Monday, October 3, 2011

How To Kill Murmur - The Final Boss In Shadow Labyrinth - World Of Warcraft

This essay will clarify how to kill Murmur; the final boss in Shadow Labyrinth. If you supervene the strategy described below, you will find him to be a fairly easy encounter.

For those that are just working on Karazhan attunement, you do not need to kill Murmur to derive the quest item. Naturally move left along the wall and you will be able to reach the fragment without having to engage Murmur. Make sure that all party members are nearby before you summon the elite. If a player is too far away, they will not be able to loot the quest item and that can be very frustrating as that player will have to perfect the whole instance again.

SONIC BOOM EFFECT

Prior to curious Murmur, everybody should know this boss's special abilities. They are as follows:

How To Kill Murmur - The Final Boss In Shadow Labyrinth - World Of Warcraft

Sonic Boom. This is an Aoe strike that takes a few seconds for him to cast. If you have "view targets spell casting bar" turned on in your interface settings, you will see when he begins to cast this spell and that should allow you sufficient time to move away from him and avoid taking damage. If you get hit with Sonic Boom, it will do damage equal to approx. 75% of your maximum health and will sell out your movement speed by 90%.

Touch of Murmur. This is a debuff that is located on a single, random party member. After ten seconds, it will explode and originate the affected player into the air. everybody within the blast radius will be silenced for a few seconds along with taking approx. 4,000 points of damage. Touch of Murmur is unavoidable. It's best to either have the affected player immediately move away from the party or Naturally position everybody so they won't effect any other player if they happen to get the debuff.

Resonance. Murmur will cast resonance if you fail to keep at least one player within melee range. If he casts resonance, it's a wipe. The debuff does nature damage and increases nature damage taken.

Party positioning

Your healer should stand alone, and be positioned to either the left or to the right of Murmur. The tank will stand directly in front of Murmur. Ranged Dps should position themselves on the opposite side of your Healer. Melee Dps should stand behind Murmur throughout the fight. It's very foremost that the area directly in front of Murmur be left open. Only your tank should be standing there, and nobody should be standing behind the tank. The thinking behind these positions will become clear in a moment.

Step by Step for curious Murmur

1. Your tank engages Murmur where he stands. By the way, Murmur is fixed in position. He will not move throughout the whole fight.

2. The occasion your tank engages Murmur, the rest of the party should begin Dps. You do not need to wait for aggro to be established.

3. When Murmur begins to cast Sonic Boom, your melee Dps (who is positioned directly behind Murmur), should run right transmit and try their best to avoid getting hit by it. Your tank should not move and will need to be healed through each Sonic Boom.

4. Depending on your player class, when you get Touch of Murmur, do the following:

If your tank gets Touch of Murmur, he should not move. Your healer should heal your tank through it. However, all other melee Dps will need to run right transmit to the area in front of Murmur and get away from the Tank to avoid taking damage.

If your healer gets Touch of Murmur, she should just keep curative the tank and stay right where she is standing. If your healer is properly positioned by herself, it should not sway other party members. She will need to heal herself after the explosion.

If ranged Dps gets Touch of Murmur, they need to keep shooting/spell casting. They must keep their Dps maxed at all times. Do not run, it won't do any good. It's more foremost that you continue to Dps. After the explosion, they will need to bandage and/or take health potions. If they are properly positioned, they should not harm whatever else.

If melee Dps gets Touch of Murmur, they need to immediately run transmit to the clear area in front of Murmur. If they are not fast enough, they will wipe your party by killing the tank.

If you supervene the above strategy, Murmur is a very easy kill. The less melee Dps you have in the party, the easier he gets because nobody has to move when they get Touch of Murmur, and the unabridged Dps will be constant throughout the fight.

How To Kill Murmur - The Final Boss In Shadow Labyrinth - World Of Warcraft

Eq and Compression Techniques For Drums in Mixing

Even though the drummer plays the whole kit as a singular instrument, the miking of personel drums and cymbals can make for a very involved mix scenario. The speculate I reference country and rock music specifically has to do with the fact that in these genres the sounds of the personel drums and cymbals are not only singled out by personel microphones located on each of them but also their sounds are exaggerated to generate an even more dramatic effect.

