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Post by mediatechnology on Oct 7, 2021 10:45:27 GMT -6
"Betty" was Margie's stage name. When she wasn't acting she was cutting reverb springs and soldering circuit boards.
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Post by EmRR on Oct 7, 2021 12:00:35 GMT -6
This seems very cool, but my only problem is that back in the day, I ditched my spring reverb as soon as I could get a Lexicon reverb in a box at home. So I wonder why I would want one now. I think I had the Fostex one, but I'm not sure, it's been a long time. Because this is the spring that fixed all the problems.
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Post by mediatechnology on Oct 7, 2021 13:04:49 GMT -6
What makes the MasterRoom reverbs unique are the spring timings. They are "equally-tempered" following a log progression very similar to the musical scale. It was originally patented and is now open source.
I have never seen another mechanical reverb system that worked this way - most get their diffusion from the material whether its a metal plate or the less-than-random delays of a single spring or 2 or 3 springs operating in parallel. The plate has a lot of diffusion - small numbers of springs don't and usually "boing."
I'm standing on the shoulders of its inventor William "Bill" Hall. The MasterRoom actually began life as an acoustic burglar alarm, a side project in the early days of MicMix.
MicMix's first product was an industrial-strength field mixer in a deep drawn aluminum Halliburton case. They sold a few but it wasn't very successful. Thus the name "MicMix."
The burglar alarm didn't work on the Doppler principle, it "pinged" the room, mapped the echo returns and then looked for changes. In order to test his research Bill needed a diffuse room which provided the most-difficult test. Bill was an amateur organist and knew about the Hammond spring system. Bill decided to use Hammond springs to provide his alarm's "test chamber." Using his math skills Bill determined that a log series would diverge and create a diffuse room. Once he pinged the "test chamber" he quickly realized what he had. The alarm project was dropped and the MasterRoom born by accident.
You can create a similar effect by opening the lid of a piano, holding the damper open and singing into the strings.
Bill after several years of success knew that digital reverbs would quickly come onto the scene and urged the co-founder, John Saul, to move in that direction. There was a lot of resistance and eventually Bill left the company. In the process I got handed several projects including the Time Warp, DynaFlanger and the XL-305.
Before Bill left he called me in his office one afternoon and taught me how to calculate spring timings. I still have his and my original notes and draft copies of the patent application. While waiting for digital to mature I built an XL-305 clone out of Reticon BBDs as a proof-of-concept. I left MicMix in the early 1980s to go into speech recognition and then onto studio maintenance doing a brief stint with SSL. By the early 1980s the Rev7 killed spring reverbs and MicMix was gone.
I'm glad we could bring a piece of it back.
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Post by Ward on Oct 7, 2021 13:05:41 GMT -6
A toast for Chris from the folks of MicMix in 1979: PIC SNIP I'm on the far right. You can see a bunch of spring sleds on the table behind us and circuit boards on the cart to the right. It's a real pleasure working with you Chris. This is all the awesome! Thanks for joining us, Wayne!
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,921
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Post by ericn on Oct 7, 2021 17:39:04 GMT -6
What makes the MasterRoom reverbs unique are the spring timings. They are "equally-tempered" following a log progression very similar to the musical scale. It was originally patented and is now open source. I have never seen another mechanical reverb system that worked this way - most get their diffusion from the material whether its a metal plate or the less-than-random delays of a single spring or 2 or 3 springs operating in parallel. The plate has a lot of diffusion - small numbers of springs don't and usually "boing." I'm standing on the shoulders of its inventor William "Bill" Hall. The MasterRoom actually began life as an acoustic burglar alarm, a side project in the early days of MicMix. MicMix's first product was an industrial-strength field mixer in a deep drawn aluminum Halliburton case. They sold a few but it wasn't very successful. Thus the name "MicMix." The burglar alarm didn't work on the Doppler principle, it "pinged" the room, mapped the echo returns and then looked for changes. In order to test his research Bill needed a diffuse room which provided the most-difficult test. Bill was an amateur organist and knew about the Hammond spring system. Bill decided to use Hammond springs to provide his alarm's "test chamber." Using his math skills Bill determined that a log series would diverge and create a diffuse room. Once he pinged the "test chamber" he quickly realized what he had. The alarm project was dropped and the MasterRoom born by accident. You can create a similar effect by opening the lid of a piano, holding the damper open and singing into the strings. Bill after several years of success knew that digital reverbs would quickly come onto the scene and urged the co-founder, John Saul, to move in that direction. There was a lot of resistance and eventually Bill left the company. In the process I got handed several projects including the Time Warp, DynaFlanger and the XL-305. Before Bill left he called me in his office one afternoon and taught me how to calculate spring timings. I still have his and my original notes and draft copies of the patent application. While waiting for digital to mature I built an XL-305 clone out of Reticon BBDs as a proof-of-concept. I left MicMix in the early 1980s to go into speech recognition and then onto studio maintenance doing a brief stint with SSL. By the early 1980s the Rev7 killed spring reverbs and MicMix was gone. I'm glad we could bring a piece of it back. Thank you for the history lesson and a brief explanation of what sets the Masterroom apart.
