How an Atomic Clock Was Used to Record a House-Sized Instrument

nestle on a Malibu hillside , three miles up a bottle screw - like road from the Pacific Coast Highway , sit around a very particular house . protrude through a miss window in the basement are 18 brass strings , tethered to a mountain 30 yards away . And at any fourth dimension of day , you might hear their haunting vibration echoing on the canyon walls .

basically the house is a giant instrument — the bedchamber made from marine - grade plywood residue at bottom ; the strings sequester to the nearby drop — contrive and played by musicianWilliam Close . He call off it the Earth Harp .

You might have seen Close on America ’s Got Talent last evenfall when he strung his Earth Harp up over the audience and razz vocal out of it using only his gloved finger’s breadth . He ’s installed like site - specific versions of the Earth Harp at piles of locations , from the Space Needle to a synagogue in India , Burning Man to the New York Public Library — all of which he build up himself .

In fact , in accession to serving as the resonator of his mouth harp , Close ’s domicile studio is like the science laboratory of a insane , Steampunk scientist , where he has build hundreds of instrument from materials as quotidian as Ikea mixing bowls and as exotic as a gourd pipe from Shanghai . “ The first tool I ever made was the fumes pipe harp , ” Close laughs . “ The fact that it was so great - sounding was what made me pursue making more music . ”

It ’s here at his home , using his permanently instal Earth Harp , that Close recorded his raw album , Behind the Veil . And it ’s also where his collaborators fromAntelope Audiogot to dally around with a novel mastering gadget that ’s able-bodied to bridge over the analog - digital water parting using revolutionary technology — an embed nuclear clock .

When Marcel James , the mastering locomotive engineer at Antelope , initially learn the audio from Close , he did n’t empathise exactly how the music had been generated . Was it a cello ? A fiddle ? He Googled Close ’s name and was stunned by what he take care . “ There ’s no other pawn on the planet that create these timber , ” he tell me . “ Lots of advanced music is computer - give — this is a fully constitutive instrument so you ca n’t ignore the air that the infinite is perform in . ”

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Any recording or mastering gimmick is plagued with the challenges of “ chasing tape”—trying to regurgitate the faithfulness of analog using digital methods . The Earth Harp was recorded with four dynamical microphones : Two inside the chamber and two on the strings . But those analogue highs and lows which near capture are notoriously knockout to digitize . To pull out the full grasp of the Earth Harp ’s nuanced undertones and ticklish frequencies , James used Antelope ’s gorgeousRubicon Atomic AD / DA Preamp , which is assist by an insanely high sampling pace but also has a occult weapon : a rubidium atomic clock that ’s reported to be 100,000 times more accurate than the quartz oscillator institute in most studios .

While nuclear clocking is being embraced by some in the music manufacture , it ’s mostly being used for score mellow - budget megahit films ( Avatar , for example ) , where precision and lineament might weigh enough for the respectable Leontyne Price tag end . Not all are convinced of the atomic clock ’s benefit : As a musician friend described it to me , it ’s like using a baseball field to cut your tomatoes — it works damn well , but could never be worth the investment , peculiarly when your audience is listen in an more and more Earbud and Jambox humanity .

But James believes that Antelope ’s engineering science can help uphold the architectural force of the Earth Harp . “ you could pick up the sound three - dimensionally , ” he sound out .

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Standing beneath Close ’s Earth Harp as he plays it , I believe I can in reality feel what James is talking about — it ’s almost as if the air is heavy with strait . Those are in reality the thick , chunky soundwaves that I ’m feeling , says Close , drawing the various waves in the melodic line for me . And that ’s what ’s he suppose is not only multiply , but enhance , by Antelope ’s technical school .

“ One of the affair I love is about this is that it ’s an electro - acoustic experience , ” says Close , holding his hands close to the still - vibrating string . “ There ’s an chemistry to it . When I heard the recordings after Marcel had solve on them with the Antelope gear , there was also this sort of magic trick to them , a quality to the sound — it ’s like an muscularity . ”

justice for yourself by heed to his version of The Who ’s “ Love , Reign O’er Me . ” you could buy Close ’s albumBehind the Veil , out on iTunes now .

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