nicholas m. taylor

far right, even

a smoking hot beefcake

a stone cold hottie

a certified sexy

a literal hunk

chat, what do we think of the ren faire

if empathy won’t radicalize you, what will?

the more likely thing is he’s stupid and is lying

we goon at 8:30

tonight @ghostinthewall.bsky.social

and all of them are somehow curtis yarvin stans

even if politics escapes you, you will NEVER escape politics.

drum

drum again, from different angle.

drum on finishing table.

drum, from different angle

Drum Project #0003: PDP MX Maple, cut from 22x18 down to 22x14. Re-cut bearing edges, new heads, cleaned up hardware.

This one is going into my personal collection, which is one of a few reasons why i kept the finish as it was. i love the beat-up look this one has.

i bet solely bc it’s too labor intensive too

way too many microphones for one drum.

promise i’m very close now. gonna shoot with all the mics, processed and unprocessed, couple of different snares and tunings. i’ll make a video and post it on youtube so we can single-handedly jack up the price of some obscure mic on the secondhand market (or at least learn something). more soon.

a lot of basic troubleshooting isn’t deeper than looking at it, maybe taking it apart a little, intuiting how it works, etc.

(and that’s a good thing, and more people shouldn’t be afraid to do it)

this was super interesting, and mostly all i learned was that my modified stuff sounds super interesting, especially the capsules! keeping a handful of different ones for different sources. will set up some overheads soon and start shooting out the rest of the mics.

ow

a microphone pointing at a studio monitor, with lasers guiding the position. the goal of this exercise is to try many different combinations of microphone body/circuit/capsule while changing as little else as possible. if done correctly, i should be able to see accurate data about variations in polar pattern, frequency response, noise, and other tonal characteristics.

the easiest way for me to do this is to run a laser-guided setup pointing toward a relatively flat studio monitor—that way i can run the same material through the monitor at the same volume for each combination and repeat the microphone angle and position.

a selection of small-diaphragm microphones, bodies, and circuits, each with small changes implemented. the experiment will be some kind of laser-guided setup pointed at a known and controlled sound source. ideally there are clear winners here for drum overheads and clear winners for acoustic guitar—we shall see.

setting up for a much more manageable SDC shootout. I’m A/B-ing a ton of incremental changes to the circuits, the bodies, and the capsules of these MXL 991s. Guessing a lot will be learned from these.

i’ll add more to this thread when i run the experiments.

a snare drum, surrounded by microphones of all shapes and sizes nearly all the way around. the plan was to shoot them all out at once, but i’m realizing now that: 1.) i’m out of mic stands; 2.) some of these mics will clip in an unpleasant way and/or not really be useful on this application; 3.) this is verging on ridiculous and unusable as it is already; 4.) there are already issues with setup that will make this not-very-scientific. i’ll reapproach with something more useful soon.

…i’m going to have to do this mic shootout in multiple parts.

i spent lots of hours examining this and trying all manner of fixes, only to realize far too late that the main problem was a faulty power supply cable. the lesson here: look at all the easy stuff first.

drum

drum again

she’s all ready to go. if nobody bites on this snare, i may end up keeping it for myself.

a gretch catalina club snare, with factory silver finish inside and re-cut edges. these snares really aren’t bad at all, but the inside shell paint really helps them look premium. this was my first time doing snare beds and they’re really not too hard to get right.

here’s a cool one: got this Gretsch Catalina Club snare awhile back and decided do a silver coating inside like the classic Gretsch drums used to have.

also re-cut bearing edges and snare beds, as usual.

i’ll post more pictures when it’s all back together.

an overhead view of the TB-12. clockwise from top right to top left: the power board, output control board, tone controls with socketed op-amps, front input board, and rear input board. there are two input transformers and an output transformer present as well.

front view of the TB12 Tone Beast, Orange Rev. Warm Audio released a “Black” version in 2019. from what i’ve seen, aside from shifted transformer positions and the obvious faceplate color change, there doesn’t appear to be much of a difference between the two.

i have a Warm Audio TB-12 ToneBeast on my repair table today. i really love these units because i think they really allow fledgling audio engineers to parse differences between op-amps, transformers, etc.

i’m still trying to figure out why this one has no output, however…

for the approximately 1 of you who are waiting for the final results, i’m currently waiting for some hardware to come in and then i’ll post some pics!!!

oh! before i forget: i noticed that the lug mounting holes on this drum are super not accurately drilled. the shells themselves are impeccable in every way except for that, which i find super odd. marking and drilling lug holes is not hard to do, but it’s not going to ruin the drum’s tonality.

the edges are essentially a roundover on the outside and a 45 degree cut on the inside, with the actual *edge* around 2.5mm from the outside of the drum. it allows heads to sit extremely nicely while transferring a good portion of the energy into the shell. absolutely wonderful tone. more soon.

drum 🤤🤤🤤🤤

drum again 🤤🤤🤤🤤

i spent a ton of time reading interviews with drum builders/scouring drum company sites/etc and came up with an edge that really allows the drums to sing. i really didn’t know if it would work but it totally did!!!!

i’m so proud rn—i have 3 other drums to build but i’ll post pictures when i do.

drum

drum again hehe

time for ~edging~

this is one of my 13 reasons for sure

no picture yet, but i’m almost finished with this process. i love the way they’re turning out.

in the interim, i’ve built myself a very flat table with a router built in to finish edge work (one of the most important parts of drum building imo). i’ll update with that stuff in a bit!

drums too! the hardware and craftsmanship is insane right now, even on a lot of cheaper kits.

i think about this every time i do laundry, which feels like a thing i’m doing every day