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Post by audioscape on Oct 7, 2021 17:48:13 GMT -6
There is such an amazing history with MicMix and these designs, Thank You Wayne for trusting us with this! We're excited to be a part of the future. Soon we'll have some soundclips, a video demo and the product page will be loaded with all the details. I think people will find the options on the 305R very handy :-)
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 7, 2021 21:42:15 GMT -6
What makes the MasterRoom reverbs unique are the spring timings. They are "equally-tempered" following a log progression very similar to the musical scale. It was originally patented and is now open source. I have never seen another mechanical reverb system that worked this way - most get their diffusion from the material whether its a metal plate or the less-than-random delays of a single spring or 2 or 3 springs operating in parallel. The plate has a lot of diffusion - small numbers of springs don't and usually "boing." I'm standing on the shoulders of its inventor William "Bill" Hall. The MasterRoom actually began life as an acoustic burglar alarm, a side project in the early days of MicMix. MicMix's first product was an industrial-strength field mixer in a deep drawn aluminum Halliburton case. They sold a few but it wasn't very successful. Thus the name "MicMix." The burglar alarm didn't work on the Doppler principle, it "pinged" the room, mapped the echo returns and then looked for changes. In order to test his research Bill needed a diffuse room which provided the most-difficult test. Bill was an amateur organist and knew about the Hammond spring system. Bill decided to use Hammond springs to provide his alarm's "test chamber." Using his math skills Bill determined that a log series would diverge and create a diffuse room. Once he pinged the "test chamber" he quickly realized what he had. The alarm project was dropped and the MasterRoom born by accident. You can create a similar effect by opening the lid of a piano, holding the damper open and singing into the strings. Bill after several years of success knew that digital reverbs would quickly come onto the scene and urged the co-founder, John Saul, to move in that direction. There was a lot of resistance and eventually Bill left the company. In the process I got handed several projects including the Time Warp, DynaFlanger and the XL-305. Before Bill left he called me in his office one afternoon and taught me how to calculate spring timings. I still have his and my original notes and draft copies of the patent application. While waiting for digital to mature I built an XL-305 clone out of Reticon BBDs as a proof-of-concept. I left MicMix in the early 1980s to go into speech recognition and then onto studio maintenance doing a brief stint with SSL. By the early 1980s the Rev7 killed spring reverbs and MicMix was gone. I'm glad we could bring a piece of it back. That’s awesome, Wayne. Thanks for being here!
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Post by enlav on Oct 8, 2021 8:35:59 GMT -6
So... do we know when these are making their way to the site?
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Post by Ward on Oct 8, 2021 9:43:46 GMT -6
So... do we know when these are making their way to the site? Launch date is tentatively Hallowe'en!! There will be 20 units available for sale. Only 20. Sound samples should be going up next week.
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Post by audioscape on Oct 8, 2021 12:49:39 GMT -6
A toast for Chris from the folks of MicMix in 1979: I'm on the far right. You can see a bunch of spring sleds on the table behind us and circuit boards on the cart to the right. It's a real pleasure working with you Chris. Right back at you Wayne from most of the AS crew here! The pleasure has been all ours. We snapped this Photo today on Button-Down Shirt Friday, which some of us sadly did not participate in ;-(
Cheers, AS Crew (minus Ian, Jody, Ryan and Trevor)
Attachments:
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Post by christophert on Oct 8, 2021 16:48:11 GMT -6
After the initial run of 20, will you guys be making them in regular intervals?
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Post by audioscape on Oct 9, 2021 6:57:02 GMT -6
Great question and Yes, they will be in our regular listings after the initial run at the end of this month. Looking forward to getting these to work in studios!
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Post by mediatechnology on Oct 9, 2021 7:08:26 GMT -6
This deserves to be in full-frame. ...We were drinking Dr. Pepper that day. 2021 is much more fun.
