Trumpet Diffuser

[BPL]

Can any one help me with: designing/building a diffuser specifically for a single trumpet (pointing in a fixed direction/angle). The goal is to allow for an accurate sound in a control booth environment.. ie. not a dead sound.. a live but accurate sound. Also, are there designs for diffusers which allow for adjustments?

Brett

 

[jhbrandt]

Brett,

You will need more than a diffusor to get the sound you want. You need space.

It is the time interval, discreet low level echos followed by diffuse reverberation that gives the trumpet a nice rich sound. If you are doing this at a home studio, you likely do not have the room volume you need, therefore I recommend recording the horn in a well trapped room - not too small. Place gobos around the mic and instrument to record the horn so that the room is invisible.

You can then ad a delayed reverb ITB. Play with it until you get it 'right'.

Cheers,
John

 

[Ethan Winer]

not a dead sound.. a live but accurate sound.

John already gave you the best advice possible. I can add a bit of a theoretical point. Technically speaking, a dead sound is the most accurate. It's accurate because it captures the pure sound of the trumpet with no contribution from room reflections. A "live" sound by definition is not accurate. Rather, it's the accurate sound of the trumpet, plus echo and reverb and possibly comb filtering (frequency response errors) if the room is small. So John's point is right on the money, as always. Small room ambience generally sounds lousy, versus large room reverb which has the potential to sound very good.

--Ethan

 

[kurtdaniel]

Styrofoam will kinda work - but unless it's pretty dense, will pass mids and lows for sure. If I'm going to give up 7-8" of depth, I xpect it to reach down into the mids.

Now, if the density/coating of the styrofoam is good enoug and the wells are calculated/cut correctly, then it would work fine. Normal styrofoam - nah.
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