Greg

Greg's Web Page
MSA/Steel King Sounds

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So what do we do about these millisecond differences? And how can we possibly guarantee that two MIDI notes will occur at the exact same time? Here's the product pitch: a tool that sent me scurrying to find all the faults with my own production studio.?Jeanius, a company in San Antonio, has provided the recording world with a tool to simplify the judgment and analysis of all these time errors. It is called the Russian Dragon (RD-R and RD-T), named for its ability to accurately perceive if your audio is "rushin'" ahead or "draggin'" behind a reference source you supply. The idea for the unit came from Audio Engineer/Designer Marius Perron and his drumming brother, who had always wished they had a mechanism to judge how closely he was playing to the sequenced tracks. Marius made the prototype to remove both guesswork from the sessions and tension from not knowing who was right. The unit gave honest feedback to the drummer, the engineer, and the producer. Description: The Anatomy of the Russian Dragon?The Russian Dragon is available in a small rack-mount version (the RD-R) and a less expensive tabletop version (RD-T). I opted for the rack-mount model.?The RD-R is an uncomplicated single-space rack-mount unit with 1/4-inch inputs on the back and the front. The top input (channel 1) is used for the reference and the bottom input (channel 2) is used for the other audio event you will judge to be dragging (slow), rushing (fast), or dead on (what Jeanius calls "snake eyes") relative to the reference. The unit features an input level control and four LEDs for visual confirmation of audio and amplitude adjustment. A large row of 25 colored LEDs indicates the timing differences from a tenth of a millisecond to 99 milliseconds. The LEDs are adjustable in 1-9 millisecond increments as set by a selector knob marked "ms per LED." A trigger LED indicates the presence and duration of the two signals. The duration is adjustable by a "Mask Control." By increasing the length of the Mask Control, you can eliminate accidental re-triggering of the timing LEDs. This allows the unit to ignore delay characteristics or extraneous sounds that would make analysis difficult.

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I think they are specific Hardware solution to a MIDI problem.

Great Name though, you are right about that....

there's a Band called Russian Dragon Band too, aparently have a myspace page

the Amazing Slowdowner is a fine package for manipulating sound files to speed up or slow down without changing pitch, good for learning those rapid flurries of notes off of old recordings (or new ones )

[This message was edited by Dave Van Allen on 21 June 2006 at 11:30 AM.]

It looks like outdated technology, but the name is way cool!

Here's an article from 1994: http://www.notable.com/index.php?page=about

[This message was edited by Joey Ace on 21 June 2006 at 11:29 AM.]

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http://www.johnmcgann.com
Info for musicians, transcribers, technique tips and fun stuff. Joaquin Murphey transcription book, Rhythm Tuneup DVD and more...

"Hi Marius Perron here. In the ‘80’s we were recording to 2 inch tape. People were doing a lot of MIDI sequencing, but sequenced drums were not as exciting as real drums. So, we would get my brother, Laurent, to come into the studio and overdub live drums. And even though he is a very stable drummer, there were times that we could hear that he was off, but it was hard to decide if he was ahead or behind the click. And at 5 AM it was hard to decide if he was FAR OFF ENOUGH to make him try it again. My brother said it would be cool if there was a box that would TELL a drummer what he doing wrong…

So I put some CMOS circuits together with some LED’s and built a prototype. The name “Russian Dragon” came from a monster San Antonio musician/steel guitar player named Randy Reinhard. Randy was kidding around in the studio one day about somebody not playing close enough to the click and he said, “He’s a Russian Dragon”. I thought that would be a good name for the box. (Thanks, Randy).

I found an attorney in the phone book and had the device patented. I bought a software program called “Tango” to layout the printed circuit boards. It would only run on a PC, so I bought my first computer – a 386 with a 40 megabyte hard drive. My wife, Jeanine, invested money to market the box. She came up with the name for our company: Jeanius Electronics (since her name is Jeanine and my name is Marius…) She would solder the circuit boards in the kitchen, do complete assembly and packing in the living room, and take orders on the phone. I was spending time with desktop publishing software putting together the next month’s ad for the trade magazines: Mix, Electronic Musician, Modern Drummer, EQ, Keyboard, etc.

Every year we would rent a booth at the trade shows (NAMM and AES). We had two models: a rack version ($500) and a table top version ($250). We didn’t make a lot of profit, but we did get to meet and chat with some very smart engineers and producers. I remember selling a unit to Dean Parks (one of the members of this forum) at a California trade show…

In the early ‘90’s sales started slowing down – people were using computers and could SEE and FIX the timing problems. In 1993 we had our first child, and our priorities changed. We assumed the Russian Dragon would die a long, slow death… But then in 1998, we were contacted by a company called “Interactive Metronome” who had discovered that you could use our technology to treat kids with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)!!!!!! So we sold them our patent. Part of our agreement was that we could so longer produce or sell any Russian Dragons. You can check out their video demo here: http://www.interactivemetronome.com/im/cli_add.asp?dsp=4

I was pleased last month to read that Mike McKnight http://www.mcknightsoundsinc.com/askmike.html is now using a Russian Dragon to make sure his computers are in sync:

The 3 systems need to be in sync as much as possible in my world, but I don’t want a central synchronizer because if that dies then the whole show stops. So what I do as inelegant and Stone Age as it may sound, is I have a JL Cooper CS10 that I use to stop and start all 3 rigs via MIDI. Sometimes they all start together and are very close to being in perfect sync, but sometimes they go their own way. I have a Russian Dragon (no longer made unfortunately) that I send a click to from my A and B systems to confirm that I’m at least within 30 Ms or so of being in sync. The thought process here is that if a system dies the oh crap factor will dictate that it’ll take me a second or 2 to realize what is happening and switch to the backup system anyway, so on the rare occasions I have to do this the drummer adjusts very quickly and all is well.

Thanks,

Marius Perron

PS. Who is the heck is “Replay Technologies Inc” ????"

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Tommy Detamore

www.cherryridgestudio.com

hi everyone

try this link
is beautiful program for music
speed licks to slow down and more.
i use these much .and works good

frank

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Zumsteel D10 ...8+4
peavey session 400
lexicon 550

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Randy was kidding around in the studio one day about somebody not playing close enough to the click and he said, “He’s a Russian Dragon”. I thought that would be a good name for the box. (Thanks, Randy).

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TD

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Tommy Detamore

www.cherryridgestudio.com