Cochlear Kill

A shoegazing gear nerds journey through sound.

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New music video for Insomni-Stations.

Tune In.... Turn On..... (VHS) Tape out 

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Sony Invents New Super Tape 

But will it make these sound any better?

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i ♥ tape hiss : 1966 Tape Recorder Annual

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It was a good year.....

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Mot Q - Calrec PQ1549 Equalizer  

My first piece of DIY studio gear made several years ago. This EQ is taken from the legendary Calrec "Polar" Consoles. Gyraf made the PCB layout. I Made my own front panel with frontpanelexpress.com

You can hear it in action on Chroming in the post below.

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The "Synth" sound through out the song is actually drums fed through a vocoder then into a Calrec Eq clone which I manipulated the boost/cut and freq knobs on in realtime to the beat of the music - Creating a trippy filter effect.

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Added to the arsenal of studio Cochlear Kill - The classic Sennheiser MD 441. Sounds good on everything and yet another credit to be added to the resume of German engineering along with Cars, Panzers and Blitzkriegs across Europe......Just kidding Germans your alright!

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Space Rock Guitar Sound

Boss PH-1 Phaser + Diamond Memory Lane Jr in The FX loop of an Overdriven Fender Super Sonic. Feedback on the Memory Lane Jr is up almost full to create that self oscillating sound. Tempo subdivision switch is set to dotted 8ths. 

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Ambitious stuff - I’m trying to get 1,000,000 likes on this Facebook photo.  I’m wearing a Shoegaze T Shirt - image 1,000,000 views of the word shoegaze!!! We could get Ride back together at this rate! If you can help out, it would be sooooo much appreciated. Click here to “like” Without coming over as being spammy, if you can reblog, that would be great Thanks for your time and appreciate whatever support you can lend to this Dean

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DIY Tone Bender Mark II Clone

I made this clone several years ago and its many chips bare witness to various stages round Brisbane it was stomped on before I escaped south to Melbourne.

Thought I'd dig it out to add some fuzz sizzle to new Cochlear Kill song Colour Me Radd.

All the guitars in this recording are through the Tone Bender pedal. Fender Stratocaster into a Fender Super Sonic Amplifier. No Eq.

   The pedal features NOS germanium transistors sourced from Small Bear Electronics. PCB is home etched and artwork was done with printable decals from a hobby store.....I think?

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Feeding vinyl into vintage mixing desk

All the way from Norway two NOS RIAA preamps for the Chilton CM4 mixing console. 

Chilton Phono RIAA Preamps

When fitted to a M44 stereo channel these preamps allow the playback of phonographic records straight into the desk. Being a broadcast mixing console from the early 80's this would have been a necessary feature for DJ's still slinging vinyl before the arrival of CD's. Now its a cool way for me sample records!

Preamps fitted to M44 stereo channel

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Cochlear Kill @thecurtin with Melbourne Mixtape Exchange #live #dreampop #indie

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Mixtapes from Melbourne Mixtape Exchange show with #PrettyCity click picture to read MME interview with Cochlear Kill #cassette #mixtape #shoegaze #walkman

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Full on Cassette-Core this Thursday!

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DIY Film clip for Cochlear Kill song To Anywhere But Here.  Filmed around Melbourne and Bundaberg on a Canon Auto Zoom 814 Electronic Super-8 and a Sony Cybershot. Put together in After Effects.

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DIY recording drums

Today we tracked bed tracks for a new EP.  Songs recorded included Blush, Check Your Smile, Approaching Mons Veneris By Balloon, Fuck St Kilda (working title) and Purple Ether (working title). Drums were mic'd as follows. 

Inside Kick - Beyer M88 - JLM 99V - Calrec PQ1549

Outside Kick - Peluso 2247 - Chilton CM4 Console Preamp

Snare top 1 - ATM 450 - JLM 99V - Urei La12 compressor

Snare top 2 - Shure SM7 - Chilton CM4 Console Preamp

Overheads - Shure KSM 141 - Chilton CM4 Console Preamp

Rack / Floor Tom - Oktava 012 - API 312 

Bass / Guitar guide tracks - CM4 Console Preamp

Overhead placement was somewhere between Glyn Johns / Recordman style - with one placed near floor tom pointing towards the snare and the other directly above the snare - both in phase. Room sounded surprisingly good though the Overheads needed a fair bit of lower mids sucked out of them to stop the cymbals sounding shitty.

Postscipt : These sessions ended up becoming the Blush EP. On reflection not really happy with the drums sound. Too dead - needed room mics to give the drums more whack.