Do equipment stands have an impact on electronics?

The Bio Mikro G utilizes bamboo, viscoelastic material and pure glass microspheres to mimic the woodpecker head’s bone, elastic layer and spongy layer, respectively, surrounding the bird’s brain. Without such evolutionary features, the woodpecker would surely damage his brain and or die.

I prefer to keep you in suspense. I prefer not to walk you through the development process at this time. I plan on developing a page on my web site for the Bio Mikro g iso stand some time in the future.

Geoff Kait
machina dynamica
advanced audio concepts

Geoff Kait
machina dynamica
advanced audio concepts

I expected that answer. No suspense.

It's always the same with you guys. "What about this. What about that?"

;-)

cheers

Mr. Kait says - Actually brass is easy to fabricate and relatively cheap. That's the reason brass is used in many musical instruments. Silver saxophones sound better.

Brass is manmade. Not all brass is “relatively cheap” and definitely all brass does NOT sound or perform the same in ‘any’ application related to sound and audio. Our many years of experience manufacturing brass parts for the audio and musical instrument industries backs this statement.

The chemistry and materials used to make brass is critical to the end sonic. All brass used in Star Sound production is made in the USA and arrives with chemical certifications in order to assure performance. We could import less expensive brass and manufacturer a cone for five dollars however the performance and sonic result would give Star Sound and the Audio Point™ a very poor reputation.

Chemistry and grades of brass is just one of the many reasons a Selmer, Yanagisawa, Cecilio, etc horns vary in sonic.

I’ve heard and worked with musicians playing ‘both’ very expensive silver and brass horns but could not make a comparison as to which material sounds better simply because it would take the “same musician” playing “both” in order to arrive at that decision. Then of course you have to differentiate between brand names, years the models were built, reeds, etc in order to provide any opinion of merit.

The Selmer MK VI sax has been a long time favorite of mine in studios and on stage but in my opinion, we should ask a few professional horn players which is the preferred material for sonic instead of accepting the opinion of one who holds a degree in aerospace.

Robert

Star Sound

Hello bdp24 - In answer to your questions:

Some of the drum company's have introduced accessories designed to allow their drum shells to resonate as long as possible (sustain is very "in" right now in drums), by suspending their mass in free air.

As a sound engineer, my personal preference is always a tight sounding kit where one can depict triplets on a snare head and definitive octaves between deck and floor toms. I am not sure if I understand you’re meaning of sustain as those sonic characteristics are more easily achieved when the kits are recorded or amplified and reinforced with public address systems. Could you please expand on your description for me? I will also visit a couple percussion shops this week to improve my understanding as I am probably behind with current trends and languages.  

We should be careful here as resonate and resonance are two very different topics when involving and discussing vibration management terminology.

Our company understands ‘resonate’ as a sound having an extended effect as in - attack, sustain and decay. An instrument’s "resonant signature" is the overall sound of the instrument whether it be a drum, cello, electric component or speaker system which the overall sound quality of the equipment is based on the combination of all three of these characteristics.

Resonance on the other hand, are amplitudes of detrimental energy formed from vibration.  If resonance is allowed to build and propagate on a product or instrument hanging freely in the air, without a mechanical pathway to instantaneously evacuate the resonance, these unwanted vibrations will have a serious, adverse impact on the performance of most, if not all, equipment.  

Amplitudes of energy will establish inefficiencies within the intended operational function of the musical instrument, amplifier,speaker system, etc. Resonance build up, has a negative effect altering the character or resonant signature of the instrument, component or speaker system. The reduction or removal of these unwanted vibrations can significantly improve the resolution of every system.

Our concept for mechanically grounding instruments which contact the stage is to effectively reduce unwanted resonance, as it forms, via energy transfer to ground. This is done by implementing resonance conductive pathways designed to move energy at high speed away from the vibrating instrument while, at the same time, “not” to alter the character (sonic signature) of the instrument. The results are that you will hear more of what the instrument is capable of by establishing a higher level of operational efficiency.

These results are very opposite of what you may think as our technology and approach is opposite the “old school principles” on the surface. However by understanding vibration, our applications and products will increase volume providing greater dynamics (attack), time (sustain) and deliver more of the instrument’s natural sound capabilities (decays). All of the characteristics you as a musician are seeking from your instrument (or stereo system) without affecting the instrument’s natural tone.

Pearl offers rubber feet for floor toms legs which contain an air pocket designed to prevent the shell from being "grounded" to the floor, robbing it of it's full vibrational resonance.

Rubbers and Sorbothane® materials are inexpensive primary energy absorbent materials. They have been used to treat the negative effects caused from vibration (Coulomb Friction) for generations. These materials eat (absorb) energy indiscriminately however, within all that energy are your dynamic and harmonic structures that we, as listeners and musicians, long to hear. In our opinion, by utilizing those air pockets Pearl is attempting to decrease the rate of absorption in an attempt to retain some of the dynamics and harmonics in the sound.  

For hi-fi product support, isn't a lack of resonance the goal? And whatever resonance (vibration) is inevitable to be prevented from entering hi-fi components? Absolute isolation may be an unreachable goal, but it's a correct one imo.  

This is where we differ. You cannot prevent resonance from entering a component. You cannot prevent resonance from forming on circuits, resistors, caps, etc within the component - it is already there when you turn the electricity on or volume up.

You cannot prevent vibration in music - music is vibration.

Energy trapped within any component or loudspeaker without a mechanical exit builds and propagates establishing product operational ‘inefficiencies’ hence limiting the product’s function.

Airborne energy seeks ground and will get there following the path of least resistance. Therefore it is first attracted to the greater mass such as wall, floors and ceilings. It is also attracted to metals as they provide secondary grounding planes and are conductive for resonance flow. Turn up the volume in a system with a good kick drum and touch your equipment. The beat of the drum is readily detected by your touch on the chassis of the components. Turn up the volume again and the pulse which you feel will also increase.

How does one treat resonance?

Historical data teaches us vibration is bad and to kill vibration via isolation, diffusion and absorption processes and materials (heavy damping). Along with killing the vibration you also kill the dynamics and harmonic structures and more importantly you kill the elusive and fragile “live dynamic” (the ultimate goal). Physics - kill something and it is dead, not to return to life; yet isn’t our primary goal to seek the live performance?

The newest option is to manage vibration by first and foremost allowing the instrument, component or speaker to vibrate enabling us to capture and hear that live dynamic. Then as resonance builds, transfer those amplitudes to ground via Live-Vibe Technology™. This approach retains the dynamic and harmonic structures we so desperately desire to hear.

Both methodologies will work, Anti-vibration or Pro-vibration but one will definitely perform at a higher rate of ‘operational efficiency’ ultimately providing very different and highly audible results. We are a Pro-vibration company. 

Robert

Star Sound

For those interested I have quite a few technical papers on my web site.

See this page for the links to technical papers, including vibration isolation, the Clever Little Clock and even the Teleportation Tweak,

http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina6.htm

4. What does the Teleportation Tweak sound like? By attenuating the deleterious effects of the particular Information Field associated with the cell phone or land line phone the sound in the room becomes much closer to the sound that you would hear in an ideal world, I.e., a world without such subconscious interference that reduces the listener's sensory perception. After the Teleportation Tweak is performed the listener can more easily hear the complete and undistorted sound that his system is FULLY CAPABLE OF PRODUCING, that the system was producing BEFORE the TT. In other words, the SOUND WAS IN THE ROOM THE WHOLE TIME, he just couldn't fully appreciate the sound quality since his hearing ability had always been in a degraded state and not up to the level he always assumed it was.

Robert, the drum suspension system I referred to is called R.I.M.S., the letters standing for Resonance Isolation Mounting System. An L.A. studio drummer named Gauger invented and introduced them in 1980, and licensed the manufacturing rights first to DW (Drum Workshop), one of the most progressive drum companies around. R.I.M.S. revolutionized drum mounts, almost every company now using them or making their own version of the same principle. R.I.M.S. attach to the drumhead tensioning hoop rather than the drum shell, allowing the shell to freely vibrate, increasing it’s sustain (the length of time the shell "rings") considerably. A mount attached to the shell itself "chokes" the sound of the drum.

The term resonance in reference to a drum shell is in regards to the length of time it "rings", it’s sustain. But the nature of the construction of the shell also affects it’s resonance; thinner shells usually resonate longer and at a lower pitch than do thicker ones, the extra wood of thicker shells raising the shell’s resonant frequency (it’s "fundamental") and acting as a form of self-damping. The timbre of that resonance is a different matter, timbre being what civilians ;-) call "tone". Timbre is determined by the relative strength of the harmonics of the fundamental. Drums are not considered a "tuned" instrument (an exception being the tympani and Caribbean steel drums), the way guitar and bass are. That’s because drums produce so many overtones (not just harmonics, but intermediate notes) having as much strength as the fundamental itself, that the fundamental is hard to distinguish.

Drums used for recording often have damping applied to the heads, to change the sound of the drum towards the "tighter" sound you mentioned. Tighter in, ironically, having less ring, but in this case of the higher overtones only. The damping absorbs only the highest overtones, making the fundamental more audible. I saw studio drummer Jim Keltner (Traveling Wilbury’s, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Randy Newman, hundreds of others) playing live on a sound stage in Burbank, and his DW’s rang so long the drum sound was a real mess---far too much sustain for my liking. The struck notes were not audible individually, each still resonating loudly as the next was played---one big, rumbly mess. The opposite of that is the sound Levon Helm of The Band is known for---"thumpy". Gene Krupa’s drums also sound thumpy on those recordings from the 1940’s, but that’s because plastic drum heads had not been invented yet. Plastic heads weren’t available until the late 50’s, and they rapidly replaced the calfskin used until then. Calf heads don’t need damping, as they already sound dead (pun intended ;-).

Actually it’s not schizoid. It’s just that the whole freewheeling information field/Morphic Resonance subject has been largely overlooked by audiophiles, or dismissed as hokum. It just hasn’t been discussed much. So whenever any reference to information fields pops up audiophiles tend to react as you just did, with dismay. ;-) Everything is not cut and dry in audio land. Please note quite a few of my products are based on information fields and Morphic fields. Some of these products have been around like forever. The clever clock, Teleportation Tweak, Morphic Message Labels, the Quantum Temple Bell, and Pretzel Logic Reef Knot ( a PWB product). So when I say the immediate environment affects the sound I’m not referring to room acoustics, at least not in the traditional sense. What you don’t see can hurt you. ;-)

So, how do I define the word technical? Anything to do with physical reality. Follow?

geoff at Machina Dynamic