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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
My cheap solution for home recording.
My cheap solution for home recording.
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isaacullah
609 posts
Jan 25, 2010
2:50 PM
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Well, here is my cheap solution for home recording (Just in time for HPC3!).
I had an old cell phone holding device that was originally installed in our car when we bought it second-hand. I've seen these in thrift stores. It has a mounting base with screw holes, some flexitube as a riser, then a ball joint with the phone holder at the top. I mounted this on a little square of left over board, and it becomes a perfect desktop mic stand!.
The cell phone holder is perfect for those of us with, shall we say "non-standard shaped" mics. In this case I'm using a vintage 60's Conchord dynamic reel-to-reel tape recorder mic because it's little and rectangular, and has really good sound.
The piece of board is just the right size to hold two "stomp box" style fx units. I'm using my Danelectro Fish&Chips eq pedal, and my Danelectro Fab Echo that I modified for adjustable delay time. I've got the eq set to bump the middle freqs, and cut the highs and lows a bit, and I've got the delay set to a nice room reverb style.
This goes directly into my computer's "line in" jack (via a 1/4" to 1/8" reducing adaptor plug) where I'm using the free and open-source audio suite "Audacity" to do the actual sound recording. Audacity lets you do a lot of post processing if you like, but the sound files below have not been altered in any way. They were recorded in Audacity, then just directly exported as MP3's.
Oh, and I've enabled sound "throughput" on my computer, basically using it as an "amp" with a cheap pair of computer speakers as my "studio monitor". But you could also easily just plug in a pair of headphones. There is a bit of latency on the monitors, but I just use them to get the sound basically where I want it, and then I turn them down while recording.
Overview shot #1
Overview shot #2
Close up of the mic attachment (cell phone holder)
Close up of the base, the fx pedal's, the cords, and the plugs.
What does it sound like? Here's my Slow Blues that I originally made a video of for "It's Slow Blues Day at MBH" (Bb self-customized Hohner Blues Harp):
Isaac's Slow Blues MP3
And here's my Fast Blues that I originally made up for "It's Fast(ish) Blues Day at MBH" (D Self-customized Hohner Marine Band):
Isaac's Fast Blues MP3
Remember, these are just acoustic harp playing -> mic in the stand -> eq pedal -> delay pedal -> computer hard drive. No post-processing at all. If you want to hear what the sound was like just using my computer's built-in mic, check out my YouTube channel (link in my signature) and you can hear the original versions of these two songs.
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The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
Last Edited by on Jan 25, 2010 2:55 PM
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tookatooka
1071 posts
Jan 25, 2010
3:24 PM
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Good solution isaacullah. I can see a competition coming along. Who can build the weirdest harp contraption?
But seriously, I love to see how resourceful people can be. I think it's great. There was a story a short while ago about a young lad in Africa who taught himself basic electricity, and using an alternator from a junk yard along with other bits and pieces, built a wind turbine to generate power for his tiny village of about six mud huts. He won't ever go hungry. I hope. That's being resourceful.
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nacoran
879 posts
Jan 25, 2010
3:24 PM
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What is the awesomeness you are staring at? It is the microphone I do most of my recording with! It came with a computer that I owned a decade ago for the bargain price of $15. To be fair, that was a lot more money then! Once upon a time it had a clip that let you mount it to the side of whatever you glued the clip to. Now that the clip is gone (glued to a monitor for times of yore!) I take the little ball on the end and slide it between the two pieces of my desk. This provides enough pressure to hold it in place. Equipped with a powerful 1/8 inch jack this microphone produces crunchy, dirty blues! I have a couple of cheap Shure Prologues, but they are so cheap that they won't plug into my computer without expensive adapters (OK, I could plug the 1/4 inch plug one into a 1/4 to 1/8 adapter I have lying around, but that would mean pulling my computer out of it's cubby every time I need to record. No, this powerful beauty has served me well.
(Note: I'm saving up for a new microphone! But actually, for certain sounds this mic is great. I can make it sound like something from the early days of recording just by looking at it funny.)
