Couple of basic LaScala Questions

[Deang]

Hey, I like that crap.

[Jeff Matthews]

$7000 for essentially a house that's 28' x 18'? Jeff, you are brilliant! Who knew? I'm going to run to Home Depot right now!

Yeah, that's right. But not a house - a room. No kitchen, no bathrooms, no new HVAC, no plumbing, no nothing. Just a dried-in room with walls/windows and carpet with a few electrical outlets and some lights in the ceiling. Yep!

Show me where my calcs were wrong. I'm listening.

[Jeff Matthews]

There's "distortion" from the instruments, and then there's induced distortion from the playback system -- most of which is from the drivers. Who's argument is like saying 1+1=0. Whatever distortion is added by the playback system simply wasn't there to begin with. The less that is added the closer you are to what's really there.

Dean, I agree Who gets some wild hairs, but I don't think his logic is that bad. I think what he's saying is that when they mastered the recording, they mastered it with a set level of distortion in various areas based on what direct radiator play-back sounded like. I can't vouch for that theory, but that's what I think he means.

Thus, following his reasoning, the producers expected a sound that contained the added distortion, which is taken away and cleaned up by horns. Therefore, horns are alleged to produce a cleaner sound than the producers wanted.

I don't know any producers to run this theory by, so hmmmmm.

[3dzapper]

Jeff, Meaghan is in Chicago not Texas. First the footing for the addition must be at least 3 feet if not 4 feet deep to be under the frost line. Second there are codes up north that relate to snow loads which require some things that all I have heard are builders crying at the extra work and expense. Third she will need heat. It can get below zero in Chi. Forth Dean is right.

Rick

[Jeff Matthews]

Jeff, Meaghan is in Chicago not Texas. First the footing for the addition must be at least 3 feet if not 4 feet deep to be under the frost line. Second there are codes up north that relate to snow loads which require some things that all I have heard are builders crying at the extra work and expense. Third she will need heat. It can get below zero in Chi.

Rick

Rick, add another $250 for concrete if you want real deep footings. That's another 4 yards, which is quite alot. Snow loads translate into a bigger board. Instead of 2x6 roof rafter, you'd go with 2x8's. That's nominal, too. As far as heat, I assumed she had heat and was going to probably branch in to her duct system with a new duct that would cost her about $30. You're only talking 208 additional square feet to be conditioned. Maybe she doesn't have central heat/ac... If so, I don't know what you all do up north.

Frost lines, snow loads and such make people want to stop thinking about it and just tell themselves "it's too involved." It's really simple. More load/bigger wood. Find out what you need, and price it out. You can usually tell what you need by looking at a friend's house. When you actually stop and count it up and price it out, it's not that expensive.

I am saying this from some reasonable experience. I am taking a 4500 sq. ft. house and gutting it to its skeleton, replacing part of the skeleton, and putting it all back together - somewhat reconfigured. I had a budget set up for about $150k. That was to allow me to accomplish much less than what I've been able to do by doing the work myself and getting some helpers. Here's what I've been able to add so far to the original scope and stay within budget:

4 ac/heater systems with all new copper and ductwork, (This was a $12k add)

double-paned aluminum thermal-break windows all the way around, (This was a $7.5k add)

replace brick with limestone in front, add limestone chimney on right side, add 2-story limestone wall on left side, add about 12 limestone columns for wrought iron fence in front. (This was a $22k add where I hired the stone-guys direct to do this)

250' of wrought iron fence, with automatic gate (This sucked, I'll never weld that much again - a $5k add)

new crushed asphalt driveway - about 200' x 15' average (a $2k add)

Lots of extra beam work (???).

Again, these were things I was NOT going to do to in order to stay within that budget.

I am actually going to stay in budget despite all the extras. I am almost down to the "sheet-rock-it-all" phase, which leaves re-doing kitchen, baths and floors. I've still got about $60k or thereabouts in the budget left.

To give an example, I have a bid from Home Depot to install Hardi-Plank for $31,830. That's when I decided to become a week-end warrior and get some helpers. I've got about $4k into Hardi-Plank and am about half-way done. That includes paying the helpers $10/hr.

