a soundscape of a personal imaginary of the anthropocene

Tryna Make It

I built an Attenuator (search for Attenuator M on marshallforum by JohnH for design thread). It is truly amazing with very very low tone loss despite massive attenuation.

The first sample is a very abbreviated "Cocaine". I recorded the riff clean into a Boss looper pedal, and then played it through a Hot Rod Deville 410 dimed. Starting attenuation was -14db and then the following  segments are respectively -17.5db, -21db. -24.5db, -28db, and -31.5db. The spl in my room started around 92db and finished up at between 70 and 75db -- easily bedroom level. 

I then normalised each segment to -1db so that you can hear them at the same perceived volume.

Not often you can hear a 60W 410 For Rod Deville dimed like this!

Cocaine attenuated and normalised

I build an Attenuator (search for Attenuator M on marshallforum by JohnH for design thread). It is truly amazing with very very low tone loss despite massive attenuation.

The first sample is a very abbreviated "Cocaine". I recorded the riff clean into a Boss looper pedal, and then played it through a Hot Rod Deville 410 dimed. Starting attenuation was -14db and then the following  segments are respectively -17.5db, -21db. -24.5db, -28db, and -31.5db. The spl in my room started around 92db and finished up at between 70 and 75db -- easily bedroom level. 

I then normalised each segment to -1db so that you can hear them at the same perceived volume.

Cocaine attenuated

Recorded through the Hot Rod Deville. The clip was recorded onto a Boss Looper pedal and first recorded on the amp's clean channel at volume 5.5, and then re-recorded at volume 9 to hear the natural breakup.

SRV-ish

Simple SRV-style riff through Hot Rod Deville 410 at a clean volume of 7.5 then with the amp dimed. Same source music from a Boss Looper pedal.

I don't think the HRDv was intended to be run at 12! This ain't no bassman!

Mary Lambish

This track was played clean on an ES-335 into a Boss Looper pedal and then recorded with the MV dimed. First recording was with the Drive at 2, and then immediately followed by switching to the More Drive setting. Then I re-recorded at Drive level 4, 6, 8, 10, and finally 12, dimed. 

The attenuator was set to -17.5db, so that at maximum volume (almost all recordings) the amp was putting out about 100db SPL. 

Finally. after recording the amp fully dimed, using the More Drive setting, I added 3.5db of attenuation incrementally until I arrived at -31.5db. The recordings are raw, so they reflect the room volumes for each segment.

The recording was done with a Sony digital recorder I usually use for wildlife recording, so is a very faithful room recording. The recorder was placed about 20cm in front of the two right-most speakers in the 4x10 cab.

Alright Now Abbreviated

Through attenuator set to -14db. Clean channel of amp at volume 6.5. G&L Legacy guitar. Mistakes are all my own!

Shine On-ish HRDv

Shine-On-ish BB15

Attenuation at -7db, medium gain structure with gain at 5.5, MV at 8. Guitar is ES-335.

Alright Now BB15

Recorded into a Boss Looper pedal, then played on the Clean Channel with volume at 8, then replayed through the Drive Channel with MV at 8 and Gain at 6, finally though the More Drive Channel with the same settings. 

Guitar: G&L Legacy
Attenuation at -17.5db

White Feather

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