Consider, for example, the tom fills in Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight." By contrast, jazz drums are often treated as a more cohesive, unified sound and it's not unusual to use a simple pair of overhead mics to capture the sound of the whole jazz drum kit.

SONIC BOOM EFFECT

In this article, I'm going to go drum by drum providing Eq and compression settings that will, hopefully, contribute you with a jumping off point to getting great drum sounds in your mix. Because of its all-in-one mixing board channel approach, I'll be using Metric Halo's Channel Strip plug-in with its Eq, compression and noise-gate to expound my comments about various Eq and compression settings.

Eq and Compression Techniques For Drums in Mixing

Kick Drum

As the heartbeat of the contemporary drum kit, the kick drum sound we've grown accustomed to hearing is both boomy and round on the lowest and has a nice, arresting click in the high mid range. It's the balancing act in the middle of Eq and compression that gives the kick drum its capability to stand out in a mix. Beginning with Eq, the best way to accentuate the lows and highs is to remove some low-mids. I'm a big believer in cutting as opposed to boosting Eq to accomplish a desired effect. As a result, I tend to pull somewhere in the middle of 2 to 4db at in the middle of 350hz-450hz. Then, after removing some of this low-mid mud from the sound, I can heighten the clicking sound of the beater hitting the head of the kick drum by boosting colse to 2db in the 2k-3k range. I'm providing approximate dB and frequency range settings because depending on the kick drum, mic placement and, of course the drummer, all of these settings will vary. Use these normal ranges as a jumping off point and then trust your ears.

As far as compression settings go, the trick is to retain the transient assault of the kick drum with a fast but not too fast assault time (9ms in this instance) and then a quick issue (11ms) so the compressor is ready to respond to the next kick drum hit. The ratio I use is a relatively mild 2.5:1 and I adjust the threshold until I hear the kick sound I'm searching for. Finally, in order to give the kick drum sound some disunion from the rest of the kit, I use a noise gate and adjust the threshold to allow the kick sound to come straight through while essentially muting the majority of the other drum/cymbal sounds. Also, while setting the assault to the Channel Strip's fastest "auto" setting, I allow for a long (400ms) release.

Sub Kick

This singular miking trick is one that can be used to bring great low-end presence to the kick drum. By way of explanation, a short stand keeping essentially the woofer of a speaker is located in front of the kick drum and picks up predominantly the low frequencies. When blended with the kick drum mic, the sub-kick generates great power in the lowest part of the frequency.

In order to accentuate the most important elements of the sub kick's sound, I tend to use a low pass filter advent to my Eq that removes all frequencies above 500hz and drops off even more dramatically below 100hz. This is to make sure that only the valuable parts of the sub kick's sound come through. The sub kick should be felt more than it is heard. In terms of compression, a ratio of almost 5:1, a relatively slow assault (120ms) and medium fast issue (57ms) allow the sub kick's tone to stay gift and full underneath the sound of the kick drum's regular miked sound. Then, I'll use a noise gate with a fast assault (20ms) and slower issue (200ms) to keep out any other kit sounds that might otherwise bleed into the sub kick sound.

Snare

Along with the kick drum, the snare drum is valuable for driving a rhythm track. Poor Eq and compression techniques can leave it sounding thin, dull and ordinarily uninspired. In order to accentuate the best parts of the snare sound with Eq, I'll boost the low end of the snare by 2-3dB at colse to 80hz, cut 2-3dB in the middle of 350-450hz and then boost again, if necessary, for more high-end brightness, by 1-2dB at 5k. These three Eq points are a great place to start to sculpt an arresting snare sound.

Compression on a snare is a real balancing act where too much will take away the vigor of the carrying out and too tiny will make it almost impossible to find an thorough level for the snare in the mix. I use a ratio of 2.5:1 with a very quick assault (2ms) and issue (11ms). If you're looking that you're losing the snap of the snare, slow your compressor's assault a tiny but remember that slowing the assault too much will take the compressor too long to grab onto the sound and will leave the snare much less manageable in the mix.