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isaacullah
610 posts
Jan 25, 2010
3:44 PM
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Thanks guys! My main goal with all the little projects I post here is just to show people that, with a little thought and a bit of fiddling around, they can come p up with high-quality yet very affordable DIY solutions to things. Mainly, I feel that a lot of audio equipment is so far overpriced for what it does. I guess many musicians are willing to pay for it, but IMO, only the very very best stuff is worth the money, and even then only to professional musos. Most of the things normal folks (like you and me) wold go out an buy (ie. amps, effects, mics, software, etc.) are marked up several hundred percent over what their actual consumer value is. It's rare to find a product that meets my expected cost/value ratio. The two effect pedals in the set up I showed above are two exceptions (about $25 for the eq, and about $15 for the delay). The mic was a thrift store find (I got two of them along with the original tube reel-to-reel for $8!), the patch cables were like $3 apiece from RadioShack, and everything else was free! That's about $40 all in for a very versatile and portable solution. And I can still use all the components independently. And actually, since I had everything already, to me the price was actually "free".
Oh, and BTW, feel free to call me just "Isaac". It's faster and easier to type than my screen name (which is my full name), and I think we all know each other well enough now, don't you think? ;)
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The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
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XHarp
258 posts
Jan 25, 2010
3:51 PM
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I think we should just name you McGiver or Gadget or something like that....
Really, that's a seriously neat rig Isaac. Good one and some nice playing there too. Liked the slow blues, good feeling in there.
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"Keep it in your mouth" - XHarp
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isaacullah
611 posts
Jan 25, 2010
4:05 PM
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Thanks X! I hope you guys aren't freezing too bad up in the Great White North! I probably shouldn't tell you what the weather's like here right now. Then you might just call me @$$hole! :p
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The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
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Nastyolddog
91 posts
Jan 25, 2010
4:36 PM
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Hi Bro's,,Dear isaac newton many thanks for your inventions it can only make our world a better Place to live,,Dear Isaac Edisson many thanks for your inventions it can only make the world a better place to live,,Dear isaac einstein many thanks for your inventions it can only make the world a better place to live,,Dear Isaac got Ya!!,,Thanks Bro you truly are MBH's Father of invention great work keep em comming your Bro NOD
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isaacullah
612 posts
Jan 25, 2010
4:51 PM
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Thanks NOD! You, me, and tooka seem to all be on the same page with this kind of tinkery stuff. That's why this forum is so cool!
Oh, and just so everyone knows, this thing'll hold ANY kind of mic. Because the gooseneck ends in a ball joint, you can flip the cell phone holder over, and it'll hold a standard vocal-style mic (your sm57's and whatnot), and it'll even hold a bullet mic too (but I prob wouldn't use it this way...)
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The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
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XHarp
259 posts
Jan 25, 2010
5:21 PM
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Well Isaac, we're not too bad. getting the warmer rain weather that flooded some of the southwest earlier. Temps are above zero right now, hovering close to 40F.
Gonna get colder soon though. I'm told -11 C with the wind chill by Thursday.... brrrrr.
Gotta move to Arizona where things are balmy.
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"Keep it in your mouth" - XHarp
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jonsparrow
1890 posts
Jan 25, 2010
6:50 PM
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your like a real life MacGyver.
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ANDREWZAR
5 posts
Jan 25, 2010
7:20 PM
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Reminds me of when we used to hang mics from the drop ceiling when we didn't have enough stands.
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lumpy wafflesquirt
155 posts
Jan 26, 2010
1:14 PM
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Have you non Brits heard of a childrens TV programm called Blue Peter.
It is a magazine type programme and they often have items when they make things out of 'junk' like things for actionman or homemade pencil pots for mother's day.
The Blue Peter presenters would be proud of you making all this harp gear out of stuff that's lying around :^) All it needs is some stick backed plastuc and double sided sticky tape. :^)
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toddlgreene
606 posts
Jan 26, 2010
1:18 PM
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Blue Peter? There's pills for that. j/k
nah, not familiar with it.
MacGyver, like Jon said, was a program here in the U.S. that featured an ingenius agent who did amazing things with whatever he had on hand. We need to organize a MacGyver Award ceremony for Issacullah, Tooka, Stickman and a few others on here.
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Todd L. Greene, V.P.
Last Edited by on Jan 26, 2010 1:21 PM
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isaacullah
618 posts
Jan 26, 2010
3:48 PM
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haha! I'll have to look up "Blue Peter", but I'm not sure that's the nickname I'd want to be known by! lol!
Actually we have a show here on PBS called "Make!" (it's also a magazine and a website) that's exactly for us kind of tinkerers...
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The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
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