It just depends on how much desire you have to take on that kind of work, and whether the desire outweighs paying alot more to have someone come in and get it done real fast and get out.

I'll add this. Knowing what I know now, if I could have lived in our other house and knocked this one down, we could have built it all new much faster and for marginally more money. Ripping out old and retro-fitting is definitely a time-killer.

[meagain]

Jeff - I want 5 of whatever you're on. I wouldn't even be able to find someone to trench it for $250. Probably wouldn't even be able to rent the machine for that.

[Jeff Matthews]

Jeff - I want 5 of whatever you're on. I wouldn't even be able to find someone to trench it for $250. Probably wouldn't even be able to rent the machine for that.

My numbers excluded labor. At $10/hr., a helper could have that 50' trench dug in a day. $70-80. Whack!!! WHOAAAAA!!!!!!

All I see is you all saying it can't be done, while I'm down here laughing because I'm doing it. I've got photos to prove it. I also forgot to mention the $5k in mahogany/beveled glass doors we added that weren't part of the budget. One set of double doors and 2 side doors. Very nice.

[BEC]

Jeff,

If you don't quit telling those yankees how cheaply we get that stuff done down here, the other half of them will move down.

Bob

[Jeff Matthews]

Before (You can double click on pics to see them full-size):

[Jeff Matthews]

Before 2:

[Jeff Matthews]

After:

[Jeff Matthews]

After 2 (We've done more since this)

[Jeff Matthews]

See all those windows? Home Depot's quote for cheap vinyl ones was $13k. I got them in the best aluminum grade for $7.5k and put them in myself. I can assure you putting them in was easy. Maybe an hour a window on average.

[DrWho]

There's "distortion" from the instruments, and then there's induced distortion from the playback system -- most of which is from the drivers. Who's argument is like saying 1+1=0. Whatever distortion is added by the playback system simply wasn't there to begin with. The less that is added the closer you are to what's really there.

A better way to describe it is that 1 + (-1) = 0. Here's why...

For simplification we're going to assume a very very simple recording project - the analogy gets increasingly more complex when you add more channels/instruments/etc etc...

So a musician comes to my studio who has written a song where the only instrument is a kick drum (boring I know), but he wants the absolute best quality in the world. So I rent out the absolute best drum mic in the world (I rent it because I couldn't afford to own one) [] Anyways, now the process begins of deciding where to place the microphone - to do this, I must listen to the recording on my monitors. Hmmm, a bit closer and I get a fuller sound...oops, too close and now I have too much 'cardboard'...etc etc etc (this could take hours if you weren't experienced). The problem resides in the fact that I must listen through my studio monitors - how do I choose the studio monitors? I try to pick something that is as "clean" as possible. No matter what I do, any tweaking of the mic position and the drum location in the room still must go through my monitors. But the sound that goes through my monitors and reaches my ears is NOT going to be the same thing that ends up on the recording (the signal driving my monitors is the same, but there is the transport function of the room and the specific speakers).

Thus begins the process of "referencing the mix" and this is something every good studio mixer does. You could think of it as the process of listening to the music on many many different types of systems and looking for common flaws. If no two systems have common flaws, then any common flaws you hear between all the systems are therefore flaws on the recording and should be corrected for. I describe it in this way to get across the concept of referencing the mix, but I highly doubt this is exactly what's going through the mind of the mixer. Really, it is the process of trying to ignore the flaws of your playback system so that you don't inadvertantly "correct" for something that isn't there (which in turn would make the recording incorrect).

So you can think of the final recording being laid onto the medium as the negative of the studio's playback system. So to hear exactly what the studio mixer was hearing, then you need to have the exact same setup in the same room and be sitting in the same position. This is of course an insane requirement and it's not entirely necessary because a good studio mix will be well referenced (it won't have these common flaws accounted for).

However, with the bass there are only a few playback options available and I can assure you that very very few recordings were referenced to their sound. In fact, it would be foolish because the majority of the market doesn't have hornloaded bass and you want the mix to sound the best for your target audience. So if the majority of your listeners are using 12" subwoofers, then it is to your advantage to mix on a 12" subwoofer in the studio and adjust the recording to account for the inherant distortion present on all 12" subwoofers. So in effect, the actual recording contains the negative of that distortion that in theory is getting filled in upon playback.

Now before we jump to conclusions allow me to point out that a recording referenced to hornloaded bass is vastly superior to that of direct radiating bass. However, using a recording referenced to direct radiating bass is going to result in a very thin and lifeless sound on the hornloaded system. And this is why our systems have to be tweaked around the music to which we listen.

So why isn't this an issue with the mids and highs? Well it is...but generally the studio mixer isn't making these kinds of adjustments in the midrange - probably because a greater majority of the harmonic distortion is out of the audible range (lower frequencies have more harmonics that are audible). And then take into account that it's nearfield listening in the studio and listening in our homes tends to be farfield, so we actually end up with about the same levels of distortion that the studio mixer was hearing. There are of course exceptions to this "rule" if you want to call it that, but I'm trying to point out that it becomes an exponentially larger problem as the frequency gets lower.

You could almost describe "horn coloration" more as a lack of distortion to bring the sound back to "normal."

And of course all this assumes a perfect mixer - which is also never the case.

Wow that was so not a simple explanation. Here's a quick version: If the sound system in the studio has a 3dB 1Q peak at 80Hz, then the studio mixer is going to impelement a -3dB 1Q EQ on the recording to make it sound right to his ears. Then if we were to play it back on our perfectly flat response system, we would find the music lacking in the 80Hz region. But if our system had the same 3dB 1Q peak, then we would essentially hear nothing wrong with the recording.

In a more ideal case, the studio mixer would know that his system was -3dB 1Q at 80Hz and therefore wouldn't introduce the boost in EQ. It works great in theory with a single simple problem in the playback system, but once you start taking into account the infinite number of problems and start introducing more instruments it becomes a most impossible process. Sure you can get close, but it can never be perfect. And then when you take into acount that it's being played back in a far from ideal listening environment, it's almost pointless to even bother worrying about it (and that's why simple mic'ing techniques sound better....the engineer has less control over the sound so there is less referencing that needs to be done). So in this simple example, the end recording might be +-1dB at 80Hz if it was referenced very well.

And I know I'm making it sound way more complicated than it actually is - referencing the mix is something that should become second nature for an experienced studio mixer. But you gotta get through the concepts first so that you can train your ears for it (it's the whole critical ears, musical ears all over again). But the point is that no referencing is perfect as it relies solely on the experience of the mixer (who has only listened to a limited numbers of systems - none of which were perfect).

And sorry for going waaaaay off topic too, lol.

[Mike Lindsey]

Jesus Christ... you guys need to spend more time listening to them instead of playing with them. []

Mike

[BEC]

I thought this thread was about carpentry.

Bob

[LarryC]

Nah, "home improvement."

Jeff, here up north, those nice aluminum frames might transmit some serious cold into the house, unless there's an insulation break between the inner and outer frame surfaces. I just had a bunch of windows replaced with vinyl frame double glazing/argon gas jobs, and the difference is obvious compared with the old, counter-weighted single glazed windows. You have a nice big house, looks very neat.

Larry

[Deang]

However, using a recording referenced to direct radiating bass is going to result in a very thin and lifeless sound on the hornloaded system.

I couldn't disagree more.

Then if we were to play it back on our perfectly flat response system, we would find the music lacking in the 80Hz region.

Flat response sounds like crap. No one has perfectly flat response anyway -- especially if they're using horns in a home. Truthfully, I just don't think you've heard a set of LaScalas or Klipschorns at their best. You're making judgments based on some very limited experience. No offense intended.

[Jeff Matthews]

Nah, "home improvement."

Jeff, here up north, those nice aluminum frames might transmit some serious cold into the house, unless there's an insulation break between the inner and outer frame surfaces. I just had a bunch of windows replaced with vinyl frame double glazing/argon gas jobs, and the difference is obvious compared with the old, counter-weighted single glazed windows. You have a nice big house, looks very neat.

Larry

Yeah, I have thermal break. Double-pane, double-glass thickness, bla.. bla... bla...

[jpm]

this is truly the thread from hell