Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[rwj1313]

compasspnt wrote on Tue, 17 January 2006 02:18

Then out came the cheapy Behringer sdc pencil mics that I had recently bought just to get the stereo mic holder bar (as mentioned in another PSW post somewhere).  Never thought I'd actually use the mics, but here was a great opportunity! Perfect sound.

Terry,

When you say "Perfect sound" does that mean the mics sound crappy which is in line with your theme of old crappy piano sound or did the mics actually do OK?

Rick

[compasspnt]

Good question.  A lot of the former, and a bit of the latter.

I have now also tried these mics (C2's) on the Yamaha piano, and for certain things, they can do OK.

They are certainly bright, and I would say somewhat unnaturally so, but in some instances, that can be a good thing.  I would NEVER use these mics for a 'beautiful' piano sound, for instance.  For that, I would go with my Neumann KM 86's, or KM 84's, or recently I've gotten good results with the R

[compasspnt]

collins wrote on Tue, 17 January 2006 14:11

btw...any chance of getting a photo of that National? ask and ye shall receive right?

Here it is.  JB singing the track while playing the National.





photo

[bigbone]

Mr Manning said...........
Then out came the cheapy Behringer sdc pencil mics that I had recently bought just to get the stereo mic holder bar (as mentioned in another PSW post somewhere).  Never thought I'd actually use the mics, but here was a great opportunity!

Perfect sound.


it is to show i guess that it's not the gear, but the guys...........

[Collins]

Thanks Terry,

She's a beauty.
Nice of you to let her out of the case on occasion
and allow us a look see.

and a great story, which truly personifies
'whatever works'.....

Curious, was this track kept 'raw' with
the vocal mic and/or resonator mic bleed?

Did that work ok within the context of the tune?
or did it require overdubbing/doubling of some sort?


Paul

[Kris]

My Jojo connection (braggin' rights

I played harmonica on a track for my friends' album a few years ago.  
They live in Athens, GA and were in a bar one evening and it just so happened that Jojo was sitting at the other end of the bar.  
The bartender was my friends' buddy, and had their cd so he popped it into the player.  
He then went down to Jojo and pointed out my friends, and told him that it was their music...
Jojo listened for a bit and his one comment was..."Who is that harmonica player."

Anyways, what a killer vibe that must be, ... can't wait to hear the album... I'm a big fan!!!

[compasspnt]

collins wrote on Mon, 23 January 2006 12:43

Thanks Terry, She's a beauty. Nice of you to let her out of the case on occasion and allow us a look see. and a great story, which truly personifies 'whatever works'..... Curious, was this track kept 'raw' with the vocal mic and/or resonator mic bleed? Did that work ok within the context of the tune? or did it require overdubbing/doubling of some sort? Paul

Thanks.

The guitar will now probably go on to it's "On Loan From" home at the Robert Johnson Museum.  It may have seen its last session, at least for a long while.

On the track, indeed we used the actual guitar and the actual vocal, all live.  No redo's there.  The piano, of course, was overdubbed.  It was "in tune" with itself, but had to be vari-sped to get up 55 cents to pitch.

Album going great.  Release later this year.

[cerberus]

compasspnt wrote on Mon, 23 January 2006 17:45

The piano, of course, was overdubbed. It was "in tune" with itself, but had to be vari-sped to get up 55 cents to pitch.

how do you compensate for the timing drift? i guess i assumed that you track directly to 2" tape...did you xfer the track to 1/4" and then dub it back? are you flying in each phrase with the punch button? isn't the timing of every note too fast by 2% or something?

but why you don't fix the problem it at the source?  perhaps a good tuner can listen to it now and just correct the pitch center drift but not change the intonation and then you can re-record it at that point the way it -does- sound... isn't this the advice we always give?

i am dealing with an out of tune upright now.. it does not occur to me that it might have drifted up or down in a consistent fashion...and varispeed could work... so i am intrigued by this approach as I am shocked to hear in the end you felt the piano's character was not perfect or didn't choose to detune the instruments on other tracks to match it... are we very concerned that listeners would pick up on that because every track on the cd/radio has to be equal tempered western scale or it seems weird to the mainstream?

i would like more records like strawberry fields to be made , so i hope you make this work.(i have no idea about widespread panic, so that is not necessarily this record, but to see engineers breaking new ground using simple techniques but in ingenious ways in the future.)

jeff

[compasspnt]

Hi Jeff,


While of course the performance and sound are always paramount, in this particular case, aesthetics and concept were also important.


