Hanging Acoustic Foam without messing up the walls

After moving into our new apartment I realised the acoustics in the room designated as the home office space were just horrible. Actually it was so bad that late night meetings were almost impossible due to the echoing and booming.

The solution? Auralex Acoustic Foam of course!

I picked up a bass trap and 3 wedge panels, all 2″ versions to begin with but soon ran into the problem of how to attach them to the walls.

Three of the eight (don’t ask) walls in the room are concrete, and drilling massive holes felt like a really bad idea, so instead I started looking for a non-destructive solution.

Here’s what I came up with:

1. Silicon, transparent, (almost) 100%

IMG_4928

I bought this stuff at Bauhaus here in Sweden, but you should be able to get it at any DIY or home center. Make sure it’s as pure as possible otherwise it might eat through the foam.

The best thing about this stuff is you can just peal it off the wall once you want to take the panels down, and similarly from the back of the foam.

2. Testing

IMG_4929

I started out by testing a small chunk of silicon in a corner of the room, just to make sure it wouldn’t leave any marks. After 48 hours I was able to simply drag it of the wall with no artefacts. Similarly I put s small piece on the back of a panel, with the same result.

3. Application and hanging

IMG_4944

Finally I put a good, solid amount on the back of the panels (like an X in a square) and simply pushed them up against the wall. They stuck really firmly and I was able to let go almost immediately.

So there you have it. Cheap, simple and non-destructive. Silicon FTW!

A new direction, for the time being…

It’s been almost a year since I last wrote something here. My ambitious goals for 2015 where all scrapped due to lack of time and inspiration, but that’s ok. Instead I spent the year building out a bunch of tracks in and learning Cubase 8. I also moved to a new apartment, where the plan was to finally set aside a room for the studio and music gear.

However, as the move approached I did some very long and serious thinking, mostly about the goals of this project, how far it has come thus and where I wanted to go with it. In the end I decided that I had plowed way too much time and money into acquiring and mastering various gear, and way too little energy into actually making music.

This lead to the conclusion that I had strayed too far from the original vision and goal of Glitzerstrahl, which was to keep it simple, work with simple tools and create simple music.

The natural consequence of this realisation was to shed some weight and return to the roots. I have since sold off 99% of my gear, including all synthesisers, my modular and all my MIDI controllers. I even got rid of most of my software.

All that’s left is Logic, Maschine and my Strat.

And guess what? It’s been years since I felt this free and inspired!

2016 will be about a much more simple direction, and a slower pace. Hope you still like to stick around.

Screen Shot 2016-01-24 at 15.52.12

How to cycle between open windows in Cubase (on a Mac)

I’ve seen a lot of people asking in forums and on other sites how to cycle focus between your open windows in Cubase. Since Cubase will process your keyboard shortcuts in the window that currently has focus, keeping track of where you are in the DAW becomes essential for a fast and smooth workflow.

On a PC you can step through an applications open windows using Alt+Tab, but on Mac its not that simple. So, here’s how I solved it for my setup.

First open up the Keyboard settings.

Screen Shot 2015-03-22 at 20.56.49

Next witch to the Shortcuts tab at the top of the settings window.

Screen Shot 2015-03-22 at 20.57.46

Next find the group called Keyboard, and the setting called ‘Move focus to the next window’.

Screen Shot 2015-03-22 at 20.58.07

I  have it set to Command+=, which at least in my english installation of Yosemite does not collide with any other setting.

Voila! Your all set cycle through your open windows using the keyboard. One less annoyance to slow down your workflow.

その2015のお約束はどう?

今年入ったところ新年のお約束を6つした。一ヶ月経ったので振り替えてみようと思った。

  1. 毎月一曲完成する
    1. 完成したけど、まだミクシングが残っている。
      ギリギリセーフとしよう。。。 笑
      リンクはまた後日
  2. 5つの曲のデモを完成する
    1. まだだね。デモの曲を集めるため上記の1はあるけどね。。。
  3. 週一度このブログを更新
    1. ここまでオッケー!この調子で進めたら。。。
  4. 毎日少しでも運動する
    1. ウゥゥ。。。出来ていないね。やはり仕事やら、いくらでもいいわけできてしまうからだめだね。もっとしっかりしないと。
  5. 毎週琳と一緒にピアノの練習する
    1. ちゃんと進んでいる。日本で買った本「はじめから1人で学べる 大人のためのピアノレッスン 上巻 (DVD付)」で毎週ちゃんと頑張っている。琳もどんどん上達している。全然追いつかない  笑
  6. 日本で買った本を全部読む ;)
    1. 読んでいる。今一番楽しいのは「DAWで曲を作る時にプロが実際に行なっていること」興味のある人は是非読んでいみてください。

ということで。ここまではままよく進んでいる気がします。

まだ2月だけどね。。。

これからも頑張る。(運動もね。。。)

IsoAcoustics speaker stands, real deal or fake?

Turns out, they’re the real deal! One of my Adam monitors (A3X) started making a strange humming noise a while back, and when I took it in for service I noticed they had the IsoAcoustics stands in the store.

At first my plan was to upgrade to the A5X in case the A3X was really a goner, but it turns out the problem was a wattage converter on the same plug in my home, so instead I opted for the IsoAcoustics stands.

I’d had my eyes on them for a while and was really interested in trying them out. I got the smallest ones (ISO L8R130) thinking they should be perfect for my A3X and also able to hold up a 5″ pair in case I upgrade in the future.

DSC02245Unboxing I found the base and the ‘shelf’ part, along with risers of 2 different lengths. There are also sets of shorter ‘plugs’ that you insert into the risers to tilt the speakers back forward or backward.

Setup was easy, but due to the construction you have to spend some time calibrating the for corners of the stands so that your monitors come out level. It’s easy to end up with one corner not as snuggle fitted as the others which means the monitor will lean in various directions.

After setup was done though I immediately noticed a significant change in the sound. The representation is now much clearer and wider than before (monitors used to sit on top of foam wedges). In a very unscientific way it feels like I just added a couple of inches. As an added bonus they also look really nice on the desk.

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions.