earthtograham

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how many times are we going to rediscover that we need functional ecosystems

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recent exploits

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A little kitchen session with the speaker. YouTube Preamp extension to control the frequency bands/delay/dub siren. To be honest the speaker actually sounds best with dub played through the youtube pre - some other styles of music just don't suit it at all. Convenient!!

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First build :D

Omnidirectional build Mk0

I got hold of a cheap little driver in London for £15. It's rated for 200W peak power, 40Hz-10kHz (so sadly not much high frequency once the lamellae are attached!) I removed the rubber sleever and the dust-cap

Next I used some grocery-store plastic sheeting (what they put up promotion signs/prices with) that can be moulded using hot water. I used a metal grille bent into a curve to make curves out of the plastic, then cut them into roughly the right shape. I made the paper shape guide by just rotation a ruler held at one end - this was totally eyeballed and could've been done much better, more precisely etc.

Then I attached some sticky-backed weather stripping to each of the lamellae (aka petals), and used double-sided tape to stick them onto the speaker cone. I used a log with a notch cut into it, attached through the speaker magnet's central hole with a long screw, to hold the tops of the lamellae.

Then with a bit of wiggling and more double-sidede tape I attached all the lamellae together at the top. I used some washing up gloves cut into strips as (very makeshift) gaskets to mostly seal the gaps between the lamellae. Again, I used double sided tape to do this. To be honest that was the most fiddly part. Washing up gloves cut with scissors are not an ideal Radialstrahler gasket material!

And there it is! It doesn't sound terrible on its own, but as the driver is only rated up to 10kHz (and who knows what impact the radialstrahler build has on the theoretical frequency response!) I had to wire it in to an old bookshelf speaker's tweeter to get a bit more high-end.

I'll make another post with a few more videos of it playing, along with some discussion of what I've learned so far to take forward to the next prototype!

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So I'm doing a thing...

Reviving this tumblr page to post some updates on my upcoming Omnidirectional speaker project

In brief: I want to design and build a set of speakers that play high-fidelity, omnidirectional sound, for the primary purpose of running UK/Jah Shaka style dub and reggae sessions.

I'm currently most set on Awassa Sound System, but really like the relevance and cheekiness of Omniscience Sound/Hifi. I think Awassa has a better ring to it, and an air of mystique, even.

Here's a breakdown of the plan so far:

As for order of operations: Step 1:

Make a cheap and cheerful prototype of the MBL drivers. I just want to cut my teeth on the hardest part, to start building familiarity with the materials, principles, and manufacturing processes that will be involved in the build of the larger, final version.

If my friend who's into CAD and CNCing is willing, have him whip up some test lenses.

Use recycled drivers from old, cheap speakers as much as I can to keep initial exploratory costs down.

Find an active cossover unit that I can use to test different crossover frequencies with the different driver designs

Step 1 will be considered finished when I either have a working, not-awful-sounding radialstrahler, or have decided to abandon that aspect and am comfortable focusing on other methods for making omnidirectional sound.

Step 2:

Work on the other parts of the tower, namely the horn-loaded lens tweeter, the mid-bass lens, and the lower cabinet (lots of flexibility for internal design with the cabinet).

The cabinet (and maybe the horn lenses) will require learning to use a speaker simulation software

The bass scoops can come later, as there's not a lot of point building small/low-power scoops

As soon as I have a sense of what the appropriate crossover frequencies will be, order a custom dub preamp such as the RasFX Mini Pre

Get a set of relatively affordable power amps to drive the whole thing. 4 channels for a single tower to start with

Step 2 will be considered complete when I can gift (for cost of materials) a MK1 pair of these speakers to a friend of mine who's into sound system too - and of course build a set for myself!

Step 3:

Assuming everything goes smoothly in Step 2, work on scaling everything up. Size, power levels, etc. The rough goal is to be able to power a party with around 100-200 people. Maybe more, eventually

Try to figure out a way to be able to retain the functionality of a dub preamp for playing reggae, but also run the system in stereo for when I want to play

Build a set of scoop style subwoofers. The more, the bigger, the better!

Step 3, and thus the main body of the project will be considered complete when I have a fully functional, high-power sound system able to at least impress, though maybe not directly 'compete with', the current generation of younger sound systems like Indica Dubs, Ital Power, Creation Rebel, King Majesty, Sinai, and other such outfits.

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Step 4:

If everything up until this point has gone very well, and I feel confident with the various technologies, try to develop the designs to a point where it can stand as a single 'totem pole' style tower that can play to a decently-sized crowd of people.

I picture taking something like that to e.g. Boomtown Festival, and decorating it in all sorts of wacky space-age or mystical art. I think the fung shui of a single, central sound source would be really unique in a festival setting.

The big barrier is that omnis, when places inside, rely on walls and surfaces to create the feeling of 'omnipresence'. Outside, I'm not sure that'd work at all, let alone

Step 4 being complete would inherently require my sound to be powerful enough, high-enough-fidelity, and well-known enough to be included when people talk about "well-established" sound systems. The totem pole thing is a bit of a gimmick, let's be honest.

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Imaginary step 5: If my work on this project can inspire more people to think outside the proverbial speakerbox when it comes to building reggae sound systems, I'd be a happy camper!

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for the 1 or 2 people that might be still paying any attention. This happened recently. We're still pretty on the rocks, but it was really nice. Hopefully we can figure out our distance, our differences, our issues...

edit: scratch that, she dumped me. oh well, at least these are nice memories

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Recent paintings, 'Earth's timeline'.

Ella Webb

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Hello all, hope you're well

Here's a nice song I heard at a festival this summer. hit me pretty deep

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how did I get precisely 0 notes on this god-tier photoshop job I did ;(

he didn’t realize what was behind the door :(

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acid in a nutshell lol

“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.”

Miyamoto Musashi

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Mr. E Gallery 'The Butterfly Hunter' (Jacobs-Slonen) 01-22)

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hmmm

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it’s really cool how the yucatan has all those little tiny ones that end on land, due to the cenote system and it being unclear how the water table is all connected underground there!

River basin map of Central America. Colours represent different catchment areas.

Read more and buy prints here.

Ko-fi | RedBubble | Etsy (digital prints)

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can anyone please recommend some good blogs to follow? 99% of the ones I follow are inactive since the purge and it’s so boring..

interesting, funny, strange, whatever.. I just want more than like 3 active blogs on my feed

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