room in the mix. That's really sad to hear. I believe the music itself and the place where it's recorded should be the main attributes.

Bwo,

There is no ISD gap in a FTB. That is because they are effectively anechoic in the speaker to room/engineer path. You can see it as an infinite ISD gap if you like it better that way.

Hence, there is no CR sound in the mix. So your statement couldn't be more wrong.

Hope it's clearer that way.

Originally Posted by bwo

Where did he get his learning from (about LEDE)? Self taught?......

I have read every post by that "bwo" guy. He's a great resource.

Originally Posted by bwo

From what he is writing, I have hard time believing he understands the LEDE concept and have followed the criterias. He is after all separating LEDE and RFZ when they are essentially the same!
[...]
His own researches doesn't necessarliy give any answers if his concept of LEDE is wrong. Get it?

That statement is a good measure of the quality of your understanding.

Take care,

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by SirTralala

someone should bring back DanDan, unfortunately he got banned from this thread, if someone has the power to do that please use your power to bring him back.

Say what? Unless posts were deleted and I missed them, I didn't see Dan post anything even remotely insulting or out of place. Why is it that forum mods feel they need to censor opposing opinions? As SirT pointed out, people picked on Nicolai Tesla. I've been banned a few times for being right too. Surely there's a better way to manage contentious threads than censorship.

--Ethan

[SörenHjalmarsson]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

Say what? Unless posts were deleted and I missed them, I didn't see Dan post anything even remotely insulting or out of place.

I agree!?

I can see no violation or uncivil behavior from DD that would merit a threadban in my book? All i can see is that his opinion was of a minority at one point. Besides... our OP seems very happy with DD's participation, so i can't see the problem?

Every branch of knowledge has it's various fractions, our understanding can only be enlarged through rational opposition and debate.

"Let us all continue to be good communicators and if you are not, learn...
It is only through reason and understanding that we progress and learn new things. - And the point of any interchange is not that I am understood, but that I understand." -- Jedi Master of Acoustics

"Where there be uniformety of opinion, there be stagnation of knowledge" -- the Padawan


Sincerely

PS: Very enjoyable posts from Thomas (as always) and Sean, thank you!

[Rod Gervais]

I agree as well.......... the OP (seeing as it's his thread - his question) should certainly have a say in this.

[Jeffrey Hedback]

I agree per Ethan, Soren and Rod regarding DD's input in this thread. I think this thread has been an excellent example of sharing thoughts, knowledge and experiences and I appreciate Thomas's well crafted offerings (and bwo and others).

[hsal]

+1

I see no reason to ban DanDan from this thread, the initial disagreement sparked off some very good posts by Thomas.

Sir Tralala has stated that DanDan`s tips was helpful.

[SirTralala]

Yes ! Very helpful !

What must I do that he can be back for the discussion ? Moderator can you take away the evil ban ? We promise, not to beat each other up.

[SirTralala]

Okay, playground is quiet.

I`d like to thank everyone for the help and great thoughts.

[Rod Gervais]

Thomas,

Thanks for the posts -

Rod

[Tim Farrant]

Originally Posted by SirTralala

Yes ! Very helpful !

What must I do that he can be back for the discussion ? Moderator can you take away the evil ban ? We promise, not to beat each other up.

Well, you do not see the flurry of reported posts every morning! Jens, DD and localhost127 are all reporting each others posts, so, what do I do - delete them all? I think the conversation went far enough and it seems that this Re: Bickering and moderation tightening is being ignored by certain members.

Sorry, but we are taking are harder stance on trying to get everyone to co-exist nicely.

[SirTralala]

Yes, okay, I read through the forum rules now, I am not used to actively participate on internet forums much, so this kind of social tool is a bit new to me.
Relating to the rules it seemed to be escalating a bit - and because gearslutz is providing the base for the discussion, gearslutz makes the rules and we should try to follow (although in my opinion sometimes debates have to be harsh to bring things forward).
Anyway, I didn`t feel attacked or disturbed by the bickering, I do learn from discussions of others (my "pain in the arse" comment stands in opposition to that, but as I said, I am not used to forums, I have to figure out, and things change when you grow into something) so I would like to ask you (respectfully) to keep that in mind, when punishing or banning people. In fact, this forum means a lot to them, they are participating for years and they also push things forward, and they gave good help to me as a newby. This is my opinion, and now I don`t want to bother you anymore with that.

And thank you for the limp mass absorber thread.

[reidireilly]

Hi. Long term reader here, infrequent poster! Some really great posts. The ones by Thomas are a bit of an eye opener. However I feel DD's removal has been destructive to the thread.

If a GS reports another surely this should be taken seriously? Each one needs to be judged on it's own merit. If justified, the offender should be sanctioned. On the other hand if the report is unjustified, then the reporter should be sanctioned.

Like Rod, Ethan, Jeff, hsal, SirTralala, I can see nothing offensive in DD's posts. On the other hand there is plenty of ugliness in the posts by Jens and localhost.

I will add my name to the list requesting DD be allowed to continue helping SirTralala on topic. It is his thread after all.
R

[Tim Farrant]

OK, they are allowed back. Let's see if we can play nicely.

Thank you
Tim.

[kasmira]

Originally Posted by Tim Farrant

OK, they are allowed back. Let's see if we can play nicely.

Thank you
Tim.

Thanks Tim!

[SirTralala]

Originally Posted by Tim Farrant

OK, they are allowed back. Let's see if we can play nicely.

Thank you
Tim.

[Rod Gervais]

Thanks Tim..........

OK guys - you heard it - play nice now.......

Rod

[Syncamorea]

Originally Posted by Northward

Older LEDE are tiring rooms and not very accurate in terms of translation (maybe you have been in one? There aren't many left around with absorptive front end). I believe one of the reasons is for ex that the Haas Kicker is making the brain do a very tiring exercise. This I understood from cross referencing various studies about localization in space / with surfaces and interactions of the auditory system and the environment, and by doing some research and testing myself for the area I felt needed more data.

I built one long ago and also found it tiring. Before it got tiring, it was very revealing in that instruments/voices across the soundstage had a tightly defined 3-D origin out there in space. It was as if the ear/eye was looking through the microphone sort of like thru an entry door peep hole.

I realize that what follows is off topic but your post rattled it out of the long term memory and I see a bit of a correlation. A long time ago, I was part of a research team that was doing natural product chemistry - plant alkaloids - looking for anti-tumor compounds. One of our chemists isolated a compound from a shrub in the Baja peninsula that had a core structure identical to THC. Thus I was assigned to read over 2000 publications about the analytical science, the history of marijuana, what was known about mode of action for THC and other related chemistries. I ran across a paper where the authors postulated that THC acts to change the RC time constant of the central nervous system by building up in the synaptic gap and basically changing the shape of the electrical pulses - reducing the peak height and increasing the peak width. The authors claimed that the sensory awareness that people (think they?) feel after taking THC was due to the central nervous system basically running overtime to interpret confusing data, since the sensory system has expectations of it's nervous system feedback loop. Back when I built my absorptive-front LEDE room, it took me a while to accept that the room had something to offer, but that it took its toll with respect to fatigue. Within a half hour, it got to the point of wanting to get the hell out of there, to get the ears some fresh air to breathe. No, I did not do any research to see if THC changed my residence time in the room, perhaps I should have?

Originally Posted by Northward

I'd rather organize a week-end at our office/Studio in Brussels for those interested in a chat and do things properly.

That's one I'd like to witness, however the airfare is not in my budget.