Journeys Unknown

In this post I'd like to talk about some of the challenges, decisions and research which have led me to refocus and refine the project. In the 2025 summer break, between second and third year, I started working on what would become 'Journeys Unknown'. I started working on the concepts, planned the arrangements and themes, and created a mood board to help inspire and remind me of the direction of the music. Initially, it was a longer project, with more tracks, closer to an album, but it soon dawned on me that if I was going to get my other assignments finished on time and be able to complete this project, I would need to reduce the scale and break it into more manageable chunks. I settled on 5 tracks instead of 9 and reduced the amount and type of equipment I was planning to make. I had originally planned to make a colour box, an E-bow, and spring and plate reverbs along with the pieces seen in previous posts. I started to write some music and got a demo of 'Sleeping Wit...

It's taken me a while to gather everything needed for this instalment of the blog, everything from the daily grind and the extra rainy British weather, to balancing uni and work has meant that getting out and making a mess has been tricky recently. Anyway...  In this post I will show you how I made a couple of easy microphones and a fake drum room, that can be used to enhance and add flavour to lots of different recordings. basic soldering skills and use of hand tools is necessary for these projects. Audio clips of these experiments are available at https://tomweber.bandcamp.com/ The tools needed for these projects are: a Drill, Soldering Iron, Solder and Flux, Saw, Hacksaw, Scissors, Pliers, Spanners, Hot Glue Gun, Screwdrivers, Thread lock, Tape. Soup Can Mic The first mic, and easiest to gather the parts for is the Soup Can Mic. This mic has a very vintage "old school radio" flavour to it, which gives a fun lo-fi texture to vocals and acoustic instruments.   To make th...