Adjust the threshold settings until things sound right to your ear. This basically allows you to settle how much wide compression you'll be applying. Don't overdo it or the drum will lose its vigor but don't go too lightly or the snare won't stand up in the mix. Gating the snare is a trial and error process as well. Depending on either the snare advent in the song is aggressive or soft will have a lot to do with your threshold settings. Like on the kick drum, I use the very fast "auto" assault and a slower issue on the gate in an endeavor to keep out the ambient sounds of the cymbals, toms and kick.

Hi-Hat

While obviously a cymbal, the hi-hat is often used more as a rhythmic element than a tone color like some of the other cymbals in a drum kit. Manufacture sure it has its own sonic space and speaks clearly without being too loud and distracting is what Eq and compression are about in this instance. For Eq, I'll again use a shelving advent at colse to 200hz that will effectively clear out low-end data that is non-essential to the hi-hat sound. If I'm concerned in bringing in a bit more high-end shimmer and sizzle, I'll boost in the middle of 1-3dB in the middle of 6k and 8k again using my ears to tell me what's working. In general, I tend to stay away from compression on the hi-hat as it tends to find is own dynamic range without too much supplementary help.

Low (Floor) Tom

A well-mixed set of toms can make all the disagreement in the middle of drum fills that are arresting and those that go by without catching the listener's ear. Beginning with the low tom, I tend to look for the places in the frequency range that bring out both the boom and the snap (similar to the way I advent the kick). In order to accentuate the low capability of this drum, I've found that a dramatic cut (12dB) at colse to 500hz allows the drum to speak clearly. Also, to add the high-end snap, a semi-aggressive boost of in the middle of 4-6dB at colse to 3k will do the trick. Compression also adds a lot to this equation. A ratio of colse to 4.5:1, a slower assault of 120ms and medium slow issue of colse to 90ms will help the sound remain full and resonant. For the threshold, I naturally adjust until the tom rings properly. Gating is another major factor for toms as the large diaphragm mics located on these drums tend to pick up a lot of the extraneous sounds from the rest of the kit.

I set the gate with the quickest "auto" assault and a slow 400ms issue and then adjust the threshold until I'm hearing only the low tom come straight through when it's hit. For the "tweak heads" among us there's a slightly more correct and labor-intensive way to do this. By going into the actual sound files in your Daw and deleting all but the tom hits themselves, you can generate a perfectly gated tom track.

High (Rack) Tom

Like the low tom, the high tom has it's own frequencies that should be cut/accentuated to bring out the sweetest parts of the sound. For Eq, I'll do another big cut of colse to 10dB at 600hz and I'll make a similarly big boost of colse to 7dB at almost 2k. For compression, I use a slightly more aggressive 6:1 ratio slower assault (100ms) and a quick issue (25ms). As with the low tom, I'll gate the high tom using the selfsame gate assault (fastest "auto") and issue (400ms). The key to the threshold is to adjust it until only the high tom punches straight through keeping the channel essentially muted for the rest of the time. A final note on the toms, as all tom sizes, tunings and even drummers are different, you'll need to play with these settings until you find the sweet spots.

Overheads / Room Mics

Given that we've made a real endeavor to detach and heighten each of the personel drums in the kit, overhead mics serve the dual purpose of capturing the cymbals and integrating the blended sound of the kit back into the sound of the drums. I pay attention to three exact Eq points in order to give the overhead mics a clean, balanced tone. First I'll use a high pass filter (shelving Eq) at the very low frequency of 40hz to clean up any unnecessary sub-sonic rumbling. Then I'll pull colse to 5dB at in the middle of 100 and 200hz to forestall any low-mid buildup. Finally, if necessary, I'll heighten the wide glow of the cymbals/kit with a small 1-2dB boost at colse to 5k. For compression, I'll set the ratio at about 3:1, the assault at colse to 110ms and the issue at a slightly quicker 70ms. The threshold should be adjusted to make sure that the overhead/room sound blends with the wide kit mix. Finally, adjust the volume of the overhead mics in the mix until you pick up just sufficient of the room to put some air and depth back into the kit.

