On August 19th 2009, CRAS instructor and tech Jeff Harris guided students in building their own reamp box of Jeff’s design.  A reamp box allows recorded instruments such as electric guitars to be re-recorded by directing the output of a recorded audio track back into an instrument amplifier.  Normally the audio output from a recorder outputs a signal that is too high in level.  The reamp box solves this problem by taking the high level output and lowering it to a volume that instrument  amplifiers expect.  At that point the instrument amplifiers can be set to the desired sound and re-recorded with a microphone. To have a little more fun, students used their newly created reamps to feed multiple guitar amps and speakers that were setup on the Convervatory’s live sound stage.  Audio was provided by an Alesis HD-24 hard disk recorder playing back a previously recorded session.  Guitar, bass, drums and vocal tracks were each sent to independent speakers so that students could examine how sound combines in air, as opposed to being mixed with electronics.  See photos from the event here.

There’s nothing like spending a lazy Sunday afternoon building your very own optical compressor!  That’s what CRAS students and instructors did under the supervision of Conservatory instructor and grammy award winner Jeff Thomas.  This particular piece of audio deliciousness is inspired by the legendary LA-2A compressor, but with a few of chef Jeff’s own special mods for additional spice.  Ingredients were specially brought in from China, United Kingdom and the good ol’ USA.   Check out photos from the event held on June 28th, 2009.

On June 3rd, CRAS Students built their own version Keith’s Black Box!  Conservatory live sound instructor Keith Morris helped students build an i/o box that uses Keith’s own proprietary transformer design.  Keith’s Black Box can be used to convert balanced to unbalanced or vice versa, remove ground loops, and add or subtract 6dB of amplitude on stereo signals.  Most importantly many prefer the sonic coloration the box imparts on all signals that pass through it!    Check out photos from the event here.

CRAS’s student chapter of the the AES (Audio Engineering Society) put on a microphone build clinic for all interested students.  The diminutive omni directional microphone fits entirely in a Switchcraft XLR connector. Microphone kits cost just $20… labor not included!  Check out some photos from the event.

While they’re on campus, CRAS students have the opportunity to build their own guitar amps, cable testers, speakers and more. Build Your Own Clone offers many DIY kits for the avid audio geek or musician wanting to create their own gear.