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Post by audioscape on Oct 12, 2021 16:29:47 GMT -6
Ha Wayne! Not THAT much fun. It was just sparkling water and kombucha. Anything stronger than that and lets just say... GOOD LUCK to anyone who gets those units we worked on that day ;-)
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Post by Bat Lanyard on Oct 12, 2021 21:46:46 GMT -6
What makes the MasterRoom reverbs unique are the spring timings. They are "equally-tempered" following a log progression very similar to the musical scale. It was originally patented and is now open source. I have never seen another mechanical reverb system that worked this way - most get their diffusion from the material whether its a metal plate or the less-than-random delays of a single spring or 2 or 3 springs operating in parallel. The plate has a lot of diffusion - small numbers of springs don't and usually "boing." I'm standing on the shoulders of its inventor William "Bill" Hall. The MasterRoom actually began life as an acoustic burglar alarm, a side project in the early days of MicMix. MicMix's first product was an industrial-strength field mixer in a deep drawn aluminum Halliburton case. They sold a few but it wasn't very successful. Thus the name "MicMix." The burglar alarm didn't work on the Doppler principle, it "pinged" the room, mapped the echo returns and then looked for changes. In order to test his research Bill needed a diffuse room which provided the most-difficult test. Bill was an amateur organist and knew about the Hammond spring system. Bill decided to use Hammond springs to provide his alarm's "test chamber." Using his math skills Bill determined that a log series would diverge and create a diffuse room. Once he pinged the "test chamber" he quickly realized what he had. The alarm project was dropped and the MasterRoom born by accident. You can create a similar effect by opening the lid of a piano, holding the damper open and singing into the strings. Bill after several years of success knew that digital reverbs would quickly come onto the scene and urged the co-founder, John Saul, to move in that direction. There was a lot of resistance and eventually Bill left the company. In the process I got handed several projects including the Time Warp, DynaFlanger and the XL-305. Before Bill left he called me in his office one afternoon and taught me how to calculate spring timings. I still have his and my original notes and draft copies of the patent application. While waiting for digital to mature I built an XL-305 clone out of Reticon BBDs as a proof-of-concept. I left MicMix in the early 1980s to go into speech recognition and then onto studio maintenance doing a brief stint with SSL. By the early 1980s the Rev7 killed spring reverbs and MicMix was gone. I'm glad we could bring a piece of it back. One of the most amazing posts I've read here to date. I bought an original XL-305 off of the classifieds here six or so months ago. Love what it does.
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Post by Ward on Oct 14, 2021 8:18:03 GMT -6
Audio samples are about to drop!
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Post by Ward on Oct 14, 2021 11:17:52 GMT -6
Here's the start . . .
UPDATE
https%3A//soundcloud.com/audioscapeaudio/reggae-full-mix-xl305r-off%3Fin%3Daudioscapeaudio/sets/xl305r-reverb-soundclips%26si%3Dd577238ffe9f43ed8949a02e544b10c5 https%3A//soundcloud.com/audioscapeaudio/female-vocal-xl305r-off-blend%3Fin%3Daudioscapeaudio/sets/xl305r-reverb-soundclips%26si%3Db328ae294f12498caac045aae3e695a2 https%3A//soundcloud.com/audioscapeaudio/digital-dry-rims-clap-xl305r%3Fin%3Daudioscapeaudio/sets/xl305r-reverb-soundclips%26si%3D9bbc485fb52d4e109a234ea44e4d5474 https%3A//soundcloud.com/audioscapeaudio/rnb-guitar-xl305r-off-blend%3Fin%3Daudioscapeaudio/sets/xl305r-reverb-soundclips%26si%3D015cd7e46bdb4486b4addf94829ffe33 https%3A//soundcloud.com/audioscapeaudio/acoustic-guitar-xl305r-off%3Fin%3Daudioscapeaudio/sets/xl305r-reverb-soundclips%26si%3D6eab177adff248b5b2819c8d8d45f50b
Enjoy!!
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Post by Ward on Oct 14, 2021 12:10:10 GMT -6
The video is being updated now. There's no way the team is going to be able to keep up with demand.
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Post by Guitar on Oct 14, 2021 12:35:36 GMT -6
Wow! In that video -- great sounds.
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Post by Chad on Oct 14, 2021 14:05:33 GMT -6
Ok, that is a MAJOR upgrade from my Peavey Deuce guitar amp's spring reverb back in the 80's/90's *.
* Yes, this is the understatement of the day, I know.
Seriously... I'm so IMPRESSED.
I had no idea a spring-based reverb unit could sound so beautiful and so smooth.
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Post by EmRR on Oct 14, 2021 15:06:30 GMT -6
Sounds great!
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Post by srb on Oct 14, 2021 15:47:14 GMT -6
Man. I'm not a big reverb guy (I mean, I use 'verb, sparingly), but that sounds *really* good.
This might have to go on the "gots to have it" list.
Yeah, I think they'll have a hard time keeping these in stock!
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Post by teejay on Oct 14, 2021 16:28:44 GMT -6
The video is being updated now. There's no way the team is going to be able to keep up with demand. Hmmmm...must ensure availability: For those of you who are strongly considering this: "Audioscape doesn't need to see your identification." "This is not the reverb unit you're looking for." "You can go about your business of mixing." "Move along with being fully ITB."
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 14, 2021 17:25:10 GMT -6
Sounds nice and clean.
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Post by Ward on Oct 15, 2021 6:49:14 GMT -6
One of the most amazing posts I've read here to date. I bought an original XL-305 off of the classifieds here six or so months ago. Love what it does. [/quote] The new reverb is far beyond the original, though. How? Well... the best way to sum it up is: Technology has advanced.
Audioscape has figured out how to realize the dream in a way that wasn’t economically feasible before...
not at an Audioscape price point!
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