Limiting the Sub Mix

A final trick to add punch to the wide drum kit is to send all of the personel tracks to a stereo sub mix and place a limiter like the Waves L1 on that stereo auxiliary track. By adjusting the threshold until the attenuation is in the middle of 5-7dB, you'll find that the kit has a of course satisfying wide punch and presence.

Conclusion

While I've been painfully exact about Eq, compression and gate settings, it's important to remember that every mix situation is different. Use all of these settings as a jumping off point and then use your ears to tweak the sounds until you're happy. Good luck!

Eq and Compression Techniques For Drums in Mixing

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Can't Get Up? There Are Alarm Clocks That Shake the Bed

I just finished some research on alarm clocks. Seemed like a dull subject to research until I got into it. There has been some strong technology developed to get heavy sleepers up and some stronger technology developed for the hearing impaired. If you exclude the standard run of the mill alarm clock, there are three variations of what we will call the extra loud alarm clock.

Alarms with a high decibel level sound to waken the sleeper Alarms with a high decibel level sound and has a mechanism that shakes the bed For the hearing impaired, does all of the above, plus flashing lights and also integrates with the door bell, telephone and other in house notification systems.
High Decibel Sound

SONIC BOOM EFFECT

The first category of alarm clock is designed to wake the heavy sleeper with nothing but shear, high decibel sound of one form or another. Bells, buzzers, or sirens waken the deep sleeper depending on what works best for them. Timex has the most offerings in the high decibel sound category, followed by Westclox, Equity and Screaming Meanie. The prices range from to . There are a variety of colors available (Timex has one in pink). You can get them in digital or analog and one by Westclox even has the old mechanical bells on top. Equity has the lowest cost offering coming in at . Screaming Meanie has the highest decibel sound at 120 decibels and also has the highest price for the high decibel level, about .

High Decibel Sound With Bed Shaker and Lights

In this group, the user can select to wake up to a loud pulsating audio alarm or vibrating bed shaker. The bed shaker is a vibrating pad triggered by the alarm that goes under the mattress or under the pillow. Sonic Alert offers the most alarms in this category. The only other alarm offering a bed shaker that we could find besides Sonic Alert was the iLuv iMM153 iPod Alarm Clock Radio with Vibrating Bed Shaker. It touts not only a bed shaker but links to your iPod and has digital FM radio. It also has a charging unit for your iPod to get it ready for the next day. Expect to pay - for these alarms. Sonic alert has several offerings in the - range. The iLuv is at the top of the range at nearly .

Hearing Impaired

We found three offerings in this category. The Sonic Alert Sonic Boom SB1000 provides 113 db alarm, bed shaker and flashing lights. The Sonic Alert Sonic Boom SBT425 Alarm Clock not only offers the high decible alarm, bed shaker and flashing light but also comes with a built-in telephone signaler so you don't miss any calls. The Sonic Alert alarms in this category range from to . The highest capability, highest price offering in the category is The Alertmaster 6000. In addition waking, it notifies of 6 events including telephone, doorbell, baby crying, etc.It does so by audio alarms, flashing lamp, bed shaker and a vibrating personal signaler. As you would expect with all this capability, the price is up there on this unit from 0 to 0.

With this knowledge under your belt, there is no excuse for sleeping in in the morning even if you are a heavy sleeper. On a more serious note, the offerings for the hearing impaired include some home safety features that are a must

Can't Get Up? There Are Alarm Clocks That Shake the Bed

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Bed Shaking Alarm Clock - Why You Need One

The bed shaking alarm clock is for the heavy sleeper who regularly sleeps through an ordinary alarm clock. It is possible to be so heavily asleep that you can sleep through an alarm clock which makes just an ordinary sound. I know, because I have done it many times. So that is not enough to help this category of sleeper.

Who Else Might Benefit From A Bed Shaking Alarm Clock?

SONIC BOOM EFFECT

Someone who is hard of hearing. Noise alone is not going to be an effective method of waking the person who has difficulty hearing sound. One possible solution could be to increase the volume of noise and see if that has an effect. After all, there must be a threshold, past which a hearing impaired person might be able to detect sounds of different intensity. The problem with that solution, is that other people would be able to hear the noise as well. You do not always want to wake everyone else within earshot at the same time as you wake up yourself.

Given that sound is not going to be effective for heavy sleepers or the hearing impaired, another and more positive solution could be to shake that person awake. Now, just in case you are visualising this happening by human hands, let me reassure you that this is not what I mean.

There are electrical devices, or pods, which perform this function very well and effectively. If you would like to know more about this and how they can wake you up so well, see the resource box at the end of this article.

Shake Yourself Awake

Essentially, a bed shaking alarm clock wakes you by means of vibration, and this shakes you awake. It is arguably a more effective method of waking someone than the traditional alarm function of a clock. You need to try it for yourself if you have not used one of these devices before, but they do work, and they don't wake the whole neighbourhood at the same time either.

Bed Shaking Alarm Clock - Why You Need One

How To Kill Murmur - The Final Boss In Shadow Labyrinth - World Of Warcraft

This essay will explain how to kill Murmur; the final boss in Shadow Labyrinth. If you follow the strategy described below, you will find him to be a fairly easy encounter.

For those that are just working on Karazhan attunement, you do not need to kill Murmur to acquire the quest item. Simply move left along the wall and you will be able to reach the fragment without having to engage Murmur. Make sure that all party members are nearby before you summon the elite. If a player is too far away, they will not be able to loot the quest item and that can be extremely frustrating as that player will have to complete the entire instance again.

SONIC BOOM EFFECT

Prior to engaging Murmur, everyone should know this boss's special abilities. They are as follows:

Sonic Boom. This is an AOE attack that takes a few seconds for him to cast. If you have "view targets spell casting bar" turned on in your interface settings, you will see when he begins to cast this spell and that should allow you enough time to move away from him and avoid taking damage. If you get hit with Sonic Boom, it will do damage equal to approx. 75% of your maximum health and will reduce your movement speed by 90%.

Touch of Murmur. This is a debuff that is placed on a single, random party member. After ten seconds, it will explode and launch the affected player into the air. Everyone within the blast radius will be silenced for a few seconds along with taking approx. 4,000 points of damage. Touch of Murmur is unavoidable. It's best to either have the affected player immediately move away from the party or simply position everyone so they won't effect any other player if they happen to get the debuff.

Resonance. Murmur will cast resonance if you fail to keep at least one player within melee range. If he casts resonance, it's a wipe. The debuff does nature damage and increases nature damage taken.

Party positioning

Your healer should stand alone, and be positioned to either the left or to the right of Murmur. The tank will stand directly in front of Murmur. Ranged DPS should position themselves on the opposite side of your Healer. Melee DPS should stand behind Murmur throughout the fight. It's very important that the area directly in front of Murmur be left open. Only your tank should be standing there, and nobody should be standing behind the tank. The reasoning behind these positions will become clear in a moment.

Step by Step for engaging Murmur

1. Your tank engages Murmur where he stands. By the way, Murmur is fixed in position. He will not move throughout the entire fight.

2. The moment your tank engages Murmur, the rest of the party should begin DPS. You do not need to wait for aggro to be established.

3. When Murmur begins to cast Sonic Boom, your melee DPS (who is positioned directly behind Murmur), should run straight forward and try their best to avoid getting hit by it. Your tank should not move and will need to be healed through each Sonic Boom.

4. Depending on your player class, when you get Touch of Murmur, do the following:

If your tank gets Touch of Murmur, he should not move. Your healer should heal your tank through it. However, all other melee DPS will need to run straight forward to the area in front of Murmur and get away from the Tank to avoid taking damage.

If your healer gets Touch of Murmur, she should just keep healing the tank and stay right where she is standing. If your healer is properly positioned by herself, it should not affect other party members. She will need to heal herself after the explosion.

If ranged DPS gets Touch of Murmur, they need to keep shooting/spell casting. They must keep their DPS maxed at all times. Do not run, it won't do any good. It's more important that you continue to DPS. After the explosion, they will need to bandage and/or take health potions. If they are properly positioned, they should not harm anyone else.

If melee DPS gets Touch of Murmur, they need to immediately run forward to the clear area in front of Murmur. If they are not fast enough, they will wipe your party by killing the tank.

If you follow the above strategy, Murmur is a very easy kill. The less melee DPS you have in the party, the easier he gets because nobody has to move when they get Touch of Murmur, and the overall DPS will be constant throughout the fight.

How To Kill Murmur - The Final Boss In Shadow Labyrinth - World Of Warcraft

Monday, August 1, 2011

Does the Sonic Repeller Really Work?

Sonic repellers are the new age solution for pest control. It can be used as a pest repellent against bats, rats, mosquitoes and many other insects. Sonic repellers works by generating a frequency of sounds which the pests are unable to tolerate and it eventually gets rid of them. If you are wondering, how could it be effective against multiple types of pest, read on.

With variable sound output, repellers can be the answer to all your pest problem. Sonic repellers use the simple theory of ultrasonic wave (cannot be heard with human ears) in driving way the rodents. It is considered safe and environment friendly as there is no mess created during the pest control process. With multiple frequency option for different types of pests, you need not have multiple rodent and pest control devices. This feature has made it widely popular and nowadays, repellers are preferred over many other traditional ways of pest control.

SONIC BOOM EFFECT

It's easy to use and all you need to do is plug the device into an electric socket. With compact models, sonic repeller devices are easy to carry around. The devices can also be used with batteries. This can be helpful when you are camping or traveling. However, care should be taken while using the device for it to be effective. Since the device works on sound waves, you need to ensure that there are not many solid objects which can disturb the sound wave.

Are sonic repellers really effective?

There are sections of people who vouch of its effectiveness as well as for its ineffectiveness. Few researchers believe that the rodents and pests get used to the sound after a while and therefore it is ineffective. Also, few claim that the effect is temporary and that the pests return once the device is switched off. However, the effects can only be seen only when the device is used regularly. This will also ensure that the pest does not return. Another thing to note is that, sonic repeller can be effective only up to 3,500 square feet.

Does the Sonic Repeller Really Work?

Shockwave Therapy

Shockwave Therapy. It's not the most inviting phrase. And because of the word "shock," some tendonitis and plantar fasciitis patients Dr. Darren Pollack sees in his Manhattan office mistakenly believe the treatment involves some sort of electric shock. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's time to clear up some of the misconceptions and explain the controlled sonic pulses used in this alternative orthopedic treatment.

Shockwave therapy is a relative newcomer to the world of connective tissue treatment therapies. The first time the biological effects of sound waves on living tissue were brought to light was during World War II, when doctors found that underwater depth charges were responsible for lung damage in some rescued castaways. In this case, the sound waves were powerful enough to injure tissue-but the research that ensued led to the focused, therapeutic use of sound waves to treat and heal living tissue.

SONIC BOOM EFFECT

Lithotripsy is the earliest example of shockwave therapy. As Dr. Darren Pollack explains, most people have heard of the standard kidney stone therapy-though few realize that it the kidney stones are broken up by sound waves.

In the 1990's, medical practitioners began applying the same technology to the treatment of tendon-related conditions.

So what exactly is clinical shockwave therapy?
It is, simply, the creation of a sonic pulse-a little like a jet exploding past the speed of sound and creating a sonic boom-but on a "micro" scale. Why a sonic pulse heals tendons is something of a medical mystery. Dr. Darren Pollack and most of his medical peers believe the shockwaves result in a kind of micro-trauma to the abnormal connective tissue. The consequent inflammation may induce a heightened healing response at the site.

What conditions is shockwave therapy used to treat?
The Dasha Wellness patients Dr. Darren Pollack commonly treats with this approach include Plantar fasciitis (heel spurs), shoulder tendinitis, patellar tendinitis (jumper's knee), lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow), medial epicondylitis (golfer's elbow).

Does it really work? Numerous studies show that shockwave therapy is indeed an effective treatment for these conditions. What is more, none of the studies undertaken on shockwave therapy has shown any side effects.

What can I expect from shockwave treatment?
The Dasha Wellness clinician puts the probe on the injured area and delivers the sonic waves for ten to 20 minutes. Some patients report mild discomfort during the treatment, but all patients are able to perform normal activities in between sessions. Dasha Wellness in Manhattan typically performs the therapy with three to five sessions, a week apart. Healing may take as much as six to eight weeks.

Shockwave Therapy