Blog

I have 3 pairs of inner ear earphones for daily use.

A pair of Philips Model Unknown but the exterior is similar to the picture below. (Bought in 2011 or earlier)

A pair of Raxconn RX-108BK. Bought with from a deals website (Bought December 2011)


A pair of Audio Technica ATH-CK323M. Thinking that my Raxconn has spoilt. (Bought Feburary 2014)

Guess who won?

The Raxconn RX-108BK that i bought on a deal on December 2011. The cheapest, the longest lasting and the best.

Why? To make it simple, the sound - base and acoustic is full and solid. No "hollow" or "outer space" effect. Looks like the cheap and "not well known brand" earphones may not be lousy.


Some numbers for comparison:

Raxconn RX-108BK
Driver Unit: Ø8.6mm
Impedance: 16Ω
Sensitivity: 90db(at 1KHZ 0.126V)
MAX. Input power: 10mW
Frequency range: 20Hz~20KHz
Plug: 3.5mm

Audio Technica ATH-CK323M
Driver Diameter: 8 mm
Impedance : 16 ohm
Sensitivity: 100dB/mW
MAX. Input power : 40mW
Frequency response: 20 – 23,000Hz
Connector: 3.5mm gold-plated stereo mini-plug (L-shaped)

Ian Low, a Singaporean and an Apple Fanboy (Quoted off his blog), has created an album from iPad and the GarageBand app.
The vocals were recorded at home using only the iPhone 5's earphones.

Find out more here on his blog
http://sirloinapple.blogspot.sg/2013/03/broken-earth-pop-music-album-made.html

The album consists of 8 songs and it can be found / purchased here
iTunes : https://itunes.apple.com/sg/album/broken-earth/id619502623
CD Baby : http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ianlow6
Amazon : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BTLV05I/ref=dm_sp_alb?ie=UTF8&qid=1363250156&sr=8-7

I was looking around for sound proofing / absorbing solutions for my room when i stumbled upon this. No more dull and plain solutions.

Acoustic Treatment Foams for your walls. 12 pieces, 4 colours and they look great!

Great for Home Studios! 
Professional Acoustic Treatment at Affordable Prices
1 pack contains 12 sheets
Each sheet is 12" x 12" and 2" thick
Covers up to 12 sqft of your Studio
*Overall NRC: 0.65
 More information here http://sg-jamming.blogspot.sg/2012/12/acoustic-foams-for-sale.html

Supplied from this company. They also provide treatments and solutions that look so great that they look like artistic decorations on a plain wall. http://www.viergeacoustic.com/

I did my 1st try yesterday from scratch. I didn't play for some time. Wow.. rather yucky.. As i will try to do some overlapping and layering, i think i better be safe and play against a metronome first.

I found it finally - free embedding for audio SoundCloud

Here is my problematic G Chord.



Read more about the buzzing of the Guitar here
http://vivianviolin.blogspot.sg/2012/06/my-first-recording-just-4-chords.html

After trying out a borrowed acoustic guitar for about one month, i realize there was some technical issues. There is this obvious ringing / buzzing especially obvious whenever i play a G chord. I read online and there was so many reasons that it could happen. So i would try to post it online to see if anyone could help. I then decided to do a recording to kill a few birds at one stone.

Used a simple netbook, a normal web USB microphone, with Audacity and MediaFire web hosting.

1. Try the USB (normal Web Conference) microphone to verify the myth of people saying that a normal USB microphone is good enough. (No need to buy any expensive microphones like the Yeti)

2. First try with Audacity recording. Not too bad - previously just fooling around with phone's recorder application or the simple Sound Recorder from the Start button.
Encountered a lot of buzzing sound when i was recording. Tried to lower it by as much as 15 dB, but then i realize the quality is bad. Did a quick search online and found out the cause was my power adapter as i was charging my netbook.

3. First try with audio hosting. Trying out Media Fire at the moment.
Problematic guitar G chord can be downloaded found here
http://www.mediafire.com/?lquo1c91wyacb75

But i am still looking at an alternative whereby readers can just play directly (without any logging in to third party sites). 
Update: I found the free embedded player
http://vivianviolin.blogspot.sg/2012/06/embedded-audio-on-your-site-sound-cloud.html



So... do feel free to let me know what is wrong. (violin@xmail.net)
Thanks!


Update (16 June 2012):
After testing it out on an acoustic guitar, it looks like it is a technique issue.


As mentioned on http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080722125016AATO9F6

"The buzzing is most likely from the strings rattling against the frets when you strum hard; the action on your guitar is set up for gentle fingerpicking, not vigorous folk-rock strumming, so the strings are a bit too close to the fingerboard and that causes the buzzing. You can take your guitar to a repair person and have the action raised; that will solve the buzzing problem.

The wide neck is something you'll just have to get used to, you can't change that.

Eventually you may want to consider buying yourself a new steel-string acoustic in order to get the narrower neck and the sound that you want.The buzzing is most likely from the strings rattling against the frets when you strum hard; the action on your guitar is set up for gentle fingerpicking, not vigorous folk-rock strumming, so the strings are a bit too close to the fingerboard and that causes the buzzing. You can take your guitar to a repair person and have the action raised; that will solve the buzzing problem.

The wide neck is something you'll just have to get used to, you can't change that.

Eventually you may want to consider buying yourself a new steel-string acoustic in order to get the narrower neck and the sound that you want."

Do you know that you now Audacity comes in a so called portable version? It means you do not need to install it on your computer. Just download and play.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows

Try it now!

I think it is finally for me to look into home recording... for some projects.

So before that I need to choose a good microphone. I want it to be USB for ease and i encountered this online. I think the Yeti is quite good, except that it looks a bit clumsy.. What do you think?



FYI, you can get both the Yeti and Snowball from the Apple Store
http://store.apple.com/sg/browse/home/shop_mac/mac_accessories/music_creation

I have some plans in mind for 2 projects.. I guess I would be posting more frequently.

As for what they are... I would name them "My 1st Play and Sing Project" and a "Violin Based Project". Let's see how things go. They are suppose to be due first half of 2013. I hope i will seriously look into them and get them ready on time.

Stay tuned for my progress...