Download Frank Zappa's Studio Ambience
Hoodoo
Download Frank Zappa's Studio Ambience
Audio Ease sample Frank's tracking room and the Zappa echo chamber for
use in Altiverb 24-Dec-09
http://www.sonicftp.com/news/images/audioease_zappa.jpg
Download Frank Zappa's Studio Ambience
Here's the press release...
Arjen and Aram of Audio Ease went by Frank Zappa's studio, the Utility
Muffin Research Kitchen, to meet with Dweezil Zappa and together record
the acoustics of both the tracking room and the famous Zappa echo
chamber. Microphones and speaker in the echo chamber were set up just
the way Frank had left them.
You can read the full story on Dweezil zappa's blog, at
http://www.dweezilzappaworld.com/posts/71
The resulting impulse responses can be downloaded for free for use in
Altiverb, Audio Ease's convolution reverb plug- in.
Arjen: I remembered an interview with Frank Zappa in Keyboard Magazine
back in 1986. I was 16 then and basically divided my time between
playing Zappa records, and waiting for the next one. In the interview he
talked about an echo room in his house, a narrow but long and very high
concrete room dedicated to reverb:
Frank Zappa: "One reason we use the echo chamber is that certain types
of percussive sounds, when introduced into a digital reverb program that
may be a long program, don't sound right. That program may be good for
everything else in the composition that is not so spikey. But the spikey
stuff in there tends to sound bogus. So what we do is use live echo
quite often for the percussion-type things, and use echo programs with
more harmonic content on the strings or brass or things whose duration
you want to increase."
Arjen: "So 22 years later, when I saw a tech support email from Dweezil
in the Audio Ease mail box I took the opportunity to ask him about that
room. A couple of months later Aram and I took the day before the NAMM
show and went up to the house to team up with Dweezil and Richard. We
recorded the studio live room with our DPA 4006 TL's and the adjoining
echo chamber using the speaker and microphones that were in there.
Luckily they were set up exactly the way Frank had left them, showcasing
Dweezil's dedication to authenticity."
A very happy Christmas from Audio Ease and Dweezil Zappa.
Pricing and Availability:
Free download
More information:
- - -
From - http://www.audioease.com/
http://www.audioease.com/Media/2009-12-23-zappa-webfront.jpg
- - -
From - http://www.audioease.com/IR/VenuePages/umrk.html
Studio Zappa recording studio : UMRK
22 dec. 2009
http://www.audioease.com/IR/umrk/blowup.jpg
Live room
http://www.audioease.com/IR/umrk/blowup2.jpg
Echo room
Zappa's studio, Hollywood LA - USA
Engineers: Arjen van der Schoot, Aram Verwoest,Richard Landers
Date: February 12, 2008
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen is the name of the recording studio
that Frank Zappa built and used extensively at his home for many of his
recordings. The studio was completed on September 1, 1979 and the
recording of several songs that were eventually released on the album
You Are What You Is began in July, 1980. Today Dweezil Zappa record at
UMRK and mixes his numerous album, live and archival projects there.
Arjen: I remembered an interview with Frank Zappa in Keyboard Magazine
back in 1986. I was 16 then and basically divided my time between
playing Zappa records, and waiting for the next one. In the interview he
talked about an echo room in his house, a narrow but long and very high
concrete room dedicated to reverb:
Frank Zappa: "One reason we use the echo chamber is that certain types
of percussive sounds, when introduced into a digital reverb program that
may be a long program, don't sound right. That program may be good for
everything else in the composition that is not so spikey. But the spikey
stuff in there tends to sound bogus. So what we do is use live echo
quite often for the percussion-type things, and use echo programs with
more harmonic content on the strings or brass or things whose duration
you want to increase."
Arjen: "So 22 years later, when I saw a tech support email from Dweezil
in the Audio Ease mail box I took the opportunity to ask him about that
room. A couple of months later Aram and I took the day before the NAMM
show and went up to the house to team up with Dweezil and Richard. We
recorded the studio live room with our DPA 4006 TL's and the adjoining
echo chamber using the speaker and microphones that were in there.
Luckily they were set up exactly the way Frank had left them, showcasing
Dweezil's dedication to authenticity."
For background information on the echo chamber I later contacted Mark
Pinske, the engineer with the most experience with the room.
He told me: �I remember almost everything we did in the large chamber.
We would use PZM's on the walls, C-12 and Neuman FET u 47's. Sometimes
we would close mic the speakers and add in a resonance from the various
distance speakers like they did with Jimmy Hendrix at Electric Ladyland.
On "No Not Now" we used the walls a lot. I would have the guys sing into
the walls and mic off of them with the parabolic PZM mics. There are a
huge number of recordings that Frank and I did with that room. Many
times we would feed the vocals into it to add some natural reverb.
Remember, the digital reverbs were not as good then so we had to use the
real room sounds more.�
Download UMRK IR Set [7.2 MB]
Download
� 2009 Audio Ease
--
"Think with your dipstick, Jimmy."
Hoodoo
Something cool for Christmas?
by Dweezil
Dec 23, 2009 02:53 AM
http://www.dweezilzappaworld.com/posts/71
Hello Everyone,
Happy Holidays! I thought I would let you know about a little project I
worked on not too long ago.
A very crafty gentleman from Holland named Arjen van der Schoot created
an incredible device for audio production called Altiverb. It's a
convolution reverb program that has amazing impulse responses recorded
in just about every space imaginable. Tombs, tin cans, cathedrals,
concert halls and many studio environments. Recently Arjen visited the
UMRK studios and digitally captured the sound of the unique echo chamber
and tracking room.
Here's some more special info about what was done and how it was done:
Audio Ease Impulse Response recording Stats
Zappa�s studio (UMRK)
and its echo chamber
Hollywood LA USA, January 13, 2009
Engineers: Arjen van der Schoot, Aram Verwoest, Richard Landers
Dweezil Zappa,
Date: February 12, 2008
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen is the name of the recording studio
that Frank Zappa built and used extensively at his home for many of his
recordings. The studio was completed on September 1, 1979 and the
recording of several songs that were eventually released on the album
You Are What You Is began in July, 1980. The studio is still in daily
operation. Dweezil Zappa works on his own projects and many new Zappa
Family Trust archival projects are created there too.
Thanks for doing that Arjen!
Well folks there have it... Technology eclipsing science fiction to
create a real teleportation device. When you hear the audio going
through this impulse response, it's as good as standing in the echo
chamber itself. So cool!!!
I hope you folks out there get a chance to try it out for yourselves.
Happy Holidays, DZ