The idea of finding a piano in a field, right next door to the building in which we were recording, and right outside the very back door of the very studio we were using, was too good to be true.


If we actually found a piano, we certainly couldn't have it tuned...it had to be used as found.  The old beast was sounding perfectly both in and out of tune (to its own pitch centre), just as we wanted...very "Mississippi Juke Joint."


Naturally, having said this, and as much as I wanted to use it totally as it was, the pitch "centre" could not be left 55 cents flat at the end of the day...


We were recording in Protools, so my options were to:

*varispeed the playback

[this would have taken a few minutes to set up, because I was not using any PT sync device that would allow varispeed at the time...

I DID NOT want to delay even those few minutes, so as to take away at all from the excitement at hand...

remember, this all happened VERY quickly...

from inception of idea, to discovery of instrumentation, to setup of remote apparatus, to reception of sound into immortalisation device took only about 20 minutes]

*record as-was, and deal with it later

[we did, after all, have a great player at hand and at the ready...

one who was fully capable of listening in one "key" while playing in another]


I chose the latter.


Once recorded, it was a simple matter to Serato the results to move it to our pitch home.


After all, I couldn't really "hurt" the sound!

[cerberus]

i mistook "vari-speed" literally... like it meant a knob on a tape deck. and that you used a strobe tuner or someone with perfect pitch to know it needed 55 cents...

Quote:

I DID NOT want to delay even those few minutes, so as to take away at all from the excitement at hand... remember, this all happened VERY quickly... from inception of idea, to discovery of instrumentation, to setup of remote apparatus, to reception of sound into immortalisation device took only about 20 minutes]

 oh i know what that is about.. one artist i mix for  makes their own recordings and he sometimes clip digitally [not anymore since he learned from me i hope] and he won't re-record some songs or touch the sessions claiming he would never capture those special moments in time again. so i did fix the clipping but every other engineer i knew told me i was nuts and the guy should be forced to re-record the whole track.  he was inspired and he just hit record and went off... was not attentive to the recording.. but.. it's his music, and i didn't want to lose it by rejecting the track.

jeff

[Collins]

Thanks again Terry,

Good to hear the recording is going well, although
not a huge WP fan, i'm really looking forward to the release now.

It'll be cool to hear the piano OD and how that worked out.

As usual, you have been most gracious by offering up a small
slice of the various nuances on this session.

Quote:

The guitar will now probably go on to it's "On Loan From" home at the Robert Johnson Museum. It may have seen its last session, at least for a long while.

So did you borrow the guitar for this session?...
or are you referring to your own RJ collection?

Paul

[bigbone]

I did buy the C2 mic ....these are not my rode K2, but i didn't expect theses to be,
i can't wait to try them as OH'S, as a FX mic or something,
plus at that price 69 $ CAN, you got nothing to loose,
worst , you got a nice ORTF bar, a case.......

and that's not a endorsement for those mic, just a oppinion,
and i'm sure i will find a field for those, i let you know.........

[compasspnt]

collins wrote on Tue, 24 January 2006 18:15

Quote: The guitar will now probably go on to it's "On Loan From" home at the Robert Johnson Museum. It may have seen its last session, at least for a long while. So did you borrow the guitar for this session?... or are you referring to your own RJ collection?

Thanks Paul,

The guitar is mine, acquired in the early 80's from a very old man north of Greenwood, Mississippi.  It's a long story.  I once fleetingly thought of selling it, but came quickly to my senses.  I have kept it here for many years, but am now thinking it should be ensconced in the Museum.

Thanks for your interest!

Terry

[jetbase]

this all reminds me of a piano in an old church i recorded for an alt-country album.

me: "do you want me to book the piano tuner?"
producer: "are you kidding? it's just out-of-tune enough to be usable!"

... and he was right too!

glenn

[compasspnt]

Fibes wrote on Tue, 17 January 2006 09:50

That is the bassist you said was great right